Trust No Aunty by Maria Qamar (A Review by Aimee Silver)

This was a quick, sassy and cheeky read. I enjoyed learning more about another culture and drawing parallels with aunties in my own life – the matchmaker aunty, the soft aunty, and the overfeeder aunty in particular. I never put such a fine point on all the aunties in my world, but the descriptions are bang on. And we all have them, no matter the culture – friendly, overbearing, sometimes passive aggressive, busybodies who look out for us and impart their wisdom and advice whether we want/need it or not. Trust No Aunty is divided into different parts: School, Professional, Love, Beauty, Kitchen, Lifestyle. Each has personal anecdotes, fierce artwork, and descriptions of the types of aunties most commonly encountered in each. I enjoyed the proposed aunty sayings & scenarios with Rookie and Boss responses for each. While they often went to extremes, the underlying theme was “you do you” and sometimes ended with sage advice like “this will get you slapped but will be so worth it”. The recipes were drool-worthy. The sections on “What Your Chai Reveals About You” and “ What Your Roti Shape Says About You” were great! Though, this non-desi girl was hoping for more details with some of the recipes – “borrow ingredients from your mom” and “it should smell like your parents house” are tough benchmarks! Still, I can’t wait to try making my own “authentic” Daal and Kheer! Review by Aimee Silver