Bella Mackie

A Novel

How to Kill Your Family

Cosmopolitan's best books of 2021 Grazia's best books of 2021

Tali ⋆.˚🦋༘⋆

I have enclosed a cheque for £5000, which is more than generous, but given your health problems feels like the right thing to do.

It’s strange to realise that you loathe your father before you ever have a chance to meet him.

Lindy

But then again, forging a connection over hatred can be stronger than anything else. Stronger than bonding over a love of ceramics or a passion for avant garde opera.

I might be able to carry out a ruthless line in fairly epic revenge, but I didn't know how to stop love. That felt completely beyond me and it made me feel like I was drowning.

That sense of drama lives on inside me, but I've long learnt to keep it in check. If you're going to execute a plan to, well, execute a bunch of people, you cannot let your emotions run wild.

Hana 

But neither will I emerge half broken. I will go on living, thriving, and this period of my life will not mark me.

Charlotte 

We became close, as I leant into my new position as closest relative and confidant, hopeful that it would be short-lived with your assistance. 

She'd been spared, but that was always negotiable. 

Someone feeling smug for helping you is not the same as loving you.

He used to stroke my arm as I fell asleep, knowing I would get anxious when the day came to an end. He'd lie by my side and trace the freckles on my arm. 

What a generous man my uncle was. In just twenty minutes, he'd given me a free drink, and a lead on how to kill him. Who says the ultra-rich don't help the needy?

I expect growing up relying on just one person means that I need more information than a normal person when it comes to trust.

Aimee :)

One more to go, daddy dearest. I was coming for you.

I knew it was her in seconds. I didn't spend years watching her grow up online without knowing innately what she looked like from every angle. What a depressing waste of brain space. 'What did you spend your twenties doing, Grace? Well I watched an entitled airhead make vlogs about lip balm and I learnt all about her top five sunglasses shapes. Maybe I should off myself too.

That's how teenage relationships should be. They burn short, but boy do they burn bright.

Why do men send unsolicited pictures of their dicks?

He proposed on her birthday. I don't mean to imply that Jimmy has no spontaneity but people who propose on big meaningful dates lack imagination.

You make plans and God laughs. I made plans to murder seven people and ended up in jail for the death of someone I didn't even touch. God would be having a hernia.

I feel quite often that it's good not to know what goes on in the male mind. If we did, I suspect we would spend bar of our lives in fearful despair.

If you are delusional enough to believe that anyone wants to see a grainy iPhone picture of your faccid little friend, you deserve to get bled for it.

I've thought of it many times since, always with a smile. Because even at 13 (and though I was too nice back then to let myself think it explicitly). I comforted myself with the knowledge that I would grow up and mooriored now, really know, the pain that we had suffered.

Besides, my mother had already met the man she would give her whole heart to. The man who would become my father. The man who would promise her the world and shower her with gifts. The man who I would grow up swearing to ruin.

Must have been a fun night. I'm glad. I'm not a monster. It's nice that they're leaving the world on a high note. It's more than Marie was given, but I must be the better person here. I'm going to decimate their entire family, the least I can allow them is a goody bag and a spin at the roulette table.

Bulan

i hate that i put this book off for so long, because this was SO FUN! i could not stop reading it! would recommend if you like women doing crimes

Stas

crazt fun title and idea. boring execution.

Riveting and funny, with creative murders. Shame the ending feels abrupt and unsatisfying :( 

Jack B Rosie

Contrary to popular view, I enjoyed the lengthy descriptions of the creative murders - I felt that the class criticism was necessary to understand how diabolical the Artemises were. As for the ending, though unpleasant, was realistic. 

Thoroughly enjoyed however I wish the ending had been a bit different. Found the author to be humorous and found pleasure in the writing style. 

Tricia K

I finally went back and finished this. It was ok, an interesting idea just a bit one note in delivery and faded away towards the end.

Emma Cragg

I had to read this for school and i did enjoy it but not as much as i thought i would. The book was mostly boring even though it was about murder 🥲 it did have a good plottwist at the end though

Femke

mimansa 

Don't want to start rambling and go off track about the book but the Author clearly does so. After the first two chapters you realize the plot of the story and continue to read so as to know it in a detailed manner. But to want to know the whys, hows and wheres in this story, the readers have to go through a jungle of unwanted obsrvations and irrelevant information. At a point, the wheres and hows weren't even worth reading through the long unwanted chapters. 
Overall, the plot of the story is intriguing, but the writing really put me off ://

Interesting plot, pretty dark, but was kind of disappointed by the ending. The first 3/4 of the book from Grace’s perspective were pretty good, but the ending was kinda meh. Not bad, but could’ve ended in a more thrilling manner.

Erin Goss

Archiell

How to kill your family mais para how to Waste your time?

Duas estrelas porque o início foi algo de jeito depois não sabia se estava a ler um livro sobre um murder ou um livro do Eça de Queiroz (as 74 páginas a descrever uma sala fora mais interessantes)

Syahla Aurel

where do i start, the first chapter and the early murder was okay and enjoyable, but when she starts planning to murder her uncle is kinda WEIRD LIKE WHY WOULD YOU GO TO THAT KIND OF PLACE WITH YOUR UNCLE??? 
the ending was very anticlimatic, not surprising, and confusing, like there were no important hint about her secret brother in the early chapter?? like her brother is just suddenly there? and the very long chapter was very painful to read
overall, the beginning chapter was very promising but the next chapter went downhill

First half of the book was at least interesting, the premise, the introduction of characters, her motivation why she wants to kill her family. But the second half and that plot twist in the end was just so infuriating. People who gave this book more than 1 star are beyond generous.

