CANR
WORK TITLE: Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://jesseqsutantoauthor.com/
CITY: Jakarta
STATE:
COUNTRY: Indonesia
NATIONALITY: Indonesian
LAST VOLUME: SATA 417
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; children: two daughters.
EDUCATION:University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 2006; Oxford University, M.F.A. (creative writing), 2009.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Mystery and romance novelist.
AWARDS:U.K. Comedy Women in Print Prize, 2021, for Dial A for Aunties; Edgar for Best Original Paperback, 2024.
WRITINGS
The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix; Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers were acquired by Warner Bros. TV.
SIDELIGHTS
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Jesse Sutanto is a bestselling and award-winning author of mysteries, romances, and young adult fiction. She’s known for the “Dial A for Aunties” books and “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.” She grew up in Indonesia and Singapore, studying writing at Oxford, and in 2021 became the first person of color to win the U.K. Comedy Women in Print Prize.
Book 1 in the madcap “Aunties” series, Dial A for Aunties, features Meddy (short for Meddelin, a misspelling of Madeleine) Chan, a photographer for her family’s wedding and catering business in California. With her large Indonesian, Chinese, Singaporean, and American family, Meddy is convinced that the family curse of husbands dying or leaving their wives will affect her, so she breaks up with her beloved boyfriend, Nathan. In a dating app match gone wrong, Meddy meets Jake who tries to rape her, so she tazes him, leaving him unresponsive. Her family—Big Aunt, Second Aunt, Ma (Meddy’s mother), and Fourth Aunt—come to her rescue and stuff Jake in a cooler, but inadvertently ship him off to a wedding venue. Hijinks ensue. “Sound preposterous? Perhaps, but you’ll be glad you went along for the yacht ride,” reported Booklist reviewer Terry Hong. A Publishers Weekly critic remarked: “There’s plenty of light entertainment here, but don’t expect anything with bite.”
The second book in the series, Four Aunties and a Wedding, involves Meddy’s own wedding to fiancé Nathan, held at Oxford University, his alma mater. While the aunties try to impress Nathan’s Chinese England parents with nonsense British slang, Meddy befriends photographer Staphanie, bonding over their name misspellings. But Staphanie belongs to the mafia and plans to take out one of Meddy’s wedding guests. Amid the chaos, Sutanto brings to light Asian diaspora and the notion that there’s no wrong way to be Asian. The book was “inspired by the initially awkward clashes experienced between her sprawling family and her hubby’s half-Asian, half-English relatives,” reported Terry Hong in Booklist. “Despite the continual shenanigans, you can’t help but get a kick out of the aunties’ outrageous stunts and their even bigger hearts,” a Kirkus Reviews writer noted.
Launching the romantic comedy “Well, That Was Unexpected” series is book 1, Well, That Was Unexpected, about Chinese Indonesian 17-year-olds meeting on a dating app half a world away. In California, Sharlot Citra and her boyfriend are about to have sex when her mother walks in and shuts that right down. In Jakarta, George Clooney Tanuwijaya, the son of a wealthy family, is caught masturbating. Unbeknownst to the teens, Sharlot’s mother and George’s father, each wanting their kids to find respectable mates, embark on a catfishing scheme to pair the two kids up. On a trip visiting relatives in Indonesia, Sharlot meets George. Sutanto explores social media intrusions, furry porn, “a large and vibrant Chinese Indonesian cast, well-timed comedy, and soap operaworthy drama in this summery read,” according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. In Booklist, Nashae Jones reported: “The novel is full to the brim with humor, heart, and a joyous celebration of Chinese Indonesian culture.”
In Book 2 in the series, Didn’t See That Coming, usually confident 17-year-old Kiki Siregar feels she must pretend to be the guy, Dudebro10, while playing video games so she doesn’t get harassed by the other male players. She makes friends online with the “adorkable” player known as Sourdawg. After she’s transferred to a conservative Chinese School in Jakarta, she’s tormented and embarrassed by a viral video. When she learns that Sourdawg is really her kind new friend Liam Ng, she wonders if she should reveal to him her online persona? Amid the teen angst, Sutanto injects commentary on bullying and the need for students to speak out. Emma Carbone commented in School Library Journal: “Kiki is a cackle-inducing narrator with plenty of acerbic observations and snappy asides.” In Booklist Beronica Garcia commented: “This story is a great reminder for people to stand up to aggressors and to not diminish their true identity.”
Sutanto’s “Vera Wong” series starts with Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, in which 60-year-old Vera Wong Zhuzhu tends to her nearly empty San Francisco teashop and nags her Gen-Z son over email. One day she finds a dead body in her shop that she suspects is murder. Before the police arrive, she confiscates the dead man’s USB drive clutched in his hand. As a Chinese mother with time on her hands, she’s perfectly suited to hunt down the killer herself. First she tries to cozy up to the new customers in her teashop to learn if one of them is the culprit. A reviewer on Internet Bookwatch commented: “A quintessential cozy mystery that will have immense interest to fans of the genre, …[it] is original, memorable, and a fun read from cover to cover.”
In Sutanto’s standalone novel The Obsession, at an elite Northern California prep school, high schooler Logan grieves the death of his girlfriend, but now he stalks new student Delilah, who is half-Singaporean and half-white, online and at school. Delilah knows about dangerous men because her mother’s policeman boyfriend, Brandon, abuses her. Tired of living in fear, Delilah kills Brandon, which Logan gets on video he can use to control her. Sutanto delves into issues of control, toxic masculinity, and forms of abuse. In School Library Journal, Madison Bishop noted: “The story, told from Logan and Delilah’s perspectives in alternating chapters, moves at breakneck speed to a surprising conclusion.” A Kirkus Reviews writer said: “Delilah is the stronger, more compelling protagonist when compared to Logan’s less nuanced development.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 15, 2021, Terry Hong, review of Dial A for Aunties, p. 24; February 1, 2022, Terry Hong, review of Four Aunties and a Wedding, p. 22; October 15, 2023, Beronica Garcia, review of Didn’t See That Coming, p. 51.
Internet Bookwatch, March 2023, review of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2022, review of Four Aunties and a Wedding; December 15, 2020, review of The Obsession.
Publishers Weekly, February 1, 2021, review of Dial A for Aunties, p. 45; July 18, 2022, review of Well, That Was Unexpected, p. 187.
School Library Journal, January 2024, Emma Carbone, review of Didn’t See That Coming, p. 63; December 2020, Madison Bishop, review of The Obsession, p. 105.
Jesse here! Thank you so much for dropping by my website. I spent a heck of a long time trying to make it not-terrible. There was a lot of sweating and cursing involved, so if you think the website sucks, please don’t tell me.
A little bit about me: I grew up going back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore and consider both places my homes. I was fortunate enough to do my Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, which is surely one of the most gorgeous places in the world. I’ve also made Oxford my entire personality so please excuse the obnoxiousness.
I am passionate about women's rights and diversity in publishing. I regularly do giveaways where I critique queries or the first few pages, and I am especially interested in helping writers from marginalized communities. If you are a writer from a marginalized community, come say hello to me on Twitter or Instagram! I love hearing from other writers, even if it's just to say a quick hello.
Jesse Q Sutanto
Jesse Q Sutanto is a bestselling and award-winning author of books for adults and young readers. She is the author of the Dial A series, comprised of Dial A for Aunties, Four Aunties and a Wedding, and The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties. Dial A for Aunties was an instant IndieBound bestseller, an Amazon Best Book and Amazon Editors’ Choice, and won the UK’s Comedy Women in Print prize. She is the author of the Theo Tan middle grade duology, the contemporary YA novels Well, That Was Unexpected and Didn’t See That Coming; the adult thrillers I’m Not Done With You Yet and You Will Never Be Me; the cozy mystery Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (a USA Today bestseller and 2024 Edgar Award winner) and its sequel Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man); and Worth Fighting For, a Mulan retelling for Disney’s Meant to Be series (a USA Today bestseller). Her forthcoming titles include Next Time Will Be Our Turn and Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block. She is also the author of the YA thrillers The Obsession and The New Girl. She received her Masters from the University of Oxford. She grew up in Indonesia and Singapore and currently lives in Jakarta with her husband and two daughters.
Agent
Katelyn Detweiler
Jesse Q Sutanto
Jesse Q Sutanto is the author of Dial A for Aunties, The Obsession, and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. She has a master's degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn't found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. The film rights to her women's fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war. The novel will be out in April 2021. Jesse lives in Indonesia with her husband, her two daughters, and her ridiculously large extended family, many of whom live just down the road.
Awards: Edgar (2024) see all
Genres: Romance, Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Romance, Children's Fiction
New and upcoming books
June 2025
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Worth Fighting For
(Meant to Be)November 2025
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Next Time Will Be Our Turn
April 2026
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Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block
Series
Aunties
1. Dial A For Aunties (2021)
2. Four Aunties and a Wedding (2022)
3. The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties (2024)
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Theo Tan
1. Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit (2022)
2. Theo Tan and the Iron Fan (2023)
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Well, That Was Unexpected
1. Well, That Was Unexpected (2022)
2. Didn't See That Coming (2023)
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Vera Wong
1. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023)
2. Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) (2025)
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Novels
The Obsession (2021)
The New Girl (2022)
I'm Not Done With You Yet (2023)
You Will Never Be Me (2024)
Next Time Will Be Our Turn (2025)
Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block (2026)
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Series contributed to
Busybodies collection
2. The Reunion Dinner (2024)
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Meant to Be
Worth Fighting For (2025)
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Omnibus editions hide
The Obsession / The New Girl / The Murder Game (2024) (with Carrie Doyle)
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Awards
2024 Edgar Award for Best Paperback original : Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Jesse Q. Sutanto
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jesse Q Sutanto
Education University of Oxford (MFA, 2009) University of California, Berkeley (BA, 2006)
Occupation Author
Notable work Dial A for Aunties (2021) "Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers" (2023)
Awards Comedy Women in Print Prize (2021) Edgar for Best Original Paperback (2024)
Jesse Q. Sutanto is a Chinese-Indonesian author. As of 2023, she has published nine novels for adults, young adults, and middle grade readers. She is most famous for her novels Dial A for Aunties and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. Dial A for Aunties won the 2021 Comedy Women in Print Prize and has been optioned for a film by Netflix.
Personal life
Sutanto grew up in a Chinese-Indonesian family, living in Singapore, Indonesia, California, and Oxford.[1] She speaks Mandarin, Indonesian, and English with her family.[1] She currently lives in Jakarta with her husband, who is English, and their two daughters.[1][2][3]
Writing career
Sutanto received her MFA in creative writing from Oxford University in 2009 and has been writing ever since.[4][5] She published her first book in 2021 and as of 2023, she has published nine books for readers of all ages.
Dial A for Aunties
In 2021, Sutanto published her hit novel, Dial A for Aunties. For this book, Sutanto became the first writer of colour to win the United Kingdom's Comedy Women in Print Prize.[1] The novel, which is a blend of romantic comedy and murder mystery, features Chinese-Indonesian culture through the lens of a girl, her mother and four aunts.[6]
In 2020, before Dial A for Aunties was even published, the film rights were bought by Netflix as a result of a bidding war.[7][5] Nahnatchka Khan and Chloe Yellin will adapt the novel into a film.[8] Khan was set to direct the project.[7][5] Sutanto will executive produce the film.[7]
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
In 2023, the rights for Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers were acquired by Warner Bros. TV for the production of a series adaptation.[8] Mindy Kaling‘s Kaling International and Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films are set to produce the project.[9]
Published works
Dial A for Aunties (2021)
The Obsession (2021)
Four Aunties and a Wedding (2022) (sequel to Dial A for Aunties)
The New Girl (2022)
Well, That Was Unexpected (2022)
Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit (2022)
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023)[10][11]
I'm Not Done With You Yet (2023)
Theo Tan and the Iron Fan (2023)
Didn't See That Coming (2023) (sequel to Well, That Was Unexpected)
The Good, the Bad and the Aunties (2024)
You Will Never Be Me (2024)
Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) (2025)
Worth Fighting For (2025) (Book #5 of the Meant to Be series)
Writing Fast in Multiple Genres: Exclusive Interview with Jesse Q. Sutanto
By Christelle Lujan|August 2024|Categories: Author Interviews, Columns, Featured|Tags: August Issue, Featured
Critically acclaimed author Jesse Q. Sutanto’s latest thriller You Will Never Be Me releases this month. Sutanto’s works garnered widespread popularity, particularly with her breakout success Dial A for Aunties, a hilarious and heartwarming novel that perfectly blends mystery and romance, and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, which showcases her knack for creating compelling characters and intricate plots. Her stories have caught the attention of Hollywood figures, with Oprah and Mindy Kaling acquiring the rights for adaptations. In this interview, Jesse Q. Sutanto gives her insight into her creative process, her author goals, and what it’s like to see her work transition from page to screen.
Your latest novel You Will Never Be Me tackles the “momfluencer” culture. What made you choose this as your focus for a thriller?
As a mom, social media is always pushing momfluencers at me, and I am so obsessed with them! I cannot for the life of me create a perfect picture of my children online, nor do I want to, but I love thinking about what it would take for a mother to try her best to uphold this image of perfection for her fans.
What advice do you have for other thriller authors looking for timely topics like this one?
My advice would be to write whatever interests you, because there is so much research to do that unless the topic excites you, you will find it excruciatingly boring.
You have written a dozen books in less than 5 years in a wide variety of genres, was this pace your intention from the start?
Yes, and no. It took me so long to get my first publishing deal, and during that time I had to learn to move on quickly to new projects in an effort to save my mental health from the constant stream of rejections. By the time I started getting publishing deals, I have become used to this frenetic pace of writing that has since allowed me to release multiple books a year.
