Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

39 reviews

saskiahill's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Grief, Sexual content, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Alcohol, Blood, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Death, Drug abuse, Violence, and Drug use

abi_sarah's review against another edition

dark funny medium-paced

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

4.0

Took me a while to get into it, but I really loved this book! 

Bella Mackie’s writing was so witty and painfully honest. The familial annoyances that Grace felt throughout were so relatable - she just had an extreme response to them! 😅 

I felt like the first deaths happened a little to early, so there was a then a bit of a lull for me where I lost interest a bit. It soon picked ip again though and held my interest until the very end. The last 35-30% really had me gripped - there were just so many new twists and turns that I just wanted to keep reading! 

The only thing I would stay that stops it from being 5 stars, is that sometimes I found Grace’s reasoning behind her murders a little shallow? Maybe it was just me, but a bit of believability escaped there for me.

Excellent writing from Bella Mackie, highly entertaining! Great story-telling too! Loved the plot twists, so imaginative!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Body horror, Drug abuse, Car accident, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Blood, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Alcoholism, and Sexual assault

kimberleyann's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I thought the first 3/4 of the book was written well,  however

the ending ruined it for me, I didn’t like that it switched to the brothers perspective and then we didn’t hear anything else from the FMC

I did find the book gripping.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Death, Violence, Sexual content, Abandonment, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

theelliad's review against another edition

3.5

How to Kill Your Family is the account of serial murders told from the perspective of the killer as she serves jail time for a murder she didn’t commit.

The narrative voice of this novel is hilarious and sarcastic and truly kept me engaged, alongside this the dual timeline of the story is handled well and it was structurally enjoyable and followable. That said, I was disappointed by the ending, the twist was not the best but I thought fitted the story well, it was rather the transformation in Grace (the protagonist) in the final chapters. The self sufficient, powerful and somewhat narcissistic personality she has established falls victim to the writers need for a conclusion becoming submissive, easily forgiving and a bit boring as the final events of her life are recounted; it was this, more so than the plot twist, which didn’t feel right to me. However, that said I did enjoy this book enough to speed through it in a matter of days and so I cannot judge it too harshly! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Murder, Grief, Gaslighting, Violence, Stalking, Sexual content, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gore, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Classism, Cancer, Misogyny, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Body horror, and Blood

junglejelly's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The beginning and end of the book are great but I found the middle to be formulaic with the same structure

this is how I killed X member of the family

. I enjoyed the start and finale immensely with the writing being so captivating and entertaining.

The ending is definitely a satisfying one and one I will remember for a while.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Terminal illness

Minor: Sexism, Fatphobia, Bullying, Drug use, and Infidelity

atomicbritt's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Murder, Torture, Violence, Body shaming, Classism, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship

tasarla's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Good beach read :)

I loved reading this in the first person where the narrator is an absolute psycho! 

I really like the writing style (though upon reading other reviews it appears to be divisive). The main character is supposed to be hateable and not relatable so if you’re into that this book is a great example of it

Despite the “funny” tag I’d say the book has some amusing moments rather than it actually being funny

The plot in the first half of the book is much stronger than the second half IMO, but I still liked the rest of the book and enjoyed the ending. 

The murders are well-described but not gory or disgustingly graphic detail, which I liked because it made an otherwise heavy book feel more light

Normally I feel like books focus too much on romantic side-plots but this one failed in this aspect. Spoiler:

I feel like Jimmys storyline was never actually wrapped up properly. It was hreat up until he realises she didn’t push his fiancée off the balcony then he’s never mentioned again other than everything goes back to normal!? Could’ve done with some kind of closure scene of those two!

Probably wouldn’t re-read but I did enjoy reading it overall

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Car accident, Incest, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Sexual content, Murder, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Drug use, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Forced institutionalization, and Stalking

syazahaniss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

The lack of dialogues made it feel very draggy, slow and almost nonfiction-like. The chapters were incredibly long and the British English was also a tad bit difficult to understand, so I was practically dragging myself through the book. Grace herself gave off very arrogant vibes because she looks down on everyone else.

What I thought made the story very disorganized was that her victims seemed very random. I thought it would just be Simon, Janine and Bryony (direct relation) where at least I could see the structure of the killing, but Andrew and the grandparents felt so unrelated. So Grace just killed them off because they were mean people? They barely had any interactions with her; for all she knows they’re nice. Her killing off people she’s never even spoken to made me think she was the evil one here?

Also it kind of annoyed me that every single one of her plans went according to plan. Because realistically, how does one suddenly wake up one day vengeful and deciding to kill her entire family and actually gets away with it with no problems whatsoever?

That said, I don’t know why this book is so popular. I didn’t like it at all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Misogyny and Stalking

Minor: Grief

holliesatchell's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Incest, Sexual content, Death of parent, Drug use, Murder, Grief, Misogyny, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Violence

nindie's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Stalking, Classism, and Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Cancer, Cursing, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Grief, Gore, Car accident, Alcoholism, Blood, and Body horror

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Incest, Physical abuse, Medical content, and Emotional abuse