This was a book chosen for the book club I'm a part of. February was The Paper Palace. March was How To Kill Your Family. I must say, The Paper Palace was a much more acceptable title for a book to read in public. I did get a few strange looks while reading this book!
I generally share about the book club on my Instagram, so if you fancy following along each month, and reading the same books as I am, keep an eye on my posts over there. The next book we're reading is All The Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood.
Let me introduce this book, and then we can get into my review!
They say you can’t choose your family. But you can kill them.
Meet Grace Bernard.
Daughter, sister, serial killer…
Grace has lost everything.
And she will stop at nothing to get revenge.
My Review!
While Grace grew up not wanting for more love from her mother, there are many things she missed out on. Her father refuses to believe that Grace is his child, ignoring his daughter to keep her existence from his wife and focusing his love on his other child instead. But Grace not only missed out on her fathers love, but also on the lifestyle her half-sister enjoys. Her father is an incredibly successful businessman, which comes with riches most can’t even imagine. And he wasn’t even willing to spare enough to keep Grace's mother from working herself to an early grave.
After losing her mother, Grace has been planning her revenge against her father. And unfortunately for her father, the plan is vast and does not work out in his favour. One by one, Grace plans and carries out the murder of each family member, building up to be able to finally reach her fathers name on her list and cross it off.
As Grace makes her way through her list, you slowly start to learn just how far she will go to achieve her goals. Each murder almost feels like a different episode of a show, as she changes course and moves from one victim to another. She finds herself in some strange scenarios, travelling and immersing herself in her relations’ lives as she attempts to figure out the best way to kill each one.
I loved the layout of the book. Grace is telling the story of her murders herself, writing out her story, from a prison cell. Where she is for, ironically, a murder she didn’t actually commit. So not only does the book show her thoughts as she carries out her plans, we also get her thoughts as she looks back on what she’s done, as the story builds to the point where she was arrested. Grace’s dark humour throughout adds a lighthearted tone to the story, so even though it’s a book about a mass murderer, and the crimes are detailed within the pages, you find yourself laughing as you read.
Despite enjoying Grace’s commentary through the book, I didn’t find myself liking her too much. Granted, her father didn’t provide any financial support and left Grace and her mother living in poverty, and when Grace’s mother was dying, he didn’t even look their way, but turning immediately to killing everyone her father is directly related to was an incredibly drastic turn for Grace to take and, overall, she is still technically the villain of the story. She kills innocents who had nothing to do with her father abandoning her mother, people who didn’t even know of her existence and died not knowing why, or who was targeting them. She wasn’t a character I was supporting in any way, if anything I was hoping she would get caught sooner rather than later.
While I wasn’t a supporter of Grace, I did find her murder plans almost entertaining, as dark and disturbing as they were. Some of the lies Grace tells to get out of particular situations are rather comical and the murders themselves are not set up how you would expect them… There are no general stabbings or poisonings! It is all very creative, unexpected and, strangely, very entertaining to read.
I do especially love the title of this book. It is an interesting one to read in public, as it can look a little like a how-to book if you only glance at the title! Reading it around family was also rather entertaining! I know someone who said he saw this book on his wife’s nightstand and was a little concerned!
I really enjoyed this book, I read the whole thing across two days, and didn’t want to stop reading. There was a twist at the end that ended up tying in really neatly to the story, although to begin with it seemed entirely irrelevant. The story itself seemed really original, and for a book I knew next to nothing about when going into it, it greatly exceeded my expectations. Also, the tagline (They say you can’t choose your family. But you can kill them.) is amazing.
And done!
The overall opinion of the book club was that this was a very good book, and we all enjoyed reading it. I must admit, I enjoyed this one a great deal more than I liked The Paper Palace – that one wasn't exactly my cup of tea.
Anyway, that's all for now...
Bye!
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