On Instagram, you did a great video series on writing a first draft in five weeks. Can you give us a few of your top tips for drafting at this speed?
My top tip would be to lower your standards. Before I start writing each morning, I actually whisper out loud to myself, “I am going to write trash.” This gives me permission to write without judgment, and is so helpful in allowing me to write quickly. My second tip would be to try writing in 15 minute sprints. When I write, there is always this little voice inside my head that tells me that whatever I’m doing is terrible, and the 15 minute timer allows me to ignore that little voice while I am writing.
Were you always a fast writer or has it developed with time?
This has definitely developed with time. My first book took me three years to write. And now every book takes me five weeks to write. It took me years to get up to speed, so I would not recommend it if someone is just starting out.
With so many books releasing, how do you organize all your ideas?
Terribly! Haha! I have been known to forget the actual release dates of my books, so I definitely am not in a position to give any advice on this!
Talk a little bit about writing in multiple genres. What are some of the challenges, and what do you enjoy about the variety?
So far, I have found it extremely helpful to write in multiple genres. Each genre change has been like a palate cleanser. For example, after writing You Will Never Be Me, I felt really ready to write a lighthearted romcom to get out of the dark headspace I had to get into for this book.
Can you share a little bit about your publishing layout? Do you have multiple agents? Multiple publishers? Is there collaboration or, at least, consideration of the many projects you juggle?
I have just one magical agent who handles all of my books. Her name is Katelyn Detweiler and I can safely say that my career would not be anywhere near what it is now without her. I do have multiple publishers, and there is definitely consideration among the publishers when it comes to things like publication dates. There are so many things to juggle when publishing with multiple houses, so having someone like Katelyn handle my schedule has been extremely helpful.
What advice would you give to authors who might want to pursue a publishing journey similar to yours?
My advice would be to find a speed that you are happy with, first and foremost. Following that, having an agent who shares your vision is crucial. I know of many authors whose agents believe that they should focus on only one genre, and obviously that would not have been a good fit for me.
Oprah and Mindy Kaling have acquired the rights to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, and Dial A for Aunties (as well as its sequel and two more of your novels) have been optioned by Netflix. Can you talk about what this has been like and what your involvement is in the adaptations?
It has been unreal! I remember when I got the news that Oprah and Mindy Kaling wanted to partake in the auction for Vera Wong, I was making my kids’ lunchboxes for school. I can tell you that their lunchboxes sucked that day! I have been fortunate enough to be an executive producer for all of my adaptations, and the process has been very exciting and eye-opening for me
Is there a method behind writing books that are primed for adaptation or have you been surprised by Hollywood’s response to your novels?
I have definitely been surprised by Hollywood’s response to my novels. I don’t know that there is a secret formula for coming up with books that interest producers. I think it is a combination of having the right film agents and luck. One thing I do is that while I write, I am always thinking: What would be fun to see on screen if this were a movie? That way I find that my scenes tend to be more visual and perhaps more adaptable because of it.
What are your long-term goals as an author?
Publishing is such a volatile industry that most authors I know can only hope to publish as many books as they are allowed to, and my goals are the same. Every day, I am so grateful for a new chance to write more books and further my career as an author, and I will definitely not ever take this for granted.
You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Influencer Meredith Lee, feeling betrayed after teaching Aspen Palmer the ropes of social media only to be left behind, starts covertly accessing Aspen’s life through one of her children’s iPads. Meredith begins meddling with Aspen’s social media and schedule, taking what she believes is rightfully hers. As Aspen’s life unravels, with sponsors dropping her and personal relationships crumbling, she becomes determined to uncover the saboteur. But the situation becomes even more convoluted when Meredith goes missing and threats start arriving, threatening Aspen’s carefully curated existance.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The WD Interview: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Jesse Q. Sutanto, the award-winning author of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers talks authenticity as a writer and her unique writing routine in this interview from the September/October 2024 issue of Writer’s Digest.
Amy Jones
Published Dec 27, 2024 7:00 PM EST
It seems that Jesse Q. Sutanto can write it all. She writes YA rom-coms that will make you chuckle while remembering the challenges that come with young love, and she writes YA suspenseful thrillers that will chill you to the core. Her adult contemporary fiction, the Dial A for Aunties series and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (which won the 2024 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original), will by turns have you laughing so hard you cry while also warming your heart with joy, and her adult suspense novels, I’m Not Done With You Yet and the new release You Will Never Be Me, make you question the veracity of everyone’s motivations around you.
For Sutanto, who was educated in creative writing at the University of Oxford and now lives in Jakarta with her husband and children, writing in different categories, genres, and tones is all about keeping things interesting for herself. “It’s kind of like eating savory foods and then after that, you’re ready for something sweet,” she said. “Each one has been a really nice palette cleanser.” Earlier this year, her third and final book in the light-hearted Aunties series, The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, was released, so it was time for another book on the dark side.
You Will Never Be Me is the story of two former friends who have both seen varying levels of success as social media influencers, specifically as momfluencers. When they first met, Meredith Lee helped Aspen Palmer learn the ropes, but after Aspen’s influencer status shot past Mer’s, Mer felt left behind. So, she engages in some “Stalking Lite” and maybe a little sabotage too, until Aspen’s seemingly perfect life starts falling apart—for the world to see. But when Mer suddenly disappears, leaving a young son behind, Aspen sees an opportunity to solve the mystery and fix her life in the process.
You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto is available now.
When I asked Sutanto what sparked the idea for the story, she asked that I not print the answer: “This is such a spoiler! The thing that gave me the idea was actually [redacted]. I don’t know if you watched it, but season one had this time twist, and it just blew my mind when I first watched it. I was like, I need to write something like this.” But as for the reason behind the characters being influencers, that’s in part because of the content Sutanto sees online. “I’m a mom, and so the algorithm is always pushing mommy-like content to me. And I read this article about this husband who was like, ‘I’m leaving my wife because of aesthetics. … I can’t even get my daughter a toy that I want to get her because of aesthetics.’ I felt so bad for him, and then I was obsessed with the idea: mom influencers.”
If you’ve read any of Sutanto’s other novels, this focus makes perfect sense. Regardless of whether they’re humorous or psychological thrillers, one underlying theme in them all is perception, specifically how women and teen girls are perceived by their peers, their family, and by wider society. That’s where we picked up our conversation.
Momfluencers take that idea of perception to the next level. Why is that theme important for you to write about?
Growing up, I was raised in a cult culture where I was basically raised to be a trophy wife, and the standards for being a trophy wife, they were so strict. Down to the hairstyle has to be long-haired. You had to keep your weight under a certain number, and you have to be educated, but not too educated. One of my cousins went and got a PhD and my parents were like, “Oh my goodness, how is she ever going to find a husband now?” Because she is going to be more educated than most of the men. It took a lot of work for me to unlearn all of that. The perception of girls and women, it’s such a big factor in my life right now. So, I guess it always leaks out into my writing, whether I mean for it to or not. I rarely ever set out to write a message book, but it comes out naturally.
When I read You Will Never Be Me, I couldn’t put it down. It’s such an entertaining ride to see what horrible things the characters will do next. It’s a masterclass in manipulation and continually pushing your characters past their limits. How do you create these kinds of characters? Do you have a process for developing them?
I usually create the plot first because I outline my books before I start writing. But I never know what the character is going to be like until I actually start writing. Then their voice kind of comes out onto the page. Like with Vera Wong, I had no idea what she was going to be like. All I knew was she was going to be nosy. But I didn’t know the tone of the book until I started writing the first chapter. And it was the same with You Will Never Be Me. I know what they’re going to do, so I have this vague idea of people that need to be able to do certain things. But I never know their personalities until I start writing.
Jesse Q. Sutanto
One of the other things this book does really well is talk about the idea of authenticity and what that means in terms of people in the public sphere, like influencers, which to some extent is something that writers who want to be published are going to have to contend with. How do you stay true to yourself as a creator in what you share with your fans, and what advice do you have for other writers?
This is a really tough one. I wanted to become a published author for a very long time. It took over 10 years, I would say, for me to even get my first publishing deal. During that time, I kept thinking, Oh, when I become a published author, my life will begin. I’m going to be so happy. It’s like that goal weight thing, you know? I spent my teen years thinking, If I hit my goal weight, that’s when life will start for me. And it kind of carried over into publishing.
After I got my publishing deal, and then I got more deals, the Dial A for Aunties thing happened, and it was so big. Then I was posting a lot on social media in an effort to help promote the book and posting a lot about my life. I was making it look really happy because a lot of it was happy. But I kind of realized, I’m just as anxious and depressed as I was before I got the publishing deals. I realized I’m being so inauthentic. Especially on my Instagram page, I was only ever sharing the highlights of my life.
It was around that time that I started doing therapy and I told my therapist, “I’m being so inauthentic, and I hate it. I’m contributing to this unhealthy obsession on social media about only putting your best selves out there.” So, it was something I had to work through with her to find a happy medium of what to post on my Instagram. I explained to her, “I can’t be a hot mess online because I still want people, if they find my page, to be like, ‘Oh, she seems fun. I’m going to pick up one of her books.’”
After months and months of working with her, I feel like we came to a happy medium. I do this Write With Me series on my Instagram where I post a reel every day when I’m writing. I’m very honest with how some days I’m going through a hard time. … when I look at my Instagram page now, I’m so happy with what’s on it. It’s 70 percent positive and then 30 percent crappy days.
There were so many twists in You Will Never Be Me, and they all felt so true to the characters and to the story. Do you know most of the story and the twists when you start drafting? Or are you ever surprised by where the story takes you?
When I first started writing, my first ever book was totally pantsed. I didn’t know how to outline and so I think the first three books I wrote, I pantsed them. I remember my husband being like, “I was just reading an interview with this author, and he says that he outlines his books before he writes them.” And I was immediately like, “How dare you. I’m an artiste. Every author has their own process. Don’t tell me to outline.” And then I realized, this isn’t working because I was getting stuck all the time. Even after I finished the draft, it would be a hot mess. I would have to rewrite a lot of it. So, when I first started outlining, I only outlined about half of the book, and then I got stuck. I would start writing and then, things would surprise me. There was a lot more flexibility.
You Will Never Be Me, I think it’s my 18th book, so by now, my outlines are meticulous. I like to say I’m a Chinese mother: My outlines listen to me because my characters are scared of me. They know not to surprise me. My outlines, they have no chill, you know? They’re chapter by chapter. They tend to be 12 pages long, and they’re quite detailed. Each chapter would have maybe one to two paragraphs detailing what’s going to happen. When I was writing You Will Never Be Me, I knew all the twists. I knew the biggest twist, and I wrote the outline around that big twist.
You’ve published 11 novels in four years. How do you keep up with that pace, both in terms of coming up with the ideas and writing them, but also doing things like this where you’re promoting them?
Because it took me so long to get my first ever publishing deal—during those 10 years I was writing and then I would get really sad when the books ended up getting rejected by everybody—I learned the healthiest thing for me to do was, once I finished a book, once it was ready to query or go on submission, the best thing for me to do was to immediately move on to a new project. To fall in love with a new project so I could let go of the last book. So, I got into that habit where as soon as I finish a draft and I edit it, I send it off to my agent.
Now I actually do take a break, but I emotionally detach myself from it. Then I’m actively thinking of my next project. I’m actively asking myself, What do I want to work on next? So that’s number one, the mental health part of the answer.
And then the logistics part. I’ve trained myself to write super-fast because it’s the only way I can outrun this really mean little voice in my head. I don’t know if you have this voice. I call it my “editor,” and as I write, this inner editor is saying things like, “Oh wow, that sentence is awful. That’s so awkward. Does that even make sense? The character is so boring. This plot makes no sense.” And on and on. I found out that the only thing that helps me avoid this voice is to set a 15-minute timer. During those 15 minutes I don’t go to the bathroom. I don’t take a sip of my coffee. All I can do is write. I don’t allow myself to delete anything that I’ve written during those 15 minutes. I’m just speed writing.
Over the years I’ve trained myself to write 500 words during those 15 minutes. Every day I do four 15-minute rounds, and then I hit 2,000 words and stop. I don’t do anything with that manuscript for the rest of the day. I would focus on the admin stuff or the interviews, the promotion work. It gives me a break, and I’ve written 2,000 words.
I do this until I get to 40,000 words, and then for the next 40,000 words, I check myself into the most beautiful hotel in Jakarta because it’s so cheap [laughs]. Our hotels here are a third of the price of hotels in the States. I take full advantage of it. I go to the most beautiful five-star hotel here. I stay for three nights, and then for those three days that I’m at the hotel, I write the next 40,000 words of the book. I basically finish it in a long weekend.
I love the idea of this mini writing retreat for yourself! How did you come to that idea, and why did you land on 40,000 words as being the point at which you wanted to have that dedicated writing time?
I chose 40,000 words because that’s right in that horrible, saggy middle of the book where the concept is no longer fun, and you can’t see the finish line. Everything feels stale and horrible. You don’t know where the plot is going. Well, I know because of my chapter outline [laughs]! It’s still a horrible middle.
The first time I did it was because of Vera Wong. I had pitched the idea to my publisher, and they got really excited about it. They were like, “We’re going to push back Aunties 3, we want to publish Vera next.” And I was like, “I haven’t even written Vera.” And they were like, “That’s OK. We have faith in you.” So, I wanted to get it done as quickly as I could, because I didn’t want there to be too much of a delay in my publication schedule.
