Bella Mackie’s debut novel How to Kill Your Family is a caustic, compelling, and often wickedly funny examination of class, revenge, and moral ambiguity—told through the elegantly acidic voice of a mass-murdering antiheroine. At once a gripping psychological crime novel and a delicious satire on privilege and patriarchy, this book dares readers to side with a killer… and most will, to their own uneasy delight.
In the wake of her breakout success, Mackie returned in 2024 with What a Way to Go, another darkly comic, emotionally sharp story of one woman’s reckoning with life. But it’s in How to Kill Your Family that we see the seed of her signature tone: sardonic, emotionally precise, and laced with scathing cultural critique.
Premise with a Punch
“I have killed several people (some brutally, others calmly) and yet I currently languish in jail for a murder I did not commit.” With this opener, protagonist Grace Bernard doesn’t so much whisper her intentions as hammer them in with cool elegance. The entire novel is her prison diary—a confession, of sorts—not to her cellmate, not to the police, but to herself, and to anyone who might stumble across her scribbled truths.
Grace’s target? Her father’s family—the wealthy, aloof, and morally vacant Artemis clan—who abandoned her mother in a time of need, leading to a painful and impoverished life for both of them. Grace decides not only to exact revenge, but to do it methodically, creatively, and, as she insists throughout, without remorse.
Character Study: Grace Bernard – A Murderer You Might Root For
Grace is as fascinating as she is disturbing. Mackie’s genius lies in crafting a narrator who is sharp-witted, articulate, cultured, and deeply misanthropic, yet one who never descends into caricature. We are privy to her sardonic inner commentary, her contempt for consumer culture and vapid influencers, her surgical dissection of family dysfunction, and her disdain for the legal system. Despite her sociopathy, she is charismatic—a woman shaped by injustice, but driven by intellect and icy determination.
Is Grace likable? Not conventionally. But is she hypnotic, even relatable in her fury? Undeniably. Readers are lured into her mind, compelled to understand, if not condone, her escalating acts of vengeance.
Structure and Style: Dark Comedy Meets Crime Confession
The narrative structure, presented as a quasi-memoir from prison, gives How to Kill Your Family a confessional intimacy. Mackie writes in a conversational, biting tone that blends psychological insight with deadpan humor. The prose brims with Britishisms, pop culture references, and class satire, making Grace’s commentary feel like a modern descendant of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair—only with more corpses.
The murders are not the heart of the novel; rather, it’s the planning, the moral justifications, and the internal commentary that makes each one feel like a character beat, not just a plot point. Mackie is more interested in how a woman like Grace comes to be than in the forensic mechanics of killing.
Key Features of the Writing Style:
- First-person, epistolary tone akin to a psychological journal
- Dry wit and social satire aimed at the upper classes, influencer culture, and the justice system
- Unreliable narrator dynamics that make the reader question how much of Grace’s version can be trusted
Themes: Vengeance, Class, and the Illusion of Justice
At its core, this is a novel about rage—the rage of a woman born outside privilege, who watches her biological family thrive while her mother dies in poverty. It is also an indictment of class structures that protect the powerful and erase the vulnerable.
Core Themes Explored:
- Class Warfare – The Artemis family serves as a grotesque embodiment of inherited wealth and moral decay. Grace’s vendetta is not just personal; it’s political.
- Revenge as Justice – The novel challenges the reader to consider what justice looks like when the system fails the innocent.
- Feminine Rage and Power – Grace weaponizes her appearance, intellect, and ability to be underestimated, highlighting how women’s power often lies in invisibility.
- Satirical Critique of Society – From true crime obsession to influencer culture, Mackie lampoons modern hypocrisies with lethal precision.
The Murders: Less Blood, More Brains
If you’re expecting gory thrill kills, look elsewhere. Grace’s murders are often anticlimactic or oddly mundane—poison, deception, accidents. But that’s the point. These aren’t thrill kills; they’re strategic acts of retribution. Mackie brilliantly subverts genre expectations by making the violence itself almost incidental—what matters is the build-up, the motivation, the aftermath.
And yet, Grace doesn’t get arrested for any of these killings. Instead, she’s convicted for a murder she didn’t commit, injecting a final layer of irony and critique about the failures of the criminal justice system.
Strengths of the Novel
- A wholly original antiheroine in the vein of Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) or Villanelle (Killing Eve)
- A razor-sharp voice that makes mundane observations feel fresh and wickedly funny
- Thoughtful, layered commentary on class, justice, and inherited power
- Narrative tension that doesn’t rely on traditional thriller tropes, but on moral stakes and psychological unraveling
Points of Critique
Even at its most intelligent, “How to Kill Your Family” can at times feel like it’s having too much fun with its own cleverness. Grace’s voice, while magnetic, occasionally veers into self-indulgence, with rants that echo Mackie’s personal observations more than they organically fit the story. The pacing dips in the middle, especially when the focus shifts more to Grace’s prison life than her crimes.
Some readers may also feel disappointed by the lack of traditional suspense. This is not a whodunnit but a whydunnit—and one where we already know the ending from the first line. If you’re craving high-stakes chases and heart-thudding cliffhangers, this might read as too introspective.
Comparison with Similar Works
- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: Both feature female killers and a darkly comic tone.
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: A similarly unreliable and cunning female narrator with commentary on societal expectations.
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman: For readers who like socially alienated female protagonists, though without the body count.
Bella Mackie’s What a Way to Go continues her fascination with flawed women and societal expectations, though in a different emotional register. It shows her growth as a writer—still sharp, still funny, but perhaps with more emotional vulnerability.
Final Verdict: Murder, Meticulously Done
How to Kill Your Family is not just a crime novel—it’s a bold character study, a satire, and a literary exercise in weaponized voice. Mackie writes with confidence and bite, dissecting privilege and vengeance with surgical precision. Grace Bernard is a murderer, yes, but she’s also a product of a cruel system. Whether or not readers condone her actions, they’ll be haunted by her logic—and maybe even find themselves rooting for her.
A scathing, subversive, and surprisingly human tale of calculated vengeance. This book isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it’s certainly for those who enjoy fiction with bite.
