grindelmonster 's review for:

The Author's Guide to Murder by Lauren Willig, Karen White, Beatriz Williams

1.5

medium-paced

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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3 things this book is NOT A pure delight start to finish.

Agatha Christie meet Murder She Wrote. whodunnit with heart. Where is the heart?

This book was a ride and not in a good way. It's probably best to take heed of the dedication and author's note at the end. They apologize to the Scottish people. Then proceed to mock Scottish culture and use every overdone trope about the Scott's for the rest of the book. This book clearly was written by 3 different people. It's chaotic, some side characters and plot are so well thought out and others are just a hot mess.

While this book is written with satire in mind but it's not good satire in my option. They give us 3 completely unrelatable and unlikable MCs. All based ontropes of women, the slut, the nerd, and the wholesome mother with no personality outside of being a wife and mother. But the characters never really developed past their assigned tropes. Do these authors always write women so badly? If I wanted one deminonal and stereotypical written woman I could read a book written by an out of touch man.

This book does redeem itself with a quick and interesting plot but you have to make it to part 2 for that. Even then the MCs struggle to gain my interest or even get me to care about them. And if you read this book let talk about Cassie and how much her husband is the real villain of this book!