At 40,000 words, I’m in this horrible middle, and the plan was to go to a hotel for three nights and write 20,000 words. I feel like once I get to 60,000, usually I can see the end, and that would give me the last push. I’ll just write 20,000 words, then I’ll come home, and I’ll go back to my 2,000 words a day. But when I went to the hotel it ended up being so amazing. I didn’t have to think about groceries or all of the daily life, mundane chores, no distractions. I ended up finishing the book.
After that, I felt rejuvenated. For three days, all I did was sleep and eat amazing food and write. It was feeding my creative soul. People were telling me, “You’re going to be so burnt out by then.” But I wasn’t. I left feeling feel like a person again. Not just some tired mom, which is what I feel like most of the time. Ever since then, that’s been how I write all of my books.
I want to go back to something you said about those 15-minute intervals to outrun that inner editor you have. How do you change your mindset so you can do that?
It is so hard. When I sit down in front of my computer, I actually say out loud—even now, I say it out loud—“I am going to write trash now.” And somehow just saying those words, it gives me the permission I need to not have standards. Then as I write, if I start feeling like this is so bad, I actually mutter under my breath, “I’m writing trash. It’s OK. I’m letting myself write trash. It’s OK. Just keep writing trash.” I keep reminding myself, you can edit trash, but you can’t edit a blank page, and editing is so much easier than writing because writing is like coming up with something out of nothing. That’s how I changed my mindset—saying those words out loud, repeating them.
You write and publish in so many categories and genres. Did you know you wanted to do that going into your writing career? And if so, how did that impact your search for a literary agent?
I kind of knew, but I kind of didn’t. When I first started writing I was writing only YA. My first book deal was for The Obsession, which is YA suspense. And then my then-agent told me, “Middle-grade is picking up, publishers are buying it. Do you want to try writing that?” So, I wrote my middle-grade fantasy. When writing middle-
grade, you need a lot of humor because kids love to laugh. It was the act of writing that, that made me think I wanted to try my hand at writing a comedic book.
That was when I got the idea for Dial A for Aunties. At the time I thought it was going to be YA because I’ve only been writing YA. Then as I was plotting it, I was like, Wait, this feels really wrong. A bunch of aunties lugging around a dead teenage boy? That just felt really bad. [Laughs] It needs to be for adults.
I remember feeling so nervous: Can I write an adult book? And it was so ironic because by then I was 30 and it hit me. I was like, Oh my god, I’m 30. Of course I can write about a character who is 26. I was querying my middle-grade at the time, so when I started getting offers for it, I would talk to each agent and I would ask them, “How do you feel about me writing adult as well?” And a couple of them were honest. They were like, “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea. You should stay within kid lit.”
Then I spoke to my current agent, and she was all for it. She asked about the Dial A idea. I told her and she was like, “It sounds amazing. Send it my way as soon as you have it.” So, I went with her. She knew that I wanted to write in multiple spaces, but I don’t think she knew at the time how wildly different they were going to be. It’s been a really fun ride. I’m really glad she’s such a good sport.
You mentioned adding humor to your writing when you were writing the middle-grade book, and I did want to talk about that because all three of the Aunties books and Vera Wong, they’re just so funny. What is your approach to writing comedic content?
I think it was always there in the first draft just because of the genre of the books. I knew that they were going to be comedic books, so they kind of had to be there.
I’ve written in so many different genres by now, I can say with certainty that humor and romance are the most difficult things for me to get right. Because I feel like, especially with humor, if you don’t get it right, it just comes off so cringey. Then the whole thing falls apart. I was taken aback by how difficult it was to pin that down.
Dial A for Aunties, that was easy because it was based on my family. A lot of the things were things that happened with my family. I remember when I was little, we were in the States and my dad wasn’t feeling well. He went to see a doctor and he told the doctor, “My body doesn’t feel delicious.” The doctor was like, “Excuse me?”
Those kinds of instances, they stick with me. So, it’s very easy to draw from real life and just put that in the books. I feel like that comes through—the authenticity—that people can tell that it actually is an authentic thing, rather than an author trying to be funny.
What final words of advice do you have for readers of WD?
Usually, my biggest piece of advice is lower your standards, but we touched on that already. My next best piece of advice is to find as many writer friends as you can because these are the people who will completely, 100 percent understand how difficult it is to break into publishing. I think the only non-writer person I can moan about this to is my husband, and none of my non-writing friends and family get it. My parents, they’re in real estate so they just didn’t understand why it was so hard to get an agent. They’re like, “Well, if we want to sell a house, we just get an agent. Why so hard to get a literary agent? What is wrong with you that no literary agent wants to work with you?” And I’m like, “Well, no, it’s different.” I feel like the only people who truly get it are your fellow writers, and I would’ve given up so long ago if not for my writer friends. Reach out and find your community.
September 2024
Jesse Q. Sutanto considers the mom-fluencer
Behind the Book by Jesse Q. Sutanto
The author homes in on the anxiety beneath the aesthetics in her latest thriller, You Will Never Be Me.
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The idea for You Will Never Be Me came in two parts: The first was that I knew I wanted to write this big twist ever since I watched a certain sci-fi show on HBO years ago. Seeing a similar twist implemented so beautifully in that show completely blew my mind and I knew I had to do something with a similar format. It had to be used differently, and it couldn’t possibly be sci-fi since I am not very scientifically inclined, so I let the idea percolate in the back of my mind for the next three years or so, while I worked on other books.
“One day, there is nothing left of you that you haven’t already posted to TikTok.”
Then I read an article about a husband who was leaving his wife because of “aesthetics.” At first, it sounded so callous; what a reason to leave your spouse! But then I read the article. The wife in question was a mom-fluencer, and due to the demands of her job, everything in their lives had to fit a certain aesthetic. By now, we all know the aesthetic I speak of: A beautiful, bright, airy house that is decorated in all neutral shades; a perfectly photogenic family that wears matchy-matchy outfits; and none of the usual clutter that one would expect from a family with small children.
This husband spoke of how he bought a plastic pink castle because their young daughter had been begging for one, and it upset his wife so much because it “ruined” the aesthetic of the neutral tones of their house. Only wooden Nordic toys allowed, otherwise the colors would clash and the photos and videos would be ruined.
Reading the article, I couldn’t help feeling bad for both the husband and the wife. I empathized with the husband, because it sounded like he was stuck in a nightmare he never asked for; when they got married, his wife wasn’t a mom-fluencer yet. But I also felt bad for the wife, who sounded extremely stressed out, trying to run what was basically a business that demanded her time 24/7. That’s the problem with being a social media influencer—unlike being a celebrity, there is no off switch, no clear boundaries. You gain followers by sharing bits and pieces of your life, and the drive for #authenticity is so fierce that you end up carving out more and more pieces to share online until you find that one day, there is nothing left of you that you haven’t already posted to TikTok.
Read our starred review of ‘You Will Never Be Me’ by Jesse Q. Sutanto.
I knew then that I had to marry these two pieces of inspiration to each other. It was the perfect match, this twist I’d been saving paired up with a world of influencers who are really f*cking stressed out. My hope with this book is not only to show the ways that social media drives us to impossible lengths to curate our lives, but also to show that at the end of the day, we are products of capitalism. Oh, and of course, as always, I aim to entertain along the way.
Photo of Jesse Q. Sutanto by Michael Hart.
Bestselling Author Jesse Q. Sutanto Talks Diversity, Genre-Hopping and Her Upcoming Adaptation
Contributor: Aurora Dominguez
Aurora Dominguez
June 28, 2023
6 min read
If there’s something author Jesse Q. Sutanto does well, it is creating diverse reads with engaging characters and fun-filled stories. Her most notable recent release, Dial A For Aunties (Berkley), a cheeky comedy with edge, and her YA romances including Well That Was Unexpected (Delacorte Press), show that Sutanto can tackle any genre and theme with expertise.
Sutanto grew up between Jakarta and Singapore, got her Masters in Creative Writing at University of Oxford and, ever since then, has been passionate about writing about diverse characters. She has especially focused on strong female characters, a lot of which represent women in unique and entertaining situations, that showcase women’s rights, lives and depth, through immersive storytelling and a variety of settings.
We had a chance to catch up with Jesse Q. Sutanto about writing multiple genres, crafting characters based on her parents and the email from Oprah and Mindy Kaling that changed her life.
Q: You engage readers with well-rounded characters that come from diverse backgrounds. I love that you strongly support the fact that publishing should be diverse, especially with your background growing up back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore. Based on your experience, why do you feel that it is so crucial in our current climate to give a voice to authors that cater to diverse issues?
A: When I was growing up, there was so little diversity in books that when the (Caucasian) main character had dark hair and dark eyes, I felt represented. That was how dire the publishing landscape was! Even when I first started writing, I only wrote white characters because I didn’t think anyone was interested in non-white stories. It was such a cruel form of erasure, and I’m so glad that my kids have more diverse stories to choose from.
Q: As a writer, you have dabbled in different genres and styles. From the chilling YA thriller, The Obsession, where a girl seeks revenge against a stalker in her boarding school, to the bestselling adult romance series starting with Dial A for Aunties, your readers get the best of both worlds. How do you inspire yourself to write for different audiences? What are some elements that you enjoy adding to these stories?
A: Honestly, it’s mostly just me going, “Okay, now I’ve fulfilled my craving to write a lighthearted, fun-filled story. NOW I want to go dark.” Like with food, for example, my cravings change — I want Italian food one day, Korean food next, and so on. If I had to stick to just one genre, I’d get sick of it pretty quickly, I think. I’m so grateful that my publishers are happy with me writing in multiple genres. And across all genres, I’m always trying to have the most fun with it. If I’m making myself laugh, or squeal with excitement, then I know I’m going in the right direction.
Q: Your upcoming middle-grade story, Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, covers the important lesson of dealing with grief, while mixing magic and action. How did you approach writing about grief for a younger audience, especially when it is often something that is unexpected that all ages have to deal with?
A: I rarely consciously think: “How should I write this for a younger audience?” I usually just think: “How would 12yo me deal with this?” and that has served me well so far. Fortunately, grief isn’t something that many kids have to deal with, but it’s a part of life, and I think reading about it helps us develop compassion, so I knew that I wanted that to be a huge part of Theo’s story.
Q: Let’s talk about your most recent novel, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. The book follows an older lady, who lives above her own tea shop in San Francisco and becomes an amateur sleuth determined to catch a murderer. I adored this character, her funny moments and her passion for solving mysteries. How did you shape this unique and fascinating character? Did anything or anyone help to inspire her passions and personality?
A: I didn’t even have to stop and think about Vera’s character, because she is 100% modeled after my own parents! I would say she is 75% my mom, 25% my dad. For example, her thing about cold water freezing the fats in your arteries and causing heart disease? That’s something my parents tell me every week. And they always have the most random pieces of health info, like: “If you go to bed past 9pm, you’ll get brain cancer!” So I didn’t even have to come up with anything new for Vera’s character, I just had to draw from my parents, haha! Luckily, my mom has read Vera and LOVED her sooo much. She was so proud of being the inspiration for Vera that she asked me for a dozen copies to hand out to her friends and told all of them that Vera is her.
Q: You have some very exciting projects in the works, including a new novel titled Didn’t See That Coming (Delacorte Press) set to release in Fall 2023. It was also announced that Oprah and Mindy Kaling are turning Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers into a TV series with Warner Bros. Tell us more about these exciting projects!
A: Oh gosh. The moment when I received the email from my film agents about Oprah and Mindy Kaling wanting to produce Vera Wong is now a core memory of mine! It was around 6:15am my time, 4:15pm LA time, and I was making my kids’ lunchboxes when my phone booped with an email. I squawked when I read it, and then I had to go back to making those lunchboxes! I can tell you that the lunchboxes SUCKED, hahaha. My kids were so unimpressed that day.
Anyway, so that was obviously the most mind-blowing experiences of my life, and I feel like the world’s luckiest writer to be able to say that Oprah and Mindy Kaling are producing my book into a TV series. As for Didn’t See That Coming, that is my YA romcom which I’m so excited about! It has a badass gamer girl and a total sweetheart of a cinnamon roll boy, and it’s set in a super strict school in Indonesia, so you just know there are going to be hijinks galore!
Jesse Q. Sutanto is the award-winning, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, Well, That Was Unexpected, The Obsession and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war, and the TV rights to Vera Wong was bought by Warner Bros, with Oprah and Mindy Kaling attached to produce. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn’t found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. Jesse lives in Indonesia with her husband, her two daughters and her ridiculously large extended family.
Author Jesse Q. Sutanto on Embracing the Asian Auntie
Assistant editor Samantha Pak talks to the writer of the 'Dial A for Aunties' series about her latest book, 'Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers'
Author Jesse Q. Sutanto
Courtesy of Jesse Sutanto
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Words by Samantha Pak
For a very long time, girls and women have been given the message that as we get older, we become invisible to the rest of the world—that we need to slow down the aging process as much as possible.
But more women—from the ladies of Ajumma EXP to Michelle Yeoh—are starting to publicly reject this narrative.
Author Jesse Q. Sutanto has done her part by highlighting Chinese Indonesian aunties in her chaotically hilarious Dial A for Aunties series. And in her latest book, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, the “lady of a certain age” shines. The story follows the title character, a 60-year-old Chinese woman, after she finds a dead body in her tea shop one morning. Deciding San Francisco police couldn’t possibly do a better job at solving the case than her, Vera swipes the flash drive in the dead man’s hand and proceeds to try to find the murderer herself.
The book’s only been out for about a month and has been well received. And just this week, it was announced that Mindy Kaling and Oprah Winfrey are teaming up with Warner Bros. Television to produce a new TV show based on Sutanto’s book and bring Vera to the small screen.
