It is not often that both USA Today and NPR recommend the same book, but this one was!! USA Today described it this way: “Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too.”—USA Today (four-star review)” With that kind of a review I was hooked and I laughed out loud several times as I am sure you will too!
Meddelin Chan, Meddy for short, is a photographer working in her family’s wedding business–Don’t leave you big day to chance, leave it to the Chan”s! But sometimes working in the family business means there are few boundaries. With Meddy still unmarried, her mother and her aunties are on a mission to get her married, despite the fact that there is a curse against long, happy marriages that has dogged three generations of her immigrant Indonesian-Chinese family. Nevertheless, Meddy dutifully goes on a blind date her mother arranged, but ends up accidentally killing him!
Mayhem ensues as Meddy, her mother, and her aunties must figure out how to dispose of a coprse AND put on a fabulous wedding for over two thousand the following day. Everything would have been fine, except the corpse shows up at the wedding in a cooler along with all the rest of the food, Meddy’s ex-boyfriend–the one she let get away, is also at the wedding and the groom and his groomsmen seem to be bent on destroying the biggest wedding that Meddy’s family has ever had the opportunity of staging.
Will Meddy be able to avoid being charged with murder, reconnect and rekindle her relationship with the love of her life and keep the groomzilla and his posse from ruining a wedding that could finally push the Chan family’s wedding business to the next level? And what about that family curse?
Irreverent, funny, and heartwarming this is a book that you just want to curl up and read in one sitting, along with a good glass of your favorite beverage! Enjoy!
Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 Out of 5 Stars)
Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian, Lauren and Keith
Book Study Worthy? Yes
Read in ebook format.
Rita Todacheene can see and hear the dead. In fact it was because of this ability and the tragic death of a relative that caused her to leave her grandmother and the Navajo Reservation, and move to Albuquerque where she now works as a forensic photographer for the the police. Her gift is considered taboo by the Navajo and disturbing by white culture, so Rita keeps her ability a secret, isolating her from her friends and causes suspicion at work when she passes on critical information she receives from the ghosts to investigators. However, Rita cannot ignore them because once the ghosts know that she can hear them, they are unceasing in their efforts to get justice.
In 1828, in a small room in Canton, a little boy is dying. Everyone else in the room is already dead from the plague of cholera that has swept the city. Suddenly, a white man sweeps into the room, and saves the child. The man’s name is Professor Lovell of the Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford, the boy’s name is Robin and once he is well enough he chooses the name “Swift” as his last name.
I always enjoy reading about other countries and cultures. It open my eyes to other ways of thinking, and helps me understand other points of view. This book is certainly an eye opening look into modern India. From the moment you begin reading, you are drawn into the complicated lives and loyalties of the characters and the vast differences created by wealth in India. Kapoor, who is also a journalist, has created a genre bending book that is both crime thriller and epic family saga which follows three characters: Ajay a resourceful servant who was born into poverty, sold into servitude and who rises through the family’s servant ranks. Sunny, the playboy heir who wants to prove his worth to his father no matter the cost. And Neda, a curious journalist, whose progressive principals are first challenged by Sunny’s enormous wealth and later by love and desire.
This 2016 book by Naomi Alderman was a huge hit and I expect that this ten part series starring Tony Collette and John Leguizamo, about teen age girls who suddenly develop the ability to release electricity through their fingers thus disrupting the balance of power between men and women should be a fantastic series.
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2019 book about a 1970’s band’s rise and fall became a best selling phenomenon. Loosely based on the history of Fleetwood Mac, the story is both a love story and a cautionary tale of ambition, drug addiction and the difficulties of keep a disparate group of artists believing that they are better off together than apart.
part mini series starring Hugh Laurie, Marc Ruffalo and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti, who like the character in the book is blind. Set in Paris during the occupation by the Nazis in WWII, it is a story about the power of truth and love in the midst of hatred and despair.
by Laura Dave. A wife and her step daughter must pick up the pieces when their husband and father disappears. I expect this will be a nail biter, just like the book!
Maria Lagana immigrated to the US with her mother after her father was arrested and sent to a prison work camp. Maria has always felt culpable in her father’s arrest, but actively hid her guilt from her mother, a fact that may or may not have impacted their relationship as she was growing up in Los Angeles.
The report is written in a compelling way. Although it is over 800 pages long, the report is filled with footnotes, links and other supporting background materials which comprises at least a third of of the total report. Rather than structure their report in a strictly chronological manner the committee chose to examine the attack based on various issues. Although this format does cause some redundancy, I found it helpful to have these different “layers’ explored separately, because you are able to clearly see where they overlap and how each aspect of this endeavor became a part of the total enterprise to overturn the election. I have quickly summarized these chapters below so you have some idea of that is included in the report.
NOA had been tracking Luna, a hurricane in the Caribbean for days and as its winds steadily increased, they became worried. When the wind increased beyond the top end of a Category 5, they called an emergency meeting and as a result Luna was named the first Category 6 hurricane in history. But before anyone could even really appreciate the significance of that, they noticed that Luna was changing course abruptly and was heading straight for Miami. With little time before landfall, evacuation orders were given and people were urged to leave the area as soon as they could.
Brenda's Bookshelf 