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

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

I enjoyed the first part of this book. I enjoyed understanding her thoughts of why she chose to 

kill her grandparents

in that specific manner and why she felt they deserved it. I also enjoyed the portions where she was in jail and slowly uncovering the reasons why she was there. 

However, I think that I stopped enjoying the book as much when she killed 

Andrew

. I felt like her motivation didn't make as much sense as the others as he had never directly done anything against the main character or in the same vein as what the other family members had done. 

The sections where we learnt more about her backstory felt like they dragged on too long too. I understand that a good portion of it was necesary to understand her motivations and build up to the ending, but I just found myself waiting for those sections to be over to get back to the interesting parts of the book. 

The ending felt like a huge let down too.

I could see the plot twist coming that her father was killed by someone else and I thought it was an interesting twist that her careful plans didn't pan out the way that she thought they would. However, it felt kinda cheap that this mysterious character swept in at the last second to take everything she had worked for. It felt especially frustrating as he had grown up in a much more priveliged position and didn't "deserve" or "need" the money in the same way.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if she was able to get the money and then he showed up and found a way to manipulate her out of the money or something.

 

Characters: 4/10  x2
Atmosphere: 5/10  
Writing: 5/10   x2
Plot: 6/10   x2
Intrigue: 6/10  
Logic: 6/10  
Enjoyment: 4/10   x3