I recently spoke with the 37-year-old Jakarta-based writer about her protagonist, her disdain for research, balancing darkness with humor, the types of old Asian aunties we want to be when we grow up, and her (possibly) dedicating an upcoming book to me (I have it here in writing!).
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Samantha Pak: What first got you into writing?
Jesse Q. Sutanto: It must have started with my love of reading, which was always there from as early as I can remember. Wanting to branch out into writing was a very natural progression for me.
SP: What were some of your favorite books growing up?
JQS: I feel so bad saying this, because I feel like all of the authors that I read as a child have turned out to be so problematic, like Roald Dahl, you know? In Singapore, we get a lot of books by British authors—so Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton. I moved on to R.L. Stine. I loved the Fear Street books! I had a whole shelf of them. In my teen years, I moved on to Christopher Pike. And from Pike, I moved on to Stephen King. That carried me through the rest of my teen years.
SP: Was there any author or writer in particular that inspired you?
JQS: The late Sir Terry Pratchett. I loved his books, I discovered them when I was out of college, and I devoured all of them. They were amazing. I had never read anything so funny, so cozy, and yet also so brilliant, and so deep.
SP: Is there a book or series of his that you particularly enjoy?
JQS: My favorite would be the Witches books. My favorite (book) would be Witches Abroad because that one’s just so funny. I love the witches! The witches are part of the inspiration for the aunties in Dial A for Aunties. Even though they were very much informed by my own aunts, if you read Terry Pratchett’s Witches, you can totally see how the aunties were inspired by them: They’re so overbearing. They just assume that they’re right all the time. And they meddle in everybody’s business.
SP: When did you think, “This is something I want to do as a career?”
JQS: When I graduated from college, I wasn’t ready for the real world. So I applied to creative writing programs. Everyone rejected me, but then Oxford (University) accepted me. And I was like, “Really? Are you guys sure?” (laughs) After that, I was like, “Well, I got to do something with it. I gotta get serious about it.” But it took me a really long time to actually get published, almost 10 years after graduating. During that time, I was working different jobs. I worked for a bit as a wedding photographer and things that had nothing to do with writing. But in hindsight, I’m very grateful that I did, because it gave me a lot of life experience that I could later use in my writing.
SP: Wedding photographer made me think of Meddy from the Aunties books.
JQS: Yeah. I’m really lazy (laughs), and I hate doing research. So you’ll find my books have a lot of photographers. In Vera Wong, we also have a photographer!
Vera Wong was tricky because there are five points of view. And again, I’m so lazy and I’ve gotta give each of these people a career! Well, one of them is going to be a photographer. One of them will be a writer. One will be an artist—I dabbled in art. And the other one will be a programmer—because my husband, he’s a data scientist. And I was like, “Well, I can just ask him, I don’t need to Google too much.”
SP: I have read both of the Aunties books and I love them both. Each auntie is such a character. Have (your actual aunts) read the books? Do they recognize themselves in the stories?
JQS: I knew that my aunts and uncles won’t read the books because their English isn’t that good. I was safe, but I also didn’t want my cousins to read them and say, “Oh my god! Is that my mom?” (laughs) So I took characteristics from everyone—my aunts and my uncles—and then mixed them all up, and gave each character parts of a lot of people. When my mom read Dial A for Aunties, she was like, “The mom is not at all like me.” And I was like, “No, because the mom is actually dad.” And my mom was like, “Oh, my gosh! She is so your dad!” (laughs)
But with Vera Wong, I told my mom from the very beginning, “Vera is you—just turn the dial up to 100.” I was really nervous to have her read it, but she was like, “I love it. I read it in two days. This one is good. I’m gonna give this one out to all of my friends and tell them to read it.” Because she’s not shy about telling me which of my books she doesn’t like.
SP: Where did the idea come from? For this “woman of a certain age?”
JQS: I had actually written the third Aunties book by then. So I was very comfortable writing about older Chinese women. And I was like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to actually have a book from their perspective?” You could literally put aunties from any culture, into any situation, and it would immediately be so much more interesting. Dial A for Aunties meets Bridgerton (laughs). Dial A for Aunties, but make it sci-fi!
I always had (Vera’s) character in the back of my mind. And so I thought, “Well, what if she finds a dead body at her shop?” I thought maybe a restaurant or a bakery. But the setting is really, really saturated. I also don’t really have that much baking experience. I actually do know a lot about Chinese teas. So why not set it in a tea shop?
SP: Also sounds like you didn’t want to have to research a bakery and how to run one.
JQS: (Laughs) Yeah, you know me too well now!
SP: You do a good job of balancing some of the darker elements with humor. Where does that come from?
JQS: I’m always joking around a lot. During my interview process for Oxford, one of the questions was, “What do you see yourself doing with an Oxford degree in the future?” And I was like, “I see myself as an author who’s so famous and rich that when I sweat, I drip diamonds.” I thought that was funny. They did not laugh. They were so stone faced, and in their very proper Queen’s English accent they were like, “Oh, all right.” And then moved on to the next question. I use humor as my defense mechanism.
SP: Is Vera Wong the beginning of a series?
JQS: I wrote it as a one off, but then I had so much fun. If the first book does well, I’m more than happy to write another Vera Wong book.
SP: Speaking of series, you mentioned earlier that you have the third Aunties book written already. I have my theories of where it’s gonna take place. Are they going to Indonesia now for the new year?
JQS: Yes, they are! It’ll be in Jakarta during Chinese New Year. That’s the most chaotic time of the year for my family.
SP: I can just imagine what shenanigans the aunties can get up to and what crime they’re going to try and cover up (laughs). So besides the setting and the time of year, what can you say?
JQS: I can say that there will be Indonesian crime lords in the mix. There will be kidnapping. Just some light kidnapping—you know, nothing over the top (laughs).
SP: Can you just imagine the aunties meeting Vera and whatever shenanigans they get up to?
JQS: Totally. If I do write it, I’m gonna dedicate it to you or something.
SP: Aw, thanks! (laughs)
When you’re writing the aunties, they’re older. Do you see yourself turning into the type of auntie you write about?
JQS: I don’t know if I will ever have that kind of unshakable confidence. But I hope to. So, if I do turn into one of those aunties, I’d be like, “Oh, yes! Thank god! I’ve evolved into my final form!”
SP: (laughs) Like a Pokemon?
JQS: Yeah. Exactly!
Published on April 13, 2023
Art & CultureDestinationsLifestylePeopleCity BeatFootballBook ReviewsOpinion
Jesse Q. Sutanto: On Murderous Blind Dates and Aiming Low as a Writer
Photo courtesy of Michael Hart
Photo courtesy of Michael Hart
Jesse Q. Sutanto doesn’t think of herself as funny or even remotely remarkable. In fact, she calls herself “mediocre and forgettable” and shares a story about how she recently met a former classmate from high school who couldn’t even remember that they had been in the same class.
“And there I was thinking, how could you not remember? I thought we were friends! I invited you to my birthday party,” she says, half jokingly, half seriously.
But even though her classmate may have trouble remembering her, Jesse’s wicked sense of humor seeps out of every page of her latest book, “Dial A For Aunties” – a somewhat crazy tale that follows the story of protagonist Meddy Chan, a Chinese-Indonesian living in the US, who accidentally murders her blind date.
Instead of calling the police, Meddy enlists the help of her mother and three aunties. Together, they come up with a plan to get rid of the body, but naturally, it all goes wrong. The corpse ends up in a cooler on a resort island, where a lavish wedding is about to take place the next day – the wedding that Meddy and her aunties are, of course, organizing.
If the plot sounds a little bit crazy, that’s because it actually is. Since its release, “Dial A For Aunties” has received a lot of love, from critics, readers and fellow writers alike. Author Emily Henry (Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation) called it “utterly clever, deeply funny and altogether charming,” while Beth O’Leary (The Switch) said she “found it impossible to put down and lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud.”
For Jesse, the praise is flattering, if unexpected. In her previous books, she says, she dealt with much more serious issues. But in the end, it was her upbringing and the gentle encouragement of her husband that led her to give comedy a try. She was born in Indonesia and moved to Singapore at the age of 7. After graduating from school, Jesse relocated toOxford to obtain her master’s degree in Creative Writing.
“I was supposed to stay for two years, but then I met my now-husband, who is English, and I ended up staying for a much longer period than I had bargained for,” she recalls. But after many years in England, Jesse adds, she really missed the tropical climate – there are many things about Oxford she loves, but the rainy, cloudy weather is not one of them, and so Jesse and her husband moved to Jakarta almost eight years ago.
“It was quite an adjustment, especially for my husband, because Indonesia is so different from England, in every possible way,” she explains. One of the biggest changes, she says, was to have her family close by again.
“We went from a very quiet life in England, where my husband’s family lived five hours away from us, to having everyone basically living on the same street here in Indonesia,” she says.
One day, Jesse recalls, her husband suggested that she write a story based on her family.
“I thought they were just boring and normal, but he said, actually, there’s nothing normal about them,” she says, laughing. Following her husband’s advice, Jesse sat down with the intention write a novel inspired by her family – but it wasn’t working.
“I was trying to be realistic, and the family drama was too close to home,” Jesse explains. “I didn’t enjoy it, so I put the idea to rest and focused on other things. It wasn’t until later that I thought, what if lean the other way and go for the absurd, the unbelievable, throw a dead body in there and explore how my family would react – and then, it just flowed so easily. I was shocked at how natural the humor came.”
The most challenging part about “Dial A For Aunties” for Jesse was how to solve the issue of the crime. After all, her protagonist does commit murder.
“I had a vague idea of the ending, since it was a rom-com and I wanted to stay loyal to the genre and play by the rules,” Jesse says. “But it was difficult to give these people a happy ending because I put them into a tight corner and wasn’t sure if I could get them out of trouble again.”
The positive response to her book has been somewhat overwhelming – but it doesn’t stop there. The Aunties are soon coming to a TV screen near you, as Netflix has already acquired the rights for an adaptation. Jesse herself serves as executive producer – something she still can’t quite believe yet.
“It was so unreal,” she says, sounding incredulous. “My agent had just sent out ‘Dial A For Aunties’ to book publishers, but soon she started getting calls from film agents. She was confused, wondering how they found out about it, but they didn’t want to reveal their sources. It was a little mysterious. But since this hasn’t happened for any of my other books, I feel that the Aunties are on their own little magical journey.”
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Kourtney Kang, who has already worked on the highly popular sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”, is the scriptwriter for the production, while Nahnatchka Khan (Fresh Off the Boat, Always Be My Maybe) is going to direct.
“Once the script is finished, they are going to start with the casting,” Jesse says. “I think that the aunties should be the stars of the film and I would love for Ali Wong to play Fourth Aunt. Don’t you think she would be such a perfect fit?”
Jesse isn’t one to slow down or rest on her laurels. Next year, she will publish four more books: a follow up to her YA novel “The Obsession”, a YA rom-com set in Indonesia, a children’s fantasy book, and a highly anticipated sequel to “Dial A For Aunties” – yes, Jesse confirms, we will meet all our favorite characters again, and the story will be set in England this time, with the Aunties going full British, but that is all she wants to reveal for now.
When asked how she manages to juggle being a productive writer, a daughter, a wife and the mother of two young kids aged 2 and 5, Jesse chuckles and says that she doesn’t have a social life and no hobbies to speak of. At the same time, she admits, she has a lot of support, especially with her daughters.
“I used to have a lot of writing rituals, but ever since I had kids, all of these rituals have gone out the window,” Jesse explains. “I have to steal away whatever writing time I can find, in between taking care of the children. But luckily, my parents are our neighbors. So I can always send them off to grandma.”
What has also helped her to become a fast writer was the realization that she doesn’t necessarily have to create the next masterpiece that wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
“My advice to aspiring writers would be to aim low,” Jesse says. “When I started writing, I had this goal in my mind to write an amazing, brilliant book, but there was so much pressure that I put on myself that I ended up procrastinating instead of writing. Only when I told myself, that it’s okay for the first draft to be complete trash, because I can always edit and fix it later, I started writing very fast.”
In fact, one of Jesse’s favorite writers has always been Terry Pratchett, an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works.
“I feel like his books have been a very big influence on me, particularly the way he wrote comedy,” Jesse says. “I was also always very inspired because he used to come out with two books a year, like clockwork. Every six months, I could count on a new Terry Pratchett book, so I always wanted to aim for that myself.”
To find out more about Jesse Sutanto, visit www.jesseqsutanto.com.
"Q&A With Jesse Q. Sutanto: Dial A for Aunties"
August 9, 2021
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Photos Credit to Michael Hart
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Author Bio:
"Jesse Q. Sutanto is the author of Dial A for Aunties, The Obsession, and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. Jesse grew up shuttling between Indonesia, Singapore, and Oxford, and considers all three places her home. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Jesse has forty-two first cousins and thirty aunties and uncles, many of whom live just down the road. She lives in Indonesia with her husband and two daughters. Learn more online at www.jesseqsutanto.com."
1. Your book “Dial A for Aunties” is over-the-top funny and outrageous. How much fun did you have writing this story and what were your friends’ and family’s first reactions to reading it?
This was the first time that I actually laughed out loud while writing a book. With each plot twist and discovery that I made, I laughed with joy and rushed to tell my long-suffering husband about it. I had never been so excited about a book before. Fortunately, all the family members who have read it so far have had positive reactions. Not sure if they’re just being polite, but I’m not about to dig!
