Four Aunties and a Wedding

1

 

I try not to breathe as the last corset hook is yanked into place. "Ow, that's digging into my rib cage."

 

Yenyen huffs a breath through his teeth and gives one last vicious tug, which forces a squeak out of me. "In the past, brides would break their ribs to fit into their wedding dresses," he says, and it strikes me that he's not saying it in a horrified tone, but rather a wistful one, which is somewhat worrying. "How do you feel?"

 

I risk breathing again, and to my surprise, despite the torturous time I had getting stuffed into the dress, once I'm in, it's actually-dare I say it-comfortable. What sort of black magic is this? I could've sworn I would hardly be able to take even the tiniest sip of air. I blink at him in surprise. "I can breathe in it."

 

I can't quite see his eyes behind the round, purple-tinted sunglasses, but I'm pretty sure I hear them roll.

 

"Aduuuh, of course you can breathe in it, silly. Yenyen's creations aren't just beautiful, they're also built for maximum comfort."

 

I can't help but smile at him. Yenyen has a tendency to refer to himself in third person, which should sound mildly deranged but actually comes off as somewhat endearing. His real name is Yenzhen, but nobody is allowed to call him that. Within the Chinese tradition, it's common to have phonetically repeated names as a pet name, and as Yenyen says, he's everybody's best friend, so we must call him Yenyen.

 

"Now, are you ready to see it?" he says.

 

Am I? My heart rate rises. My cheeks grow warm. This will be the forty-millionth dress I've tried on. I swear I've tried on every wedding dress L.A. has to offer, and each time, there's been something that Ma or my aunts didn't like. Over the last few months, as we exhausted every bridal boutique in greater Los Angeles, their comments have

Jesse Q. Sutanto grew up shuttling back and forth between Indonesia, Singapore, and Oxford, and considers all three places her home. She has a Masters from Oxford University, but she has yet to figure out how to say that without sounding obnoxious. Jesse has forty-two first cousins and thirty aunties and uncles, many of whom live just down the road. When she's not writing, she's gaming with her husband (mostly first-person shooters), or making a mess in the kitchen with her two daughters.

"Meddy Chan and her indomitable aunties are back in the hilarious Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto." PopSugar

Sutanto deftly blends preposterous humor (British slang, mafia posers) with enduring devotion to prove there is no right or wrongway to being Asian. Booklist

Charming, chaotic, and sometimes ridiculous, this tale will appeal to anyone who both adores and is embarrassed by their family, which is just about everyone. Publishers Weekly

You can't help but get a kick out of the auntie s outrageous stunts and their even bigger hearts. Keep your friends close and these four aunties closer. Kirkus

"Sutanto pushes you to the edge of your seat with this suspenseful rom-com that infuses humor and heritage." USA Today

"There's a kind of magic to Sutanto's writing She tackles complicated issues of culture and family ties while also creating convoluted plotlines that'll make you squeal with laughter." The Wellesley News

"Heart, humor, and the mafia...this saga has it all!" Woman's World