The Book Bump

First published: 2021
Author: Bella Mackie
Language: English
Genre: Thriller, Dark Comedy
My rating: 2/5

How to Kill My Family is Bella Mackie’s debut novel.

When a young Grace Bernard discovers her father, a wealthy businessman, rejected her dying mother’s pleas for help, she vows to get revenge on the Artemis clan. However, Grace is wrongfully imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. During her time at Limestone Prison, Grace decides to ‘regale’ the reader with her real crimes; that’s to say, readers get a front-row seat as Grace details every murder she committed.

Throughout the book, we are given the rundown of Grace’s life, from when she was a child living with her mother to her incarceration. She had a somewhat tough upbringing because she and her mother were relatively poor, but she never lacked affection. After losing her mother, she is fostered by her best friend’s family. They welcome her with open arms, and she only complains about them. Grace seems to resent everyone that has ever tried to care about her, and she keeps everyone at arm’s length.

I agree that the reader doesn’t have to like the main character. They can be full of flaws, an anti-hero as Grace is made out to be. But the reader must still grow attached and care about the protagonist’s fate. I couldn’t have cared less about Grace for most of the novel. Grace was shallow, judgemental, self-involved, and just generally unlikable. As for character development, I feel it’s safe to say there wasn’t any. From the first page to the last, Grace is the same self-absorbed snob. She learned nothing from her revenge, time in prison, or comeuppance. Grace is what I’d call a flat character.

Talking of her comeuppance, I feel it was such an anticlimactic end to an already rather dull book. The story had so much potential. I wanted to root for a serial killer, but her reasoning for killing her entire family is too far-fetched. She is an affair-baby, and because her dad didn’t want to cough up, she decides to off her whole family instead of taking a traditional approach. That’s more than a little deranged. The execution, unfortunately, was lacking. The story was predictable. You could guess, before she said it, why she was imprisoned. Part of me hoped she would stay there as a sort of karma. She offed her family, so karma has taken away the only person shecared about. But it was not to be.

For me, the worst part about the novel is the ending. The sudden out-of-the-blue appearance of a new character, who ends up even more unlikeable than Grace, is a total let-down. Grace prides herself on her intelligence and doesn’t hesitate to tell the reader how much she despises people who aren’t clever. But ends up being outsmarted by her own arrogance. I suppose that’s irony, but it felt sluggish on the author’s part. I was intrigued enough to read until the end because I was curious how it would all end. I wish I hadn’t bothered.

Talking of the writing, it seems Bella Mackie loves to waffle, and unfortunately, her tirades about society get in the way of the story. Sometimes, the novel felt more like a criticism of near-enough everything rather than a humorous thriller. Reading about the murders is boring. Perhaps the diary form isn’t suited to crime thrillers as there is a lot of ‘tell’ and very little ‘show’. I felt the author was trying too hard to be something and failed miserably at everything. I’m not convinced that reiterating judgemental stereotypes is darkly humorous. It’s lazy writing to rely on stereotypes for laughs.

I can see what the author tried to achieve with this novel, but unfortunately, it missed the mark.