2. When did you realize that you were funny, or at least had the ability to make people laugh?
I’m nowhere near as funny in person, so it took a looong time to realize that I love humorous books and I should lean into that. My husband knew even before he met me because back then I had a food blog which he found really funny. He often suggested that I try my hand at something comedic, but I was always too intimidated. I would say that the first time I realized I could write comedic things was only about two years ago.
3. How is your family and do they resemble Meddy’s family dynamics at all?
My family is huge! My mom has eight siblings and my dad has six siblings and each of those siblings had multiple kids, so I don’t even really know how many first cousins I have. We’re all really close and growing up, we competed with one another ruthlessly. Many of my cousins are over-achievers. One of them has a Masters from Yale and a recognition of excellence from the Prime Minister of Singapore, so you know what I’m up against!
When I wrote Dial A For Aunties, I wanted to include some of the pressure that comes from competition from Meddy’s mother and aunties. In that sense, Meddy’s family really resembles mine, but I’m happy to report that the men in my family have stayed put and not like, flown away as soon as they were able to!
4. What does your ideal writing environment look like?
HA! My ideal writing environment is complete, beautiful SILENCE. But my kids are both doing online schooling right now due to the pandemic, so it is chaos 24/7 here. I try to wake up before they do, which is really tough, and I put in my ear plugs and start writing. That’s the only way I can focus. Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to write these days, so I’m really being forced to level up my speed writing abilities. Ideally, I would have a 2-hour window in the mornings to write somewhere quiet.
5. How much of your personality shines through to the readers in Dial A for Aunties?
I think a lot of my personality is woven into Dial A for Aunties! Whenever I got stuck in a scene, I just thought to myself: What would my mom do? What would this auntie or that uncle do? And how would I react to it? And the scene would just flow really easily. It doesn’t just showcase my personality, but that of my family too.
6. In your opinion, what makes a great story?
To me, what makes a great story is one that keeps the reader engaged. Whether it’s through humor, or shock, or something tantalizing, whatever it is, as long as you know your target audience and manage to keep them engaged, I think that makes the story successful.
7. In this story you mix elements of both romantic comedy and murder mystery. As the author, what was your favorite thing about blending these two genres?
It’s in the unexpectedness of it that really gets me going! I love turning tropes on their heads, and with Dial A for Aunties, I was able to subvert so many tropes. I read so many thrillers and I get really annoyed about the fact that most of the victims in these books are the female characters! In my books, I try to turn that trope on its head and have my victims be the men, and I find it so freeing in a sense. I love how unexpected it is and it challenges so many of the gender roles that we’ve grown up with.
8. What’s your best advice for getting over writer’s block?
Writer’s block is interesting. Part of me accepts that this is a real thing that happens to many writers, but I choose to ignore that part, and whenever I sense myself thinking about it, I mentally pounce on myself and go, “NO. WRITER’S BLOCK DOES NOT EXIST.” (It does. I just don’t let myself believe that it exists for ME.)
My best advice is to not think about writer’s block too much, and to treat writing as a habit instead of something that you only do when inspiration strikes. And once I shifted my perspective to look at writing as a job, as something I need to do Mondays to Fridays at the same exact time, I ceased to worry about things like writer’s block. Because my brain just knows: It’s time to write. And your brain will extract inspiration from things around you.
I watch a lot of TV (who doesn’t?) and every time I watch something, my brain is toiling away in the background, going, “Ooh, does that inspire me in some way?” Same with books I’m reading. It can be a wonderful book or a mediocre one, and my brain would go, “Can I extract inspiration from it?” I’m never out of ideas. But it takes practice to train your brain to do this constantly, and I do mean constantly.
I watched a documentary about fungus the other day and found it extremely inspirational, but if I had watched the same show five years ago, I wouldn’t have felt inspired by it. Practice and remind yourself that inspiration is everywhere. You just need to learn how to identify it.
9. What’s the best book you have read this year so far?
Ahh! What a tough question! But hands down, it would have to be The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Oh my gosh, that book ripped my heart right out! And I would gladly let it do that all over again. I was really fighting it for the longest time because based on the title I didn’t think it would be something I was into, but the story was such an amazing surprise. I cried, I cheered, I laughed. I loved every bit of it, and I think everyone should read it.
10. Do you plan on writing more books in the future?
Yes! For sure. I don’t plan on hitting the breaks anytime soon. In fact, I’m always trying to improve my craft so that I can write books even faster. I have a five-year plan, and beyond that, a ten-year plan, so I’m not planning on slowing down.
Places To Find More From This Author:
Twitter: @thewritinghippo
Instagram: @jesseqsutanto
Facebook: Jesse Q Sutanto
Website: www.jesseqsutanto.com
SUTANTO, Jesse Q. The Obsession. 320p. Sourcebooks/Fire. Feb. 2021. pap. $10.99. ISBN 9781728215167.
Gr 9 Up--The first time Logan sees Delilah, his new classmate at an elite Northern California prep school, he knows they're destined to be together forever. The only problem is that Delilah doesn't agree-yet. When Logan catches Delilah on film murdering her mother's abusive boyfriend, Brandon, he knows he has the perfect leverage to ensure she never dares leave him. But Delilah is sick of living in fear, and she knows she needs a plan to keep Logan away from her for good. Sutanto readily identifies the societal power structures that keep Delilah, who is half-Singaporean and half-white, in the control of Brandon, a white police officer, and Logan, who is also white. The story, told from Logan and Delilah's perspectives in alternating chapters, moves at breakneck speed to a surprising conclusion. The moments of violence are brief, keeping the focus on the mounting tension between the two main characters. VERDICT This tense, quick-moving thriller is also a thought-provoking story about the different shapes of abuse. Fans of high-drama fiction with a dark edge, like Karen McManus's One of Us Is Lying or Gretchen McNeil's #murdertrending, will be hooked.--Madison Bishop, Forbes Lib., Northampton, MA
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Bishop, Madison. "SUTANTO, Jesse Q.: The Obsession." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 12, Dec. 2020, p. 105. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A643822143/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f72f7730. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. THE OBSESSION Sourcebooks Fire (Teen None) $10.99 2, 2 ISBN: 978-1-72821-516-7
A paranoia-driven debut novel about a relationship twisted by obsession.
Logan struggles to move on after the death of his great love, Sophie. All he can do is go through the motions until he meets Delilah, a new senior who strongly resembles Sophie. Revived, Logan’s obsession grows as he stalks Delilah online and in real life. Meanwhile, Delilah—whose father died in a tragic accident—feels crushed by her mother’s abusive police detective boyfriend. Just when something happens to remove Brandon from their lives and she thinks everything might be turning around, Logan makes his move. As their relationship develops, Logan’s control over Delilah tightens, and dark secrets and violent decisions send both characters into a complex, dangerous spiral. At one point, as she thinks about her mother’s previous relationship and her own, Delilah’s web search about stalkers leads her to a description of erotomania. Set against a Northern California private school backdrop, the sensational plot is riddled with twists that come at a furious pace. Chapters alternate between Logan’s and Delilah’s perspectives, providing insight into their motives as well as shifting feelings of revulsion and admiration for each. The drama builds to a shocking, albeit abrupt, ending. Delilah is the stronger, more compelling protagonist when compared to Logan’s less nuanced development. Sophie was Japanese American, and Delilah is biracial with a Chinese Singaporean dad and White American mom; Logan is assumed White.
A suspenseful page-turner. (Thriller. 14-18)
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: THE OBSESSION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2020. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A644766996/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=2b76d645. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $16 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-33303-7
In Sutanto's bonkers debut, a series of disasters befalls a family wedding catering business. Meddy Chan, 26, works as the photographer for her overbearing, superstitious Chinese Indonesian aunties and mother. Convinced there's a curse that causes men to leave the women of the family and crushed by an obligation to remain near her mother in San Gabriel, Calif., Meddy breaks up with her soul mate, Nathan. She's still not over him when her mom arranges a date for her with a man named Jake, who attempts to rape her, prompting Meddy to tase him. Jake doesn't wake up, and Meddy turns to her aunts for help. They store Jake in a cooler, which is then inadvertently shipped to the Chans' next wedding gig, at a hotel that happens to be owned by Nathan. Plenty of hi jinks ensue, but the Chans are oddly glib as they try to keep Jake hidden, and Meddy's pining over Nathan feels trite. The best parts are Sutanto's portrayal of the bantering, interfering aunties (" 'How could you set Meddy up with such a douchebag?' Fourth Aunt snaps at Ma"), who excel at wreaking havoc. There's plenty of light entertainment here, but don't expect anything with bite. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinherg Literary Management. (Apr. )
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"Dial A for Aunties." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 5, 1 Feb. 2021, p. 45. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A651614281/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=54509974. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Dial A for Aunties. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Apr. 2021. 320p. Berkley, $26 (9780593336731).
Murder is never funny, except when it is. In Sutanto's rollicking debut, which she describes in a "Dear reader" foreword as "a love letter to my family--a ridiculously large bunch with a long history of immigration," a fatal accident begets family reconciliation, true love at second sight, and happy beginnings all around. Meddy (short for Meddelin--her "parents were aiming for Madeleine") is convinced her sprawling Indonesian, Chinese, Singaporean, and American family is cursed: all the men die or leave. She's the only Chan of her generation who has stayed in California with her mother and three aunts, even working in the family wedding business as the resident photographer. Although Meddy is not even close to 30, Ma is convinced that she's practically an old maid, never mind that Meddy chose family over romance years before. Ma is desperate enough to impersonate Meddy on a dating app, sending her off with a potential rapist. So he dies. Sort of. Dial A for Aunties, indeed, as they navigate a high-profile wedding with a corpse in tow. Sound preposterous? Perhaps, but you'll be glad you went along for the yacht ride.--Terry Hong
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Sutanto's #0wnVoices comedy has generated big buzz, and there's even a IMetflix series in the works.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
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Hong, Terry. "Dial A for Aunties." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2021, p. 24. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A654649906/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ea0e42b5. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. THE NEW GIRL Sourcebooks Fire (Teen None) $10.99 2, 1 ISBN: 978-1-72821-519-8
Draycott Academy's newest student is about to challenge the status quo, whether she likes it or not.
Lia Setiawan transfers to the prestigious Northern California boarding school on a track scholarship, automatically setting herself apart from her wealthy classmates. Upon her arrival, a distraught Sophie Tanaka, who has a reputation for being a drug addict, is forcefully removed from the campus after punching a teacher. As if that wasn't enough to give Lia doubts about her place at the school, she downloads the gossip app Draycott Dirt and is disheartened to learn that she's the student body's newest target for bullying. As she struggles to keep up her grades and maintain her scholarship, she discovers a cheating ring led by a crooked teacher, and her involvement in seeking justice takes a deadly turn. The story is told entirely from Lia's point of view, and although Sutanto's teenspeak feels over-the-top, she provides readers insights into a variety of interesting social issues: socio-economic differences among teens, the school's weak attempts at embracing diversity, and nuanced cultural tensions within Asian communities. More thrilling than Draycott's secrets are Lia's hijinks in covering up a secret of her own that threatens her future. Lia is Indonesian American, with an Indonesian mother and a deceased Chinese Indonesian father; the supporting cast is largely White or Asian.
Campy but engaging. (Mystery. 14-18)
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: THE NEW GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2021. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A686536551/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7a70a3c8. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
SUTANTO, Jesse Q. The New Girl. 368p. Sourcebooks/Fire. Feb. 2022. pap. $10.99. ISBN 9781728215198.
Gr 9 Up--When Lia Setiawan, "the next Usain Bolt," comes to the prestigious Draycott Academy on a track scholarship, she finally sees the path forward to college and the future of her dreams. Lia anticipated a struggle fitting in with her wealthy boarding school classmates. She did not, however, predict the bullying she'd endure on the school's gossip app, the rampant drug and alcohol use, the cheating ring run by a teacher, or the murder. Lia's conversational narration adeptly balances the drama and suspense of the plot with tension-abating humor and irreverence. Racism to and within the Asian community is explored through Lia's family and her interactions with her peers. Her deceased father's Chinese-Indonesian family scorns her native Indonesian mother, and her track rival Mandy Kim regularly derides Southeast Asians. Entitlement, privilege, and morality in the face of injustice are other prominent themes. Anytime Lia tries to do the right thing, she is dismissed in order to protect the reputation of the wealthy. Much of Lia's ethical perseverating can be reduced to the question: Is it really cheating when the test is already rigged? These moral complexities add some meat to this otherwise fun and soapy thriller. The ending is predictable, and some references (Betsy DeVos, 2005 movie The-40-Year-Old Virgin) feel slightly inauthentic coming from high school sophomores. VERDICT Equal parts drama, humor, and angst, this boarding school thriller also delves into themes of racism and justice, and is recommended for general purchase, and for fans of Karen M. McManus's One of Us Is Lying, Holly Jackson's Good Girl, Bad Blood, and the streaming series Gossip Girl.--Elizabeth Lovsin
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Lovsin, Elizabeth. "SUTANTO, Jesse Q.: The New Girl." School Library Journal, vol. 68, no. 4, Apr. 2022, p. 149. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A699585784/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3990901f. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Four Aunties and a Wedding. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Mar. 2022. 304p. Berkley, paper, $16 (9780593333051).
