I don’t need to like characters but it helps to engage with them if there are some nuances to their personalities. I didn’t get that with this novel. Having killed off six people — a few of them in gruesome circumstances in a sauna or a sex club — Grace shows little remorse. Even people who had nothing to do with her father’s treatment of her and her mother got bumped off simply because they are heirs to the fortune she believes is rightly hers.

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie | Goodreads How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie | Goodreads

Take the plot of the Ealing film classic Kind Hearts of Coronets. Make your central character an anti-hero assassin in the vein of Villanelle from Killing Eve. Add in a lot of snarky comments about twenty-first century life and you get the essence of How to Kill Your Family. One thing is when you expect something from a book and then you realize that's not going to happen, another story is when the book is also outrageously bad.I also really loved the little insights into Grace’s societal views. They’re often added to the ends of paragraphs, and they’re caustic, witty, judgemental and completely deadpan.

In brief: How to Kill Your Family; Guarded by Dragons

How To Kill Your Family follows Grace who is on a mission to get rid of the family who wronged her and take their fortune. However, she is currently serving time for a murder that she did not commit. A funny, compulsive read about family dysfunction and the media’s obsession with murder’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE And her killing her cousin, who is nice and rejects the wealth just because she thinks that because he's a man he will give in eventually and become like them anyway... Well, it felt very forced and not really a great reason to kill anyone. There’s no real drama. No point at which she is almost caught in the act which would have come as a welcome intermission.You’ll be gripped… Grace’s emotional detachment throughout will give you chills’ Rated 5 stars by COSMOPOLITAN it was trying too hard to sound funny/witty - mostly with a lot of millennial humour, and constant snipes at influencers and internet-obsessed young people (ok boomer) She plans with extreme precision and executes these plans with ease and no regrets. It is only on reflection that I realise just how vile her deeds were. While I was absorbed in her world, the violence and immorality of her acts was camouflaged by her planning, precision and rationalisation. I have killed several people (some brutally, others calmly) and yet I currently languish in jail for a murder I did not commit. I've been wanting to read a good anti-hero type story for a while, and though I've had my eye on the Sweetpea books, this one caught my eye due to the cover and the hype it received.

BBC Radio 4 - How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

There's no two ways about it, Grace, the protagonist of this story isn't a nice person. And yet, I still found myself really liking her as a character. She is brutally honest, incredibly vengeful and darkly comical and we as the reader get front row seats to her innermost thoughts and feelings told through her life story written while serving time in prison for a crime she, ironically, didn't actually commit. I thought the premise was fantastic and I really enjoyed reading as Grace executed her cunning plans as well as her musings on all manner of subjects including wealth, class and even influencers. The narrative is generally really sharp and clever although at times Grace's story is interrupted by the present day so at times I could understand why people found this to be a bit of a ramble. I didn't actually mind this as it felt more realistic for me personally. After all, whose thoughts are ever organised? Amidst the chaos of the calculated revenge plot are flashes of humour and Grace’s hilarious but true observations about the mundanity and bizarreness of life. It is a surprisingly uplifting story in places and while I never felt that her victims deserved their ultimate fates, Grace’s certainty and confidence was almost able to convince me of the necessity of her deeds.Grace is an intriguing character who at times, the reader can only admire for her gumption, drive and unapologetic cruelty. I don’t aspire to become a Grace-like psychopathic killer, but I would like to imitate certain aspects of her strong but complicated character in my own life. Her ambition and determinism is, while directed in completely the wrong places, inspiring. She is exactly what a woman is told she shouldn’t be. She is goal driven, selfish and behaves in a way that diametrically opposes the stereotypical image of a subdued woman. Nobody would consider Grace a role-model but her sense of freedom from the many expectational chains placed on almost every human being, must have made her an incredibly cathartic character to write about.