SOME ADVICE: If reading a book entitled HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY deeply troubles you, close your eyes, hold your nose, snag this book.....and READ ON. 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 ending broke my heart a little, but I didn’t feel like it affected my enjoyment of the book at all. In fact, I found myself racing to the end to digest all the information.

What. A. Book. Huge thank you to @boroughpress and @netgalley for my copy! How to Kill Your Family is hilarious, dark, gripping - it is at some points completely batshit and it’s one of the best things I’ve read this year. Grace Bernard is in Limehouse Prison serving a sentence for a crime she didn’t commit but that doesn’t mean to say she hasn’t committed some! To relieve the boredom and the inane chatter of cell mate Kelly she decides to write her astonishing story. This tell all explains exactly what she is guilty of! This is a novel about rejection and betrayal, revenge and retribution. Casale added: “Every few hours I suddenly remember that Harriet is my editor and Viking is my publisher and it’s not just an amazing daydream. Harriet’s pitch captured everything I want this novel to be; from the start, she and the whole wonderful Viking team have embraced me and the women in the book with all the solidarity that lies at the heart of the story. I can’t imagine better partners in bringing the book to readers and hopefully becoming one more voice in the fight to change the endemic nature of male violence against women and girls. Surprisingly, even though I was privy to all of the grisly details of Grace's horrific crimes, I never stopped rooting for her. Ironic twists and caustic commentary on everything from liberal guilt to the consumerist con that is “selfcare” sharpen this debut novel’ OBSERVER

While in prison for a murder she did not commit, she begins to keep a journal in which she documents the six murders she did commit. Each death is described in detail, Grace relishing in her ability to plan and execute killings so flawlessly that she was never suspected.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! There’s no real drama. No point at which she is almost caught in the act which would have come as a welcome intermission. 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.

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.

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. 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. one of the main themes of the book was about class, but it wasn’t really discussed in any profound way, and it actually became quite trite after a while. basically the whole book involved snipes at the rich/the upper classes (which i’m usually all here for) but THEN i discovered that the author of this book is alan rusbridger’s daughter and her grandfather is a baron….so she clearly moves in some privileged social circles herself, not exactly a working class hero. after that little discovery, the constant digs at privileged white people prompted a few eye rolls from me. The synopsis says: “When Sally kills her husband with a cast-iron skillet, she’s more fearful of losing her kids than disposing of a fresh corpse. That just wouldn’t be fair—not after twenty years married to a truly terrible man. But Sally isn’t the only woman in town reaching the brink. Soon, Sally has formed an extremely unusual self-help group, and between them there are four bodies to hide. Can they all figure out the perfect way to bury their husbands . . . and get away with it?”