As the photographer for the extended Chan clan's wedding business, Meddelin (a well-intentioned approximation of Madeleine) is intimately familiar with all manner of nuptial celebrations, even when they include accidental murder, as witnessed in Dial A for Aunties (2021), Sutanto's rollicking debut, which introduced Big Aunt, Second Aunt, (Meddy's) Ma, and Fourth Aunt. This time, Meddy is finally the bride, about to marry beloved Nathan in a fairytale affair at Oxford, his alma mater. Sort-of distant relatives, led by Staphanie, with whom Meddy quickly bonds over their "unfortunately spelled" monikers, have meticulously planned the destination events, which, once again, involve the threat of death. This time, Meddy and the aunties hope to avoid murder at all costs. In her opening authors note, Indonesian-Chinese-Singaporean Sutanto reveals she "wanted to tackle the subject of the Asian diaspora" in her aunties sequel. Inspired by the initially awkward clashes experienced between her sprawling family and her hubby's half-Asian, half-English relatives, Sutanto deftly blends preposterous humor (British slang, mafia posers) with enduring devotion to prove "there is no right or wrong way to 'being Asian.'" --Terry Hong
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Hong, Terry. "Four Aunties and a Wedding." Booklist, vol. 118, no. 11, 1 Feb. 2022, p. 22. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A693527400/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1b2b793d. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. FOUR AUNTIES AND A WEDDING Berkley (Fiction None) $26.00 3, 29 ISBN: 978-0-593-44076-6
Another wild wedding day befalls the Chan family in Sutanto's wacky sequel to Dial A for Aunties (2021).
Almost a year after Meddy Chan and her four aunties covered up an accidental murder, Meddy can't wait to have a fresh start by marrying her dream guy, Nathan, at Oxford's Christ Church College. He's the "perfect specimen of a man" according to her Ma, yet even with their wedding day rapidly approaching, Meddy can't help but feel like their union is too good to be true. To make matters worse, her "batty" aunties have yet to meet Nathan's prim-and-proper English parents, and they've started using British slang like "dog's bollocks" in hopes of impressing Chris and Annie. To further appease Meddy's wedding jitters, her aunties hire the Tanuwijayas, an Indonesian family of wedding vendors who handle flowers, hair, makeup, and photography--score! Meddy finds a kindred spirit in photographer Staphanie, and they become fast friends after bonding over misspelled names and pepper spray. Their friendship proves to be short-lived, however, when Meddy overhears a phone conversation in which Staphanie agrees to take someone out and not as a plus one. It turns out Staph and her family are in the organized crime business, and their next target happens to be a guest at the Chan wedding. When Staphanie threatens to expose last year's accident to the police, Meddy and her aunties embark on a madcap, Sopranos-style series of hijinks in order to stop the Tanuwijayas' plan in its tracks. With plenty of weed-spiked champagne and gags made of pantyhose, these four aunties make it known: Don't mess with the Chan family. Sutanto's sequel doubles the trouble for Meddy and Co., but it is not without some frustrating moments (Meddy is basically MIA for her entire wedding). Despite the continual shenanigans, you can't help but get a kick out of the aunties' outrageous stunts and their even bigger hearts.
Keep your friends close and these four aunties closer.
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: FOUR AUNTIES AND A WEDDING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2022. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A695026981/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=77ffbcea. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. May 2022. 320p. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (9781250794284). Gr.3-7.
Sutanto's latest middle-grade fantasy is, at its core, about a boy finding his power by connecting to his heritage. Chinese American Theo Tan lives with his family in San Francisco's Chinatown. All he wants is to be a normal American boy, but when his older brother dies under mysterious circumstances, Theo must partner with his brother's mischievous fox spirit, named Kai, and set out on a quest to find answers. Sutanto blends Chinese culture and history to build a world of dragons, demons, spell casting, and code breaking. The story is told via two different points of view, jumping between Theo's and Kai's perspectives. Kai is a witty and snarky character, often describing the magical world through footnotes and commentary, reminiscent of Bartimaeus in Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand (2003). This is a natural choice for kids who like Rick Riordan's brand of mythology-fueled fantasy adventures, and it will be an especially good read-alike for Laurence Yep's classic Tiger's Apprentice series, another action-packed fantasy with a distinct Asian perspective that pairs ancient Chinese mythology with modern San Francisco.--Bobbie Peyton
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Peyton, Bobbie. "Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit." Booklist, vol. 118, no. 16, 15 Apr. 2022, p. 56. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A702054521/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=20755813. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
SUTANTO, Jesse Q. Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. 320p. Feiwel & Friends. May 2022. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9781250794284.
Gr 4-7--Twelve-year-old Theo is crushed when his beloved older brother, Jamie, suddenly dies in a tragic accident. To make matters worse, the spirit companion summoned for him shortly afterward turns out to be Kai, the duplicitous, self-important fox spirit who was formerly Jamie's companion. Soon Theo discovers clues from Jamie suggesting something's not quite right at Reapling Corp, the company where Jamie was interning when he died (Reapling has monetized magical energy; think of them as the Google or Apple of spellcasting). To investigate, Theo will have to earn a spot in Reapling's competitive summer program by leaning in to his Chinese-American heritage and relying on some help and trickery from Kai. This action-packed fantasy should have wide appeal. Sutanto creates a sense of urgency from the first page, when Theo is dragged out of bed to a meat locker in Chinatown for a sketchy conversation with Jamie just before he dies. Alternating viewpoints between Theo and Kai fully flesh out the characters' overlapping (and sometimes deviating) desires. Moments of comic relief are scattered throughout, as when Theo's spells go awry due to his mispronunciation of Mandarin. And though Theo's story largely relies on Chinese gods and monsters, Sutanto deftly weaves in reminders that this is only one of a great many distinct cultures in Asia. VERDICT A welcome addition to fantasy shelves, hand this off to readers who can't get enough of "Percy Jackson" or the Rick Riordan Presents series.--Lindsay Loup
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Loup, Lindsay. "SUTANTO, Jesse Q. Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit." School Library Journal, vol. 68, no. 6, June 2022, pp. 74+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A705791278/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dc65f5da. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. WELL, THAT WAS UNEXPECTED Delacorte (Teen None) $18.99 9, 27 ISBN: 978-0-593-43397-3
Southern California high school junior Sharlot Citra had everything planned out for her first time.
What she did not plan for was her mom walking in on her and her boyfriend. Meanwhile in Jakarta, George Clooney Tanuwijaya, son of the country's second richest family, is caught by his father in a similarly racy solo situation. George's dad and sister decide he needs a girlfriend and set up an online profile for him. The perfect match comes in the form of one Sharlot Citra--or at least Sharlot's mom, who's likewise committing a catfishing scheme to set up her daughter with a respectable boy. Mama has whisked Sharlot off for her first trip to Indonesia to spend the summer learning how to jadi orang, or succeed as an adult. Horrified but resigned, the teens reluctantly meet, and an awkward coffee date spirals into a fake relationship for the press; George is the public face of an etiquette app for teen boys that his family's company is launching. Can a less-than-honest beginning lead to genuine connection? Sutanto's novel is full of hijinks, humor, and heart. Beyond the fake online personas are two teens with lots to connect over. Sutanto gives dimension to the secondary characters, exploring interpersonal expectations and misperceptions. Readers are swept along as Sharlot discovers her mother's home country, including naming quirks, dynamite coffee, layered history, and a conservative social climate. Most characters are Chinese Indonesian; biracial Sharlot is White and Chinese Indonesian.
A delightfully lively rom-com. (Romance. 14-18)
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: WELL, THAT WAS UNEXPECTED." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2022. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A708486826/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0f6a972b. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Well, That Was Unexpected
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Delacorte, $18.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-43397-3
Sutanto's (The Obsession) uproarious rom-com follows Sharlot Citra and George Clooney Tanuwijaya, both 17 and of Chinese Indonesian descent, as they navigate familial and cultural expectations via a fake dating scheme. Southern California native Sharlot is sent to Jakarta for the summer after her mother catches her and her secret boyfriend, Bradley, who is white, on the verge of having sex. Meanwhile, George, who lives in Jakarta, has his own troubles after his father walks in on him masturbating and an internet tab mix-up leaves his family believing he's interested in furry porn. George and Sharlot's lives intertwine when, to encourage associating with "respectable" people, George's father and Sharlot's mother set the teens up on a blind date-posing as their respective children on a social media site and effectively catfishing each other. Though Sharlot and George immediately butt heads, they agree to date to keep up appeatances, but as they strip back their misconceptions and preconceived notions, the pair fall for each other. Sutanto explores the richness of Indonesian culture and history through alternating first-person perspectives, a large and vibrant Chinese Indonesian cast, well-timed comedy, and soap operaworthy drama in this summery read. Ages 12-up. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. (Sept.)
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"Well, That Was Unexpected." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 30, 18 July 2022, p. 187. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711581451/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=586f7ec4. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Earlier in her career, Jesse Q Sutanto tried writing a book set in her home country but was told by publishers that Indonesia was "just too foreign". But after several years passed, and with a big prize for comic writing under her belt, the author has delved into her Chinese-Indonesian heritage to create a hilarious YA rom-com about two teenagers who are catfished by their own parents.
Described as "outrageously funny" by the publisher Farshore, Well, That Was Unexpected is about California girl Sharlot Citra who, after being caught in a compromising position with her boyfriend, is whisked to her mother's native Indonesia to learn about her cultural heritage. At the same time the brilliantly named George Clooney Tanuwijaya, the only boy in his generation in one of the country's richest Chinese-Indonesian families, is caught in an embarrassing situation by his dad and younger sister (cue masturbation jokes). George's dad and sister (Eleanor Roosevelt Tanuwijaya) decide George needs a girlfriend, so sign him up to an online dating website. Sharlot's mother also signs her daughter up, and the catfishing begins. George and Sharlot both think the "teenager" on the other side of the messages is a bit weird, but they agree to meet and because this is a rom-com they do, of course, eventually fall in love.
"I really wanted to write something lighthearted and fun, and it was an excuse for me to take readers on a journey around places like Jakarta and Bali," says Sutanto, who moved back to Indonesia with her British husband eight years ago. Much of the fun in the story comes from the way the American-raised Sharlot experiences the delights of the country, even though, like Sutanto's husband, she initially thinks it's a bit of a dump.
A family affair
"He admitted to me when we first started dating that most people in the West have no idea what Indonesia is like. He was kind of dreading it when he first came because all he had seen were images from the BBC or CNN of shanty towns, places that are just mired in poverty... So when my husband first came, I saw the city through his eyes. He was really surprised."
Sutanto's husband urged her to write about beautiful things in Indonesian culture--its restaurants, coffee bars and architecture--but also the Chinese-Indonesian attitude to dating. "The community is really quite conservative and a lot hinges on [questions like]: are they approved of by the family? Families are very much involved in everyone's dating life. My husband said 'Oh gosh, this is so different, you should write about this'," she laughs. "It's very handy having him around."
Sutanto grew up between Jakarta and Singapore, and decided she would like to be a writer as a teenager. The only subject she was good at was English literature, she says, and she went on to do a masters in creative writing at the University of Oxford. Her first book to be published, the fifth she had written, was Obsession, a YA about a stalker. For the "longest time" she wrote only thrillers but she began writing funny books when a publisher approached her agent asking if they had any writers on their books who were interested in doing middle-grade. "I find that for middle-grade you need quite a bit of humour and then I realised I was having fun with this."
I ask her about the ongoing debate in the UK around funny children's books getting the respect they deserve, and she admits that she is one of those people who once thought comedy would be easier to write.
"That was before I tried writing a funny book," she smiles. "Then I was like, this is so hard. So much harder. If you don't do it well the humour is cringeworthy and painfully awkward."
Luckily for readers Sutanto is very good at comedy, and last year she won the 2021 Comedy Women in Print Prize for her brilliant adult novel Dial A for Aunties (HQ), which, like Well, That Was Unexpected, involves meddling Chinese-Indonesian relatives, but this time there is a dead body thrown in, too.
Sutanto is very modest about her achievements so far, and says that even though winning the prize was an "amazing moment" it is hard to think of it being more than just a fluke. She worries that most of her humour comes from personal anecdotes, so if those run out she won't have any more authentic material.
But as well as writing funny jokes based on family relationships, Sutanto maintains the reader's interest in a love story even though they know, because it is a rom-com, that the protagonists will end up together. That is really hard to do, and as well as the humour, there are many delightful, escapist episodes in the book that involve fabulous dates, lavish parties or luxurious holidays (which is why the PR blurb is comparing the book to the film "Crazy Rich Asians") and a secondary LGBTQ+ love story, which gives the storyline of one of the adult character's a satisfying conclusion. All in all, it's a really rich narrative.
Suspicious minds
So what's next for the author? Next year she has three books out, including an adult murder mystery set in San Francisco's Chinatown, where an elderly tea shop owner finds a dead body one morning (nobody investigates better than a suspicious Chinese mother, she jokes). "I find it refreshing to be able to switch back and forth between darker books and funnier ones. After writing my dark adult suspense, I'm Not Done With You Yet, I was very much ready for a lighthearted book, and I'm so lucky to be able to do this as it keeps me from burning out."
Metadata
Imprint Farshore
Publication 10.11.22
Format PB (8.99 [pounds sterling]), ISBN 9780008501464
Rights UK and Commonwealth
Book Extract
My phone beeps.
[Bradster 7:15AM]: Here!
I grab my schoolbag and mumble, "Michie is here."
Mama slides the Tupperware container toward me, and I'm about to run for the door when the guilt becomes too much. Gritting my teeth, I grab the glass of juice and force it all down.
Mama smiles. "Good girl."
"Don't make me any more juice EVER." I don't know why I bother; I know she won't listen. I pull on my shoes and run out the door. It's a typical day in Southern California-blue skies, scorching heat, total bikini weather even though it's technically not yet summer. Bradley is parked around the corner so that Ma, peering out the window, won't see me climbing into his convertible instead of Michie's sturdy Volvo. Every morning, my heart rate rises as I round the corner and see his silver car. And when he pops his face out the window and gives me that cheeky, boyish grin, my entire body relaxes.
