Book club was held at War Memorial Park on a very hot and humid day. Everyone graciously brought what they wanted to eat and drink. We received a delightful surprise when Edna and Glenn arrived. Their daughter and grandchildren who are visiting from England came and ate with us. It was wonderful to see them.
The book we read was "Dial A for Aunties” by Jesse Q Sutanto.
The families immigrated from Indonesia to California. There they ran a family business. Big Aunt makes wedding cakes. Second Aunt does the bride’s hair and make up. Ma does the flowers. Meddy, her daughter, is the photographer. Fourth Aunt is the singer at the weddings.
Communication is sometimes difficult because the Aunts speak Mandarin or Indonesian but little English. Meddy speaks English and not much of the other languages. This causes a lot of miscommunication among the family.
Ma decides to go on a dating site pretending to be Meddy. She fixes her daughter up with a hotel owner. Meddy goes on the date. She drinks too much so the guy says he’ll drive her home. He takes her to a secluded area of the city. She tells him to take her home but he doesn’t listen. She tases him and he wrecks the car. Meddy thinks he’s dead so she drives home and tells Ma. Ma calls her sisters to help. The decision is made to put his body into one of the freezers not being used for the next day’s wedding. The freezer gets moved to the resort with all the other wedding supplies. Lots of antics go on as they try to keep everyone out of that freezer. Meddy runs into the real resort manager and it is her college love, Nathan. He helps Meddy and the Aunties with the freezer.
I think most of us enjoyed the book. There were laugh out loud scenes. The book showed a different culture. In the end , no matter what, families stay together and help each other when needed.
Most of the girls stayed for the concert in the park.
We missed you Pat!
Louisa
