You’ll be gripped… Grace’s emotional detachment throughout will give you chills’ Rated 5 stars by COSMOPOLITAN Grow up, this is childish, hypocritical and snobbish. I would maybe understand her anger if she was 12. Not 26. And once again we have the trope of the girl that’s so “unique” and so “different” from everyone else by just being as basic, stereotypically millennial, snobbish and arrogant as any other with just a touch of deranged and vindictive psycho. I thought from the opening couple of chapters that I was about to be proved wrong. How to Kill Your Family had a strong narrative voice and some amusingly cynical comments about the empty lives of rich people. But it went downhill rapidly.

The plague of these past years - if we exclude the pandemic, obviously - is the publishing industry’s obsession with creating a good-looking cover. Because you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but everybody does that ‘cause the cover is always a big deal! 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.Overall, this is very easy to read, it’s well written, I love the darkly wry style of the author who has acquired a new fan! Grace’s goal in life is simple: destroy the life of the millionaire who rejected her and her mother, leaving them to live a life of poverty in a tiny studio flat while he and his official family live it up in their, as she puts it, “McMansion”. On taking down the family she would reveal herself as his remaining heir, inheriting the millions for herself. Grace is clearly intelligent for example— she comes up with ingenious ways to kill her relatives without leaving any trail. Yet she completely misreads the character of her cell-mate in prison. She is scathing about wealthy people with their expensive tastes in clothing, wine, and houses yet after her mother’s death she was raised by a high-income couple who taught her to enjoy the finer things in life. So Grace has benefited from a similar privileged life that she criticises other people for enjoying. Addictive... Grace Bernard is one of the most intriguing and bewitching protagonists I've read in years' EMMA GANNON When Grace discovers her bio dad, a millionaire, rejected her and her dying mother, she decides to enact her revenge by killing the entire family. Yet, in a strange twist of fate, she is convicted and sent to prison for the one murder she DIDN’T commit.

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. How to Kill Your Family also takes the reader on a psychological journey of sorts. The novel’s protagonist, 28-year-old Grace Bernard, sets off on a mission to eliminate all members of her family with an end-goal of seeking revenge on her father, millionaire businessman and stereotypical playboy who abandoned her and her mother as a baby. Helene was kind, but she was hardly a great intellect, and had a fairly basic level of insight. Her favourite shows were all on ITV, if that makes it at all clearer.” 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.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.