Ziggy

u wanna be light yagami with an essay due in 2 hours so bad.. dont piss me off

The premise is truly exciting. The title also helped. It took me a while to get into it but after the first couple chapters, it was smooth-sailing. But then… I was bothered. This book really feels like it’s written by a millennial who thinks it’s fun to make fun of literally everything. At first, it was funny but it started to get annoying really fast. Grace was hard to love and I found myself hating her as the story progresses. Maybe that was the author’s intention, but it didn’t work for me. It just felt whiny and Grace is such a pick me. Another thing is, it tries to come off as a somewhat feminist book but at the same time, it’s also not feminist at all? I’m not a fan of the ending, it just feels lazy. Was actually pretty angry after I finished the book because I felt I wasted a lot of time trying to find what’s so good about How to Kill Your Family when… it’s not. It’s not very good at all.

Sashi

The title of the book was the main thing that drew me to reading this book it’s very British and there’s a lot of long chapters which I’m not necessarily a fan of but the plot was good I feel like then end bit where her brother sends her an email where he knows and has witnessed all her murders was very unexpected.

jess larry

life's too short to force myself to finish this. way too many unnecessary rants, and the narration style is really not for me

2 stars just for the idea

short review: 

bizarre, grating, and violently british. i can't tell if the ending makes up for it or makes it worse.

long review: 

it had such an interesting premise, but the narrative style was grating. not necessarily the views of the fmc, because good for her honestly, but the diction and sentence structure were truly abominable. and the fact that the fmc presented herself as a woman's rights activist but spent the entire book harassing women without analyzing their choices in the context of a patriarchal society. this would perhaps make sense as satire of the self-absorption of white feminism, but the author is apparently both white and a part of british peerage, so take from that what you will. also, the fmc was presented as an intelligent, competent woman and killer to boot, so the entire idea of her putting her confession on paper is utterly ridiculous, made more so by her being bested by a man at the end. i will, however, say it was quite funny at times.

2½ stars

A promising storyline and concept but VERY long chapters. I cannot deal with long chapters (that might just be personally but I found myself flicking forward multiple times to see how many pages were left). Some good moments and interesting characters but pretty bad ending… Maybe pick it up if you are a fast reader but for someone like me who takes a while it was sometimes a chore.

George McCartney

Bilge Ince

Dark, humorous and witty. All I need for this October.

Grace is an inmate in the Limehouse prison for a murder she didn’t commit. But was she really innocent? Yes, for this alleged murder, but no for many others. And this is the story of why and how…

 How awful it must be to know in your bones that those around you were being picked off one by one and to realise that you must therefore be next. Even worse, it seemed like nobody was listening to him – a terrible thing for a powerful white man to experience.

I feel like this took me a while to read this book and the start was very slow. However the ending was good and has left me feeling confused lol so overall 3.5/5

Marcie Allen

3.5⭐️

I feel like this took me a while to read this book and the start was very slow. However the ending was good and has left me feeling confused lol so overall 3.5/5

Teeeeeesha

Funny, dark and twisted, this is everything you want in a book. It's well written, off kilter but not in a way that you don't know what's going on. You're gonna love Grace getting her revenge.

Emmm :p

SO FUNNY. it takes bloody ages to get through because Grace feels the need to state and express every single thought she has and it really made me struggle. i read it on a plane from Corfu to Exeter and I still didn’t finish. i continued on a train from Bath to Exeter (and back) and still didn’t finish. it is LONG but it is fun!! i would like to see it as a tv series

Not my cup of tea. Honestly Grace is ultimatly so unlikeable. She's so fixated on getting her vengeance and so immersed that I just could not stand her. And also, I'm so disgusting by how she murder's people who in my moral view just do not deserve it, and how she debates murdering completely innocent people just make me think what the hell. I really do not think this book was what I was expecting, I wanted better and it was such a let down especially because people have really enjoyed this book. 

I think this book would however be liked by people who are getting into reading, beginners, people who haven't read alot of books. They won't have any expectations or ideas of how a books plot should be structured or anything, so they would go into this book completely blind, and can then have an unbiased view of this book. 

The reason why I gave it 2 stars is because I do respect the whole idea Bella Mackie has, and i respect the beginning of this book and the ending, i feell like they are very hugely influential to this rating.

surtified™

Not my cup of tea. Honestly Grace is ultimatly so unlikeable. She's so fixated on getting her vengeance and so immersed that I just could not stand her. And also, I'm so disgusting by how she murder's people who in my moral view just do not deserve it, and how she debates murdering completely innocent people just make me think what the hell. I really do not think this book was what I was expecting, I wanted better and it was such a let down especially because people have really enjoyed this book. 

I think this book would however be liked by people who are getting into reading, beginners, people who haven't read alot of books. They won't have any expectations or ideas of how a books plot should be structured or anything, so they would go into this book completely blind, and can then have an unbiased view of this book. 

The reason why I gave it 2 stars is because I do respect the whole idea Bella Mackie has, and i respect the beginning of this book and the ending, i feell like they are very hugely influential to this rating.

How to Kill Your Family A Novel

Reviews

Highlights