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A review by skylarkblue1
How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie
challenging
dark
slow-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
0.25
This is... certainly a book. The more I read, the more pissed off I got at it honestly. The more I just *hated* the main character. She's so self-centered, aggressive, and her ego is insanely huge. I really disliked the parts from the prison, as it all could just be summed up as "I hate this place, I'm so smart than everyone else here I shouldn't be here" and you wouldn't really miss anything.
The concept is interesting, though pretty bare-bones. Revenge against a family who abandoned you. Except that even after learning they're not all the same, she doesn't give a single crap and kills them all regardless. The abandonment is also iffy at best, her father had an affair with her mother, father didn't want anything to do with them *apparently*. Did she try and contact her father? nope. Did she even verify if the story that he was actually her father was correct? nope.
The misogyny throughout - especially from the main character - is astonishing as well. Constantly belittling women, constantly shaming others' bodies for being "too perfect" or "not perfect enough" and it's just so tiring to read. It could have been a good satire about not judging someone by their looks or whatever, but no there's absolutely 0 commentary of that kind.
The incestuous stuff as well was really iffy to read. Grace's first thought for all the men is just "lets seduce them in one way or another" one of them literally including sex clubs with hard kinks. Yes, she takes who she believes is a close family member to a hard kink sex club. And yes, they do go into a private room. While not overly explicit it's still incredibly awkward and pretty gross.
Her treatment towards others all through the book is just horrific. She blackmails a literal child who *she* asked for help from and he was just going along with things. She has 0 issues manipulating and lying to whoever to get whatever she wants. And none of this is in a "ooh she's so smart and sneaky" way, all of it is in a "if someone actually did this in reality they'd get caught in like, 2 seconds because of how brain dead it all is".
The ending is also very stupid. It's very easy to guess how it ends, the "foreshadowing" isn't very subtle at all. Those "letters" at the end, was honestly just skipping through so much of it because I do not want to read a whole page of random "ooh football talk!" like come on. It had 0 impact or anything, it was just pure filler waffle nonsense for the *climax* and entire twist. Purely "tell don't show".
This isn't a book based in reality, it's very much it's own fantasy world. It's not clever, it's not satire. It's just a book about someone bragging how fantastic and clever they are while being incredibly stupid and aggravating all the way through. The only thing that make me remotely smile was the "bible story that wasn't from the bible" near the start.
The concept is interesting, though pretty bare-bones. Revenge against a family who abandoned you. Except that even after learning they're not all the same, she doesn't give a single crap and kills them all regardless. The abandonment is also iffy at best, her father had an affair with her mother, father didn't want anything to do with them *apparently*. Did she try and contact her father? nope. Did she even verify if the story that he was actually her father was correct? nope.
The misogyny throughout - especially from the main character - is astonishing as well. Constantly belittling women, constantly shaming others' bodies for being "too perfect" or "not perfect enough" and it's just so tiring to read. It could have been a good satire about not judging someone by their looks or whatever, but no there's absolutely 0 commentary of that kind.
The incestuous stuff as well was really iffy to read. Grace's first thought for all the men is just "lets seduce them in one way or another" one of them literally including sex clubs with hard kinks. Yes, she takes who she believes is a close family member to a hard kink sex club. And yes, they do go into a private room. While not overly explicit it's still incredibly awkward and pretty gross.
Her treatment towards others all through the book is just horrific. She blackmails a literal child who *she* asked for help from and he was just going along with things. She has 0 issues manipulating and lying to whoever to get whatever she wants. And none of this is in a "ooh she's so smart and sneaky" way, all of it is in a "if someone actually did this in reality they'd get caught in like, 2 seconds because of how brain dead it all is".
The ending is also very stupid. It's very easy to guess how it ends, the "foreshadowing" isn't very subtle at all. Those "letters" at the end, was honestly just skipping through so much of it because I do not want to read a whole page of random "ooh football talk!" like come on. It had 0 impact or anything, it was just pure filler waffle nonsense for the *climax* and entire twist. Purely "tell don't show".
This isn't a book based in reality, it's very much it's own fantasy world. It's not clever, it's not satire. It's just a book about someone bragging how fantastic and clever they are while being incredibly stupid and aggravating all the way through. The only thing that make me remotely smile was the "bible story that wasn't from the bible" near the start.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Violence, Misogyny, Car accident, and Body shaming
Moderate: Sexual content, Gore, Drug use, and Eating disorder
Unknown Incestuous Relationships (One party is aware it's incestuous, the other isn't)