"Hey, babe," he says. "You look beautiful."
Charlotte Eyre
@CharlotteLEyre
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 The Stage Media Limited
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Eyre, Charlotte. "Jesse Q Sutanto's native Indonesia plays host to her latest work, a laugh-out-loud YA rom-com that explores the complexities of teenage dating through a Chinese-Indonesian lens." The Bookseller, no. 5986, 2 Sept. 2022, pp. 36+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A715979468/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c72d0d0a. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
* Well, That Was Unexpected. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Sept. 2022. 352p. Delacorte, $18.99 (9780593433973). Gr. 9-12.
Sharlot Citra is ready to take her relationship to the next level with her extremely good-looking American boyfriend, but her plans are astronomically foiled when her mother walks in on her. Sharlot's traditional Chinese Indonesian mother is furious that Sharlot would even think about putting herself in that situation, and so she decides that she and Sharlot will go to stay in Indonesia for the summer. Being an ABC (American-born Chinese), Sharlot is not prepared for the cultural shifts and nuances of her mothers native country, so she rebels against being there. Meanwhile, George Clooney Tanuwijaya's family believes that he is too secluded and that he could do with finding a real girlfriend. When Sharlot's mom and Georges dad and sister get involved, Sharlot and George find themselves in the midst of a high-profile fake-dating scenario with real sparks flying. Sutanto's novel holds the ingredients for the quintessential YA rom-com, particularly the quirky, dynamic, and relatable characters. The novel is full to the brim with humor, heart, and a joyous celebration of Chinese Indonesian culture. In a novel that brings to mind Bridget Jones Diary, Sutanto has created a book that readers will want to return to again and again.--Nashae Jones
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 American Library Association
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Jones, Nashae. "Well, That Was Unexpected." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 2, 15 Sept. 2022, p. 67. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A720255919/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c07a34e7. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. VERA WONG'S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS Berkley (Fiction None) $27.00 3, 14 ISBN: 9780593546178
Investigating a murder gives a lonely widow purpose.
Every day at 4:30 a.m., Vera Wong Zhuzhu, 60, wakes without an alarm; texts her son, Tilbert, to say he's sleeping his life away; and takes a brisk walk around San Francisco's Chinatown before returning to open her business, Vera Wang's World-Famous Teahouse. (The name isn't a typo but a calculated choice; "even white people" have heard of Vera Wang.) While fellow immigrants used to frequent the shop, now it has only one regular customer, and though Vera and her late husband paid off the building's mortgage years ago and she lives upstairs, the utilities alone are sapping her savings. Solitude and irrelevance are wearing on Vera until she comes downstairs one morning to find a male stranger dead on the floor. Vera calls the police, who determine that the man--Marshall Chen, 29--likely broke in and then overdosed. Vera, however, believes it was homicide, seeing as Marshall died clutching a USB drive. Granted, the cops don't know about the drive, as Vera pocketed it before picking up the phone, but that's probably for the best; "nobody sniffs out wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands." Gentle humor and abundant heart elevate Sutanto's spirited mystery, which focuses primarily on the tender relationships that form between Vera and her four main suspects. A kaleidoscopic third-person narrative allows Sutanto to fully develop each character, investing readers in their fates. Vivid sensory descriptions of the custom teas Vera concocts and the elaborate feasts she prepares further heighten the feel-good appeal.
Literary comfort food in the guise of a quirky whodunit.
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: VERA WONG'S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A736806050/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a119239a. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Mar. 2023. Berkley, $27 (9780593546178); paper, $16.99 (9780593549223).
Death shouldn't be funny or sweet or heartwarming, except maybe in a new cozy series starring Vera Wong, the widowed owner of San Francisco Chinatown's rather decrepit Vera Wang's World-Famous Teahouse. That titular typo is actually intentional, meant to suggest "a very famous person, even white people know her name." At 60, Vera's settled into specific routines: up at 4:30 am ("late mornings are only for toddlers and Europeans"), wash, walk, text her silent son, home, cold shower, breakfast, open shop downstairs, wait for (her very few) customers. Disruption arrives one morning when she discovers a corpse on the floor. The police arrive, refuse her amazing tea, barely investigate, and leave. Vera knows she's looking at foul play, no matter what the authorities insist. Of course, she'll solve the case by gathering (and feeding) the most likely suspects--an alleged reporter, a supposed podcaster, the dead man's wife, and his twin brother. Vera's next deadly installment hasn't yet been officially announced, but the success of Sutanto's best-selling Aunties series certainly points to more tales of murder.--Terry Hong
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Hong, Terry. "Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2023, p. 26. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A738954342/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=cfc252c7. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Jesse Q. Sutanto
Berkley Prime Crime
c/o Penguin Group (USA)
www.penguin.com
9780593546178, $27.00, HC, 352pp
https://www.amazon.com/Vera-Wongs-Unsolicited-Advice-Murderers/dp/0593546172
Synopsis: Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady (that is, a lady of a certain age) who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing--a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn't know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of lifts the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands.
Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?
Critique: A quintessential cozy mystery that will have immense interest to fans of the genre, "Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers" is original, memorable, and a fun read from cover to cover. While certain to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to community library Mystery/Suspense collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of readers who enjoy novels featuring amateur women crime solvers, that "Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers" is also available in a paperback edition (9780008558734, $17.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99).
Editorial Note: Jesse Q. Sutanto (https://jillgrinbergliterary.com/book_author/jesse-q-sutanto) is the author of adult, YA, and children's middle grade books. She has a master's degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn't found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. The film rights to her women's fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war. Her adult books include Dial A for Aunties and its sequel, Four Aunties and a Wedding. Her YA books include The Obsession, The New Girl, and her upcoming romcom, Well, That Was Unexpected. Her MG books include Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit and an untitled sequel. She is on Twitter @thewritinghippo and on Instagram @jesseqsutanto
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Midwest Book Review
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"Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers." Internet Bookwatch, Mar. 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A745285638/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=87393982. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. THEO TAN AND THE IRON FAN Feiwel & Friends (Children's None) $17.99 6, 27 ISBN: 9781250794369
Can young Theo Tan and his friends infiltrate hell and save his brother, Jamie?
In this follow-up to Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit (2022), Theo and Kai, his newly minted spirit companion, seek a way to retrieve Theo's brother's soul; Jamie was also Kai's original human master. Their quest takes them away from San Francisco on a dangerous adventure into Diyu, or "hell's waiting room," according to Chinese mythology, with the desperate--and very likely naïve--hope that Jamie can be brought back to life. Getting to Diyu is one difficult task, and getting out of there is even more complicated. They'll have to navigate the dangerous courts of Diyu and the kings who rule them as well as formidable Princess Iron Fan. It'll take lots of ingenuity and teamwork to pull it off without ending up permanently stuck in Diyu. Sutanto builds an intriguing fantasy world of spirits, spells, and mythologies. With dual narration from the first-person perspectives of Chinese American Theo and his shape-shifting fox spirit, Kai, the book takes readers on a well-paced journey that explores themes of identity, courage, connection, and especially grief and life after loss. Some comedic levity in the precarious situations the characters find themselves in balances the emotional themes. Kai is especially expressive, and her chapters frequently feature footnotes highlighting her feistiness and snark. A supportive friend group in Namita Singh, Danny Chang, and Xiaohua, Danny's divine dragon companion, bring additional heart.
An animated adventure centering family and friendships. (Fantasy. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: THEO TAN AND THE IRON FAN." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A747342249/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d7e9e05f. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
I'm Not Done with You Yet
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593546-91-8
Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) keeps readers off-balance in this entertaining thriller. When half-white, half-Chinese American Jane Morgan--who happily self-identifies as a sociopath--enters Oxford's creative writing program, she feels out of place, unsure of her talent and how to fit in with the school's insular, lily-white student body. Her transition is eased by Thalia Ashcroft, a gifted and popular peer who takes Jane under her wing. Jane, however, is jealous of anyone else interested in Thalia, and their time together ends with an unspecified act of violence. Nine years later, Jane is unhappily married in San Francisco, with two published but unsuccessful novels. The past comes knocking when she reads one morning that Thalia, whom she hasn't heard from in years, has made the New York Times bestseller list with her debut novel--the plot of which suggests it was inspired by the pair's relationship. After some social media sleuthing, Jane flies cross-country to reconnect with Thalia at a genre convention in New York City, opening old wounds and inflicting new ones in the process. Even readers anticipating some of the twists Sutanto lines up will be entertained by Jane's ice-cold narration ("Californians just can't help themselves. If I stayed there any longer I was bound to kill someone. Just kidding. Sort of). It adds up to a wickedly enjoyable treatise on the dark sides of female friendship. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler,Jill Grinberg Literary. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
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"I'm Not Done with You Yet." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 25, 19 June 2023, p. 171. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A755561922/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b1bfd610. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET Berkley (Fiction None) $27.00 8, 22 ISBN: 9780593546918
Former classmates at Oxford's MFA writing program become locked in a vicious death match at a Manhattan writers conference.
Sutanto's campy thriller follows two successful YA novels and a cozy mystery (among other books) and shows the marks of both genres, with confessional, in-your-face, first-person narration and minimal gore, well off-screen. It begins when Jane Morgan, an unhappy midlist writer of what she calls "lit fic," learns that her former classmate (crush, obsession, idol, muse--all of the above) Thalia Ashcroft has hit the bestseller list with a thriller that seems to be partly based on their friendship. Despite their initial intense closeness, Thalia and Jane became estranged after a mysterious incident their first year, and while Jane came back to finish, Thalia never did. Now Jane, mired in a dull marriage to a dull man, with an equally uninspiring career, is determined to reconnect with Thalia and jump-start her life. When she learns that her old friend will be appearing at SusPens Con in New York City, she pawns some apparently stolen jewelry to pay for a plane ticket and hotel room and plows ahead despite the fact that husband Ted insists on tagging along and her literary agency won't help her get into the show. Jane reveals early on her self-diagnosis: "Pretty sure I'm a sociopath. I'm not ashamed of it; in fact it's something I quite like, and I carry the thought in the recesses of my mind like a lucky charm, returning to it the way one might stroke a rabbit-foot once in a while." In fact, the reason the American Jane chose England for her graduate studies is that it's considered the third rudest, most unfriendly place in the world (after Russia and France), and life in sunny California is driving her to constant thoughts of mayhem and murder. The plot in both present and past is quite silly, but crazy stalker Jane is kind of fun. Her self-knowledge seems limited, however--despite swoony sexual fantasies about Thalia, she continues to believe she's not attracted to women. When the point of view switches in the second half, with supporting characters streaming in and twists piling on twists piling on twists, some eye-rolling may ensue. On the other hand, Sutanto's renderings of Jane's Chinese Indonesian heritage and her experience at Oxford, both autobiographically based, are strong.
At the heart of this multicorpse thriller is a love that dare not say its name. Come on out, Jane.
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A754972076/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=52d9a556. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
I'm Not Done with You Yet. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Aug. 2023. 352p. Berkley, $27 (9780593546918).
Prodigious Sutanto ends her latest with an apology: "I'm sorry to those who might have been expecting something lighthearted like Dial A for Aunties, LOL!" Embarking on "one of the most thrilling writing journeys of [her] life," Sutanto pivots toward darkness with her first work of psychological suspense, "hands down [her] favorite genre to read." Her loyal fans need not fear: Sutanto hasn't abandoned her easy, chatty style even as she introduces not one, but two sociopaths. Jane has never fit in; Thalia is always the center of attention. The two meet as they begin their Oxford MFA (Sutanto has the same degree) and become unlikely best friends. A horrific event separates the pair for nine years, until Thalia publishes a massive best-seller inspiring Jane to orchestrate an overdue reunion in New York City that, of course, prompts the unveiling of secrets (and a few corpses). Sutanto expertly manipulates time, moving between difficult childhoods to perplexing adult lives, dexterously revealing puzzle pieces that calculatingly don't fit. Meanwhile, crazy rich Asians, the publishing industry, and fatal misogyny all crack under Sutanto's deadly glare.--Terry Hong
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Hong, Terry. "I'm Not Done with You Yet." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 21, 1 July 2023, p. 24. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A760091447/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1ece2204. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING Delacorte (Teen None) $18.99 11, 28 ISBN: 9780593434017
Nothing can dim the light of the "Fabulous and Marvelous Kiki Siregar."
Nothing except maybe the atmosphere at the super-conservative Xingfa School, which her parents have made her transfer to from more the progressive Mingyang High, where she "wasn't even considered one of the more outspoken pupils." Seventeen-year-old Jakarta resident Kiki is optimistic that she can shine at her new school if she stays true to herself. But in just the first few days at Xingfa, she's patronized by Jonas Arifin, a popular, wealthy, and misogynistic classmate; goes viral on TikTok as #CrazyKiki in an embarrassing video in which she's wearing her school uniform; and is admonished by the principal after standing up for herself against golden boy Jonas. Fortunately, Kiki finds solace in online gaming, most notably in Warfront Heroes, which she plays under the screen name Dudebro10 to avoid harassment from male gamers. She confides in Sourdawg, her "adorkable" online friend, about her school troubles--but later realizes that he's actually her kind classmate Liam Ng, whom she does not want to lose as a friend (or possibly something more). From Kiki's irrepressible self-confidence to Jonas' seemingly delusional attraction to her, the story is a parody of gender disparities in a school setting that occasionally leans more into caricature. Readers may find Kiki to be a refreshing lead and the hijinks entertaining, although the teenspeak feels artificial at times. The cast is mainly Chinese Indonesian.
