Caution - This review does contain spoilers.
Title: How To Kill Your Family
Author: Bella Mackie
Genre: Crime Thriller
Trigger warnings: death of a parent, descriptions of murder and death, descriptions of sex acts, references to suicide, references to drug use.
Rating: ★★★★
The Plot
Our protagonist Grace Bernard is a young woman living in London who discovers that her absent billionaire father had abandoned her and her mother both emotionally and financially, leaving her mother to bring Grace up as a single parent with a very low income. He had even rejected her dying mother's pleas for him to support Grace, who at that point was a pre-teen, after her death. As a result, Grace hatches a revenge scheme again her father and his immediate family. Grace one by one kills these family members but, before she can complete the final of her schemes and murder her father, she finds herself in prison, and for a murder she did not even commit. Whilst in prison, to kill time and avoid having to speak to her cellmate, she writes her story and this retelling forms the narrative for the novel.
My thoughts
As a fiction debut for author Bella Mackie (the Sunday Times bestselling author of Jog On: How Running Saved My Life), I found How To Kill Your Family to be a real page turner and one which I was able to consume over just a couple of days. Also, is it acceptable to give a book bonus points in a rating for having a title which quite frankly terrifies everyone who sees you reading it?
You don't often expect to find humour within a novel about murder yet Bella Mackie has successfully woven comedy throughout the book. The majority of the killings take place in ridiculous ways which are almost satirical and therefore not triggering to the reader, which was one of her aims as an author. As a result of this, How To Kill Your Family is not a book full of blood, guts and gore, despite being about murder. Bella Mackie was interviewed on the Book Off! podcast shortly after the release of the novel and it was a fascinating listen. She talks about her inspiration for how she pitched the violence within the story and explained it was in response to the general misogyny of the coverage of crime. So instead of a story which focuses on the gory violence committed by a male against a nameless faceless female victim, she wanted to write a story where the violence was almost a background feature and the reader's focus was on the story and the motive.
How To Kill Your Family does lack character development in any character other than the anti-hero protagonist Grace but I found this to contribute effectively to the unusual situation where we as readers are rooting for the serial killer protagonist and feeling very little sympathy for her victims. I delighted in how clever and well thought out each of her plots actually were and we, as readers, get to inhabit Grace's mind and follow along as she plans and executes (if you pardon the pun) these murders, anticipating the details of each murder as we go along. And dare I say it but we actually get some satisfaction when they happen, or at least I was satisfied when they took place and you can take from that what you will about my personality!
In terms of pace, I found the narrative to be largely medium-paced although Mackie has skilfully woven in some narration of a slower pace and some faster-paced scenes. Personally I found this to be very effective as I think when you are writing something which is ultimately the written version of a character's inner monologue, you need to account for the ways in which human thoughts can vary in terms of both depth and pace dependent on a multitude of factors. There is also very little dialogue to contribute to the pace.
My original star rating of How To Kill Your Family was 3* as I found the ending, with a new character introduced in the final chapters who altered the course of the ending, to be very disappointing. But upon further research into the novel and the author's inspiration behind the plot, I've given it an additional star as the explanation this gave showed how effective a literary choice this was; I just required a little help to realise it. Reading her explanation triggered a lightbulb moment in my head when suddenly it all made sense and therefore my attitude to the ending changed! In an interview with Marie Claire magazine Bella Mackie said "This book is all about men having power over women and the system being rigged to make men win." and this provides really sums up how the introduction of Harry, a male character, was used to alter the destiny of the protagonist. Grace's primary aim in the killing of her father's immediate family was to cut off any other potential lines of inheritance for her father's million pound fortune, therefore leaving all of the money to herself. But suddenly Harry comes into the mix and gets to take that win away from Grace. I think it is also very effective that there is no dialogue or interaction between Grace and Harry in those final chapters, the ending is told through Harry's voice, reiterating the idea that in society men get to win and women don't get a say in it. It is an infuriating ending for the reader but this really emphasises the message about the female role in society Bella Mackie was trying to convey. I do, however, wish that there could have been more clarity on the reason for the ending without me as a reader having to research myself. This could have been effectively done in the form of an afterword. Based on other reviews of this novel I've read, this clarity was definitely needed for most readers as it really takes a lot of thought before you have that lightbulb moment of understanding.
I also found the subplot of the crime she didn't commit (yet found herself in prison for) very predictable from an early stage. It is difficult because I loved the concept and irony of her being imprisoned for the one murder she didn't commit yet this part of the plot fell very flat for me. I potentially would have liked this subplot to cause more tension, through a possibility of it linking Grace to her actual crimes for example. I also found this 'crime' to be very frustrating as she is ultimately convicted of something when the entirety of the case for prosecution was based on eyewitness testimonies of people who weren't even on the balcony. I understand that these flaws in the case were part of the reason she was able to launch the successful appeal needed to get her out of prison and able to carry on her murder missions but it just missed the mark for me.
Overall, How To Kill Your Family is a fantastic read for anyone with a dark sense of humour and anyone who wants a crime thriller focused on the motive and carefully planning of the killings, instead of drawn-out descriptions of violence and gore. It is a fantastic debut fiction novel from Bella Mackie and has made me very excited to read her future works.
Have you read How To Kill Your Family? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
