A review by perfectionism
How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

dark funny mysterious medium-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

4.0

The ending left me angry. I felt like there was some great injustice and i don’t know whether that means the ending was good or bad in a literature sense but i think it had a certain irony to it as well.
Revenge driven girl works her entire life to make father pay for abandoning her mother by killing off whole family  only for the final blow being committed by an unknown half brother who blackmails her into letting him keep the inheritance all while claiming they’ve both won.
What a certainly sad and realistic ending to a bizarre story.

Grace said things  sometimes that made me make a face and i think that’s precisely why i liked her character. Her thoughts about men, women, her self awareness about her certain biases, obsessions but then the  lack of awareness about other parts of herself felt so realistic in a real person way. I really did feel like i was hearing the recount of a story from a real woman. She was  unlikeable at times. To be honest, nearly all the characters were. But with her and
her brother
i could always see a greater reasoning behind their actions that made some sort of sense.

I feel a sort of frustration or unfinished feeling towards this book but i don’t actually dislike this book. It was entertaining on a surface level and touched on ideas about women’s place in society that were surprisingly interesting amid the tiny bits of self aware internalised misogyny. It all just feels a little ironic, a little funny, a little dark. Fun book.
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