Rollicking, if somewhat over-the-top, fun. (Fiction. 12-17)
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A764873263/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4b5cde84. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Didn't See That Coming. By Jesse Q. Sutanto. Nov. 2023. 320p. Delacorte, $18.99 (9780593434017). Gr. 8-12.
Popular Kristabella "Kiki" Siregar is an outspoken gamer-girl living in South Jakarta, Indonesia. Feeling that her schooling has made her too liberal, Kiki's affluent parents unexpectedly switch her to Xingfa--an elite, traditionally Chinese school--for her last year. Hoping to enthrall new peers with her confidence, Kiki is taken aback by the school's chauvinistic mindset. When she gets bullied by smug classmate Jonas Arifin and many others, her confidence quickly wanes. To relieve stress, Kiki finds solace in gaming under the guise of a male character called "DudeBro" (to avoid being objectified). It is in this gaming universe where she builds a kinship with the sweet and progressive "Sourdawg." Through the help of the meddlesome "Lif Auntie's" dating service, Kiki hopes to reveal her online friend's identity, as well as build a relationship with her handsome project partner, Liam. Dial A for Aunties (2021) author Sutanto creates another fictional masterpiece centered on gender bias and STEM-related topics. Readers will empathize with the remarks and jabs that the protagonist, and other classmates, face on the daily from supposed superiors. This story is a great reminder for people to stand up to aggressors and to not diminish their true identity. An adorkably inclusive YA romance that is both fiery and earnest.--Beronica Garcia
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
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Garcia, Beronica. "Didn't See That Coming." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 4, 15 Oct. 2023, p. 51. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A770323946/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6e99d069. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
* SUTANTO, Jesse Q. Didn't See That Coming. 320p. Delacorte. Nov. 2023. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9780593434017.
Gr 8 Up--Seventeen-year-old Kiki Siregar has always been confident, describing herself as "loud and unapologetically obnoxious." The only time Kiki's has to be cautious is when she's online. Gaming is easier as a guy (DudebrolO, specifically), and she isn't harassed and threatened by other players or punished by the game for reporting said harassment. While pretending to be a guy, Kiki has made a very real friend in another player, Sourdawg--one she hates lying to but knows she isn't likely to meet IRL. Then Kiki's parents transfer her to Jakarta's top Chinese School, where Sourdawg is a student. Adjusting to the school's conservative atmosphere is harder than Kiki expected as she faces bullying, strict teachers, and students who'd rather keep their heads down than try to change the toxic environment. After helping her American cousin Sharlot navigate sexism and a rocky start with her now-boyfriend in Sutanto's novel Well, That Was Unexpected, Kiki thinks she knows what to expect when roped into a matchmaking scheme she hopes will help her find Sourdawg. But Kiki soon realizes that with her confidence in tatters, she has to find her old self-assurance first. Chinese Indonesian Kiki is a cackle-inducing narrator with plenty of acerbic observations and snappy asides. Strong friendships at school with other female students help ground Kiki and give her the support she needs to speak out. The heaviness of Kiki's isolation and bullying throughout are countered with the mystery of Sourdawg and tentative flirting with deskmate Liam Ng. VERDICT A powerful trifecta of humor, romance, and feminism grounded in positive change.--Emma Carbone
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Carbone, Emma. "SUTANTO, Jesse Q.: Didn't See That Coming." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 63+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A778646590/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6fdc9b94. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $18 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-593-54622-2
Sutanto's zany third and final adventure for newlywed Meddy Chan and her bighearted yet bullheaded aunts (after Four Aunties and a Wedding) serves up all the mafia mixups and madcap chases that series fans have come to expect. Meddy and her well-mannered husband, Nathan, are honeymooning in France when they get a call from Meddy's mother inviting them to Jakarta to celebrate Chinese New Year with her large extended family. During the festivities, a cavalcade of sleek black cars arrive. From one of them emerges gangster Abraham "Abi" Lincoln, who, as a teen, was in love with Meddy's aunt Enjelin. He's come bearing gifts to the entire family in a bid to renew his courtship, but in a rush of excitement, an important document gets mixed in with the presents and then goes missing. Meddy, Nathan, and the aunties set out to retrieve it, only to fall into the middle of a vicious business rivalry that could endanger their lives. Some readers may be worn out by the unrelentingly frantic pace, but Sutanto packs in loads of local color, and gives the aunties ample opportunity to let their freak flags fly. This comic caper mostly pays off. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Mar.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 1, 8 Jan. 2024, p. 30. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A781166272/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b8847800. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AUNTIES Berkley (Fiction None) $29.00 3, 26 ISBN: 9780593546215
Meddy Chan's honeymoon with her dream mate is interrupted by theft, hostage taking, and abduction. But it's nothing the aunties can't handle.
At a chaotic celebration outside Jakarta, where Meddy's extended family has gathered to celebrate Chinese New Year, a red gift packet containing the title deed to a valuable parcel of land in downtown Jakarta that Abraham Lincoln Irawan, who's long carried a torch for Second Aunt Enjelin Chan, has earmarked for his creditor Julia Child Handoko, accidentally ends up in the hands of one of Meddy's cousins. Learning of the mishap, Julia Child--a rival businessperson who's the perfectly law-abiding head of a conglomerate, not another triad leader, Abi blandly assures Meddy--pressures the family to recover the deed by imprisoning Nathan Chan, Meddy's new husband. It's a testimony to the size of that family gathering that the discovery of a photograph showing the gift recipient kicks off a lively discussion of who she is and that the identification of the young woman in the photo with her as Annabelle leads to a further discussion of whose daughter she is. Because Rochelle, the friend of Annabelle who ended up with the deed, is the granddaughter of Kristofer Kolumbes Hermansah, a third absolutely legitimate businessperson, the family's attempt to retrieve it from Annabelle leads to still further complications. As the pot boils, the tone remains light and the frantic complications rollicking, though the four aunties, Meddy's mother and her three sisters, make a much less powerful impression individually than as a group.
Sutanto's hilarious triptych ends with a finale that could just as well have been titled "An Auntie You Can't Refuse."
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AUNTIES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A782202679/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a6031041. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
You Will Never Be Me
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $29 (336p)
ISBN 978-0-593-54694-9
Edgar winner Sutanto (I'm Not Done with You Yet) delivers a twisty suspense tale set in the cutthroat world of influencers. With more than five million followers on Instagram and TikTok, Aspen Palmer has become a full-blown social media celebrity. Her best friend, influencer Meredith Lee, credits herself with boosting Aspen's visibility by teaching her the tricks of the trade--which makes it all the more painful when Aspen dumps Meredith in the wake of her newfound fame. In the aftermath of their fallingout, Meredith grows obsessed, stalking Aspen and waiting outside the school her twin daughters attend. When one of Aspen's daughters leaves behind an unlocked iPad, Meredith snatches it, and is delighted to find she has access to Aspen's schedule. She reschedules meetings, sends unflattering emails from Aspen's address, and floods Aspen's social media accounts with trollish comments, putting her brand in jeopardy. Then Meredith vanishes, bringing her conflict with Aspen to a head and the police into the mix. Did Aspen have something to do with Meredith's disappearance? Or is she an innocent bystander? Either way, how will she handle the fallout online? Sutanto has devilish fun with her premise, lacquering the story's well-executed twists with a satirical sheen that pokes wicked fun at internet celebrity. The result is a near-perfect beach read. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
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"You Will Never Be Me." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 23, 10 June 2024, p. 70. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A800405261/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7be33100. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. YOU WILL NEVER BE ME Berkley (Fiction None) $29.00 8, 20 ISBN: 9780593546949
Sutanto turns from her lighthearted mysteries about older Asian American amateur sleuths to probe the toxic friendship between a pair of online influencers. It's fake, it's fatal, but it's still heartlessly funny.
Aspen Palmer was nobody when Meredith Lee spotted her at a party eight years ago and chatted her up. She wasn't even Aspen Palmer yet; her name was Ryleebelle--a terrible name for someone looking for likes--and she had yet to marry realtor Ben Palmer. Meredith, who marketed herself as "The Right Kind of Asian," gave her new friend a new name, taught her how to navigate social media without a net, and then watched as Aspen's numbers surpassed her own. Along the way, the pair recast themselves as momfluencers who modeled a lifestyle that went beyond fashion and beauty tips and dragged their young daughters into the spotlight. Inoffensive Ben, who doesn't make nearly as much money as Aspen, comes along for the ride; the sperm donor who fathered Meredith's baby is lucky enough to be forgotten. Six months ago, the two friends had a memorable spat over numbers and authenticity and all the rest of it, and since then they've avoided each other like poison until a series of disruptions causes one of them to decide that the rift between them doesn't go deep enough; they need a break that's altogether more decisive. Having established her credentials in YA fiction and gentle, albeit often manic comedy, Sutanto spins on a dime to show Meredith and Aspen dishing on each other with sublime and incandescent hatred. Even after tragedy strikes, their numbers continue to go through the roof. Until.
Social media mavens will nod in recognition; everyone else will come away relieved that this could never happen to them.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: YOU WILL NEVER BE ME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A799332963/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=87a1909e. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
You Will Never Be Me.
By Jesse Q. Sutanto.
Aug. 2024. 336p. Berkley, $29 (9780593546949); e-book
(9780593546956).
Prolific Sutanto is made for Hollywood: Netflix optioned her rollicking, corpse-ridden Aunties trilogy; Oprah and Mindy grabbed Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023). She's moved her latest novel to Los Angeles and aims her gleefully calculating glare on social media influencers. Eight years ago, Meredith befriended Ryleebelle. Meredith was already "The Right Kind of Asian," having transformed herself from her Ohio roots into an online "everyone ... loves me" Instagrammer. Ryleebelle, in contrast, "looks very clearly like an Asian person from Asia, and not the right parts of Asia." Meredith, "gracious, generous," bestows Ryleebelle with "the most valuable gift. The gift of fitting in," including a new name, Aspen. Fast-forward to now, when #AllDayAspen is a mega-mom-fluencer and Meredith hasn't even hit that first million. Their soulmate days are over with Meredith desperately "Stalking Lite" her ex-bestie. Reconciliation? As if. Just staying alive is gonna be hard enough. Sutanto has written another page-turner, in spite of revealing why-who-dun-what halfway. Despite predictable plotlines, Sutanto expertly traps willing readers into an over-the-top chaotic vacuum with surprisingly satiating results. --Terry Hong
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
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Hong, Terry. "You Will Never Be Me." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 21, July 2024, p. 32. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A804615827/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7ba23ea1. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Sutanto, Jesse Q. VERA WONG'S GUIDE TO SNOOPING (ON A DEAD MAN) Berkley (Fiction None) $30.00 4, 1 ISBN: 9780593546246
Flush with confidence from her first case, San Francisco's most convivial teahouse owner and self-described "intermediate murder investigator" leaps into a second with both feet.
Leaving the local police station, where she's gone to report a phone scammer who's preyed on her, Vera Wong Zhuzhu notices Millie, a frightened young woman who can't seem to bring herself to enter the station. Naturally, Vera invites her home for tea, introduces her to the quasi-family into which she's molded the innocent suspects from her earlier investigation, and gently points out that building superintendent and freelance journalist Oliver Chen would be a particularly good catch. Millie, it turns out, is concerned about the disappearance of her Chinese Indonesian friend Thomas Smith, whose career as media influencer Xander Lin--which Millie knew nothing about--has been cut short by his drowning. Police officer Selena Gray--who's the live-in girlfriend of Vera's son, lawyer Tilly Wong--assumes that the death is accidental, but since Vera's most comfortable when she's catching killers, she hunts down Xander's girlfriend, Aimes (not Amy, just Aimes) and his talent manager, TJ Vasquez, and bombards them with enough mouthwatering dishes and nosey questions to reduce them to tears of gratitude and convince herself that, like Millie and Xander himself, they're definitely hiding something that smells like murder. So, she launches an unlikely new sideline as a social media personality herself in order to spread her net wider. Rollicking as Vera's inquiries are, they ultimately lead to a very dark place, covering the emotional gamut from A to Z.
A warmhearted valentine to the families built by the heroine--and an exposé of the costs of false families everywhere.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Sutanto, Jesse Q.: VERA WONG'S GUIDE TO SNOOPING (ON A DEAD MAN)." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A827101223/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=77e985d8. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.
Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $19 trade paper (336p)
ISBN 978-0-593-54625-3
Edgar winner Sutanto's quirky second adventure for the eponymous tea shop owner (after Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) opens with Vera falling prey to a phone scam. After reporting the incident to Officer Selena Gray-who's dating Vera's son, Tilly--Vera notices a distressed young woman waiting outside the police station. Vera insists on taking the woman, Millie, to her shop, where Millie reveals that her friend Thomas went missing three nights earlier. Then, while feeding Selena and Tilly's cat, Vera stumbles upon Selena's briefcase, which includes a file outlining the apparent suicide of social media influencer Xander Lin. Using her well-honed sleuthing skills, Vera discovers that Xander and Thomas are the same person, and she then proceeds to ingratiate herself with a group of suspects including Xander's girlfriend, talent manager, and grandfather to suss out the young man's fate. Laugh-out-loud antics from the nosy, no-nonsense Vera keep the plot moving at a steady clip, but fans of the first book may be jarred by the somber final reveal. Still, Sutanto's lively storytelling will keep readers on the hook for Vera's next case. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Apr.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 PWxyz, LLC
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"Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 7, 17 Feb. 2025, pp. 32+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A829933361/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8fb394fa. Accessed 3 Aug. 2025.