Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

77 reviews

mtnest's review against another edition

funny mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Vomit, Infertility, Infidelity, Addiction, and Violence

Minor: War and Alcohol

pookiee's review

funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

this was really fun! quite unique and interesting style. i ate it up in a day, but it’s def not for those who don’t like self-referential humor—the page #s where someone dies are literally given in the prologue.

some of the gangland plot was lost on me despite pausing to reread those parts a bunch 😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Infidelity and Suicide

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Vomit, Infertility, and Alcohol

theninth's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Infidelity, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Blood, Classism, and Death

Moderate: Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Child death, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Addiction, Death, and Suicide

Minor: Suicide, Police brutality, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Murder, Medical trauma, and Panic attacks/disorders

chemistrychick68's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

I absolutely love the way the narrator/MC kept breaking the 4th wall. As well as all of the "editors notes", making the reader feel like they are reading the final draft of the book and that all of these events are happening in real time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Infidelity, and Drug use

clairebonney's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

This novel was an absolute delight ☺️ It deserves all the hype, and I hate hype (Rebel Tendency)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Torture, Addiction, Death, Suicide, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child death, Infidelity, and Vomit

somelatenightreading's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Infidelity, Blood, and Child death

Minor: Car accident, Drug use, and Drug abuse

lastblossom's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

tl;dr
A deeply self-aware tribute to the golden age of murder mysteries with plenty of twists and a satisfying conclusion. Mostly funny, but also incredibly melancholy.

About
Ernest Cunningham knows plenty about a good murder, or at least fictional ones. He spends most of his time writing books on how to write books, and staying away from his extremely complicated family. But when a mandatory family reunion at a distant ski lodge leads to several real life deaths, our hapless writer will have to unravel the murders and his own family's very messy history.

Thoughts
Snappy writing and dark humor are the order of the day, with the fictional author POV deeply self-aware that this adventure is falling into some of the classic murder mystery tropes. As a fan of murder mysteries from all eras, I enjoyed the genre breakdowns, and definitely laughed at some of his incredibly dry commentary. The writer Ernest promises that true to his name, he will tell no lies. But despite being honest, he is not terribly earnest. Through all the referential jokes, I began to sense an emotional wall in the MC akin to a kid on the playground who is all-too-eager to point out their own flaws so that no one else can mention them first. By the time I got to the end of the book, I couldn't help but feel like the entire thing was a story told by a sad person who is working very hard to insist they are not sad.

Like the MC, the book has a strict adherence to the rules - namely Ronald Knox's Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction, and it does its best to be a fair play mystery, with regular reminders of all the clues currently available. Overall the mystery is really solidly built, with twists in all the right places and a strong reveal at the end. One of the earlier clues felt really out of place to me, and it still feels like a slight coincidence that we even got it. Everything else fits together really well, and although I expected the ending, it still came as a great shock when it actually happened. A fairy easy read for fans of the murder mystery genre with a lot of irreverent narration and a good reveal.

Edit: Second book is out, and it might be even better? You can find my review of it here!

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for a review copy. All thoughts in this review are my own.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Suicide, Child death, and Infidelity

Minor: Death of parent, Drug use, and Infertility