Review by kneginja - How to Kill Men and Get Away With It

kneginja 's review for:

How to Kill Men and Get Away With It by Katy Brent

2.0

dark funny lighthearted 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: Yes

Book Club #1

2.0 ⭐

While there were quite a few things about the book that I did not like at all, I literally couldn't put it down. When talking to a friend, I compared it to eating cookies while I'm on my period, and I'm not a cookie lover - I don't find them really tasty, but they hit some weird spot and I can't stop eating them.

The main character is very sanctimonious and I didn't find any characters really likeable at all. They all came off annoying, insensitive, or like downright caricatures. There is a bit of explicit sex in the book, which I never find enjoyable, but this one was hilarious to read instead of cringy. The quote "You have the most beautiful

cunt

" is becoming a vocabulary staple. This generally was a book that I found funny when I feel it intended to be genuinely serious. And while I enjoyed it and don't consider the time I spent reading wasted, I think the book is much more "Sex and Manslaughter" than "She-Dexter" as it intended to be.

Two huge (and one smaller) spoiler-ful gripes I have with the book:

1.

I hate the fact that Tor is the member of the friend group who gets the worst situation. It reminds me very much of that one scene in Showgirls. Don't get me wrong, I love that movie, but I always skip over that scene. And something in your book reminding me of that specific scene is a really bad thing. Awful, awful part of the book, made worse by the fact that Tor is the only character I found remotely likeable in this book.

I thought this book was going to explore the gender dynamic a bit more cleverly than it did, and it did what I feared it would do - it made a woman the main antagonist. Like, Hen's motivation was "I felt like it" and not much else? Correct me if I misread that last few chapters, but after revealing that she lied about her father abusing her, she simply said "just 'cause" and "you must die". The book would have been a solid 3 - 3.5 ⭐ had Hen had a single strand of motivation within her, but she ended up a plastic, one-dimensional villain. I know girls can be really evil (I went to high school), but this is caricature levels of evil. I tried to terrify you, I terrorised you, I stalked you and made you feel unsafe in your own home, all because I was what? Bored and jealous? Didn't like that at all.

This is supposedly a book about a woman becoming a vigilante and murdering men. She killed three men by pure chance. The first guy from the nightclub, Maisie's ex-situationship, and her first Tinder victim whom she did intend to murder, but accidentally OD-d him. Kitty is just the most incompetent serial killer of all time. She wears short dresses, has her hair down, barely mentions gloves, and just leaves DNA all over the place. Those two detectives that visited her are even worse at their jobs than she is at her hobby. She's just like Carrie from SATC in my opinion - I find her annoying and incompetent, but it entertains me to watch her do her thing.

While those things brought my rating down immensely and I don't see myself ever rereading it, I had fun with it. It was an immensely quick read, which I really appreciate, and I like Brent's writing style in most situations. I think there was the right amount of suspense, but it should be made more prominent that this is more about love and friendship than outright murder.

Content Warnings