Reviews with content warning for Confinement - Dial A for Aunties

The Good:
• Funny family dynamics
• Indonesian-American representation

The Bad:
• Characters were caricatures
• Misplaced romance

You Might Like this if You Like:
• Slapstick and antics
• Weekend at Bernie's

I really wanted to like this book. The premise had so much potential, but in execution it just fell flat for me.

The biggest issue for me was the titular Aunties themselves. They really had the makings of great comic characters, but Sutanto fumbled in writing them. With Meddie's mother plus the aunts, there's just too many characters for any one of them to stand out. This is compounded by Sutanto numbering the aunts. Seriously, she calls them "Big Aunt," "Second Aunt," etc. It really makes it hard to think of them as individuals. Which is a shame, because there was real opportunity to write an engaging and fun family.

Meddie was the only character that didn't feel like a caricatures or a paper cup. From the aunts, to the love interest, to the villains, and everyone in between felt like a cardboard cut out. It was really exhausting. And it might have been forgivable if the aunts had been given names, or if Meddie hadn't been such a non-communicative idiot through the majority of the book.

Secondly, the romance just felt tacked on. It was easily the most boring part of the plot, and only really served as a distraction from the "hide the body" main plot line.

Overall a major disappointment. Might be good as a movie and after a few edits, but as a book it's a total miss.

Content Warnings

ashleycmms's review

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

astropova's review

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dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

iviarelle's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This is a very strange little book. It's vastly over the top and downright silly at times in the way things keep getting more and more complicated until they resolve... but I find it incredibly charming at the same time? It's probably a perfect read if you need something fluffy and feel-good (despite the murder) that will absolutely demand your attention for the duration. I had trouble putting it down once I started, because every time I felt like a stopping point approached, something else came up that I needed to find out how it resolved.

My only real down side is the naming of Big Aunt could get a little... frustrating-hurtful for fat readers who are sensitive to that kind of thing. Her name for the whole book is just Big Aunt, because she's a little bigger in size than her sisters. She's never put down for it that I noticed, and in fact Meddy says in chapter 1 that Big Aunt is the one who meets with clients and everything because her size just makes her more majestic and convincing and confident. But, the other aunts are just Second Aunt and Fourth Aunt, and so Big Aunt being the only one with a distinguishing characteristic and that being her name might not land well for some readers.

That being said, I'm not sure it's exactly what I expected, and yet, it's pretty much everything I could have asked for from the premise. This is a definite recommend.

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decklededgess's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

trigger warnings: date rape and assault, car crash, accidental manslaughter, suffocation, divorce, toxic partners, kidnapping and gunpoint, alcohol use, drug use

This book was a fever dream in a good way. I never liked those weird slapstick murder comedies where everything went wrong but maybe I just needed to read/watch one where the characters aren't white and already absolved from guilt by the law simply because they're white. The anxiety of being found out and actual steep consequences occuring really added to the absurdity of how blaise Meddy's mother and aunts were. This book was so fucking enjoyable and I cannot believe there's a whole other book. I don't know what the fuck is happening in that one but the excerpt at the end of this was already wild enough.

Content Warnings

blakethebookeater's review

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emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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