If now I can't even trust a nice pink cover with a girl and a shovel, I don't know what I can trust anymore. This is a brutally honest portrayal of a young woman nursing a lot of rage in her heart and directing her anger, sometimes justified, sometimes less so, at every irritating thing that crosses her path. From the entitlement of the rich to the smugness of the middle class to the squalor of the poor, no one is safe from her acerbic observations, not even the relatively wealthy woman who takes her in as a teenager and attempts to instill feminist virtues in her new ward: i was attracted to this book bc of the anti-heroine promise as i love an unlikeable, morally grey female character - but grace as a character was far too muddled, and it was clear that the author still hadn’t fully fleshed her out. she was clearly meant to be a character in the vein of villanelle from ‘killing eve’, but she was nowhere near as interesting or compelling

It may seem as though this a straightforward tale of revenge but there’s more to it than that. It’s about family, it’s about class and the patriarchy – structures and systems that Grace is subverting.There’s no real drama. No point at which she is almost caught in the act which would have come as a welcome intermission. 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.

How To Kill Your Family is a lovely fantasy where truly awful people eventually get their comeuppance and don’t live a charmed life, skating by on superficial charm and privilege.

Penance by Eliza Clarke

I read books, I follow world affairs, I have opinions on more than just shoes and golf clubs. I am better than these people, that’s not in doubt. But they look happy despite their ignorance. Perhaps because of it. What is there to worry about? None of these idiots are thinking about climate change, they’re wondering what to wear on the yacht tomorrow.

How To Kill Your Family is a book about Grace’s determination to kill her father’s side of the family having been planning it since she found out he left her mother to fend for herself despite being an incredibly wealthy individual. As aforementioned, Grace then goes on a killing spree of her father’s offspring and family in an attempt to, I presume, make herself feel better for the loss of her mother and take some revenge on him for never being there for her. How To Kill Your Family Plot – 3/5 I've been wanting to read a good anti-hero type story for a while, and though I've had my eye on the Sweetpea books, this one caught my eye due to the cover and the hype it received. Amidst the chaos of the calculated revenge plot are flashes of humour and Grace’s hilarious but true observations about the mundanity and bizarreness of life. It is a surprisingly uplifting story in places and while I never felt that her victims deserved their ultimate fates, Grace’s certainty and confidence was almost able to convince me of the necessity of her deeds.

Children’s book of the week

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.” 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. 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.

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. Firstly, the murder she supposedly committed isn’t interesting enough to have made her as famous as she and her prison mate keep going on about. Secondly, the murders she does commit are done in such an incredibly dull way. Yes, some of them are more clever than others and there is definitely some meticulous planning involved at points – but I never really cared when one of the characters died and I felt very underwhelmed when suddenly they were dead. HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY takes the proverbial saying "Don't get mad, get even" to exciting new levels.

A funny, compulsive read about family dysfunction and the media’s obsession with murder’ SUNDAY TIMES STYLE