★★☆☆☆ 

 

Synopsis

When Grace Bernard discovers her absentee millionaire father has rejected her dying mother’s pleas for help, she vows revenge, and sets about to kill every member of his family. She then finds herself in jail, but not for any of the actual murders she committed. 

 

Review

I was instantly interested in both the title and premise of the book. However, like a tinder catfish, I was disappointed when I got to reading it.

Grace is an unlikable character, funny at times but is mostly a snob who treats everyone around her like an inconvenience or as someone beneath her. This is ironic, seeing that she kills the majority of her family on the basis that they are horrible, entitled people. This hypocritical thinking feeds into her character and helps to create less sympathy for her ending.

The pacing was horrendous, I could not read for more than a few chapters before losing interest and finding something else to read. Grace goes on long tangents and rants that amount to nothing. The pages kept dragging on, trying to drag out before any of the killings to build up suspense, only for it to be rather meaningless. There was a lack of intensity, and I was not convinced by Grace’s supposed ‘anger’ towards the Artemis family. She made me feel nothing. No ‘rage’, ‘grief’, or even ‘elation’ at her killings. She is supposed to be obsessed with the Artemis family and yet I’m not convinced. She wrote about things rather monotonously, and there was almost no fire in any of her killings. I wanted her to be unhinged or at least have her be interesting, but she is a rather bland character.

I wished they dove more into Grace and Jimmy’s relationship. I’m assuming that Grace is most likely a sociopath, unable to feel any genuine emotions towards killing others, etc., but for some reason only really seems to care about Jimmy. I wished we had seen more encounters between them to build up this if-they-won't-they plot line and give more depth to him. I want to understand what makes Jimmy so special in Grace’s eyes. All those pages used for an insane amount of forgettable exposition could have been used to show us Grace’s and Jimmy’s warped relationship.

I was caught off guard by the plot twist. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but I also don’t hate it as much as other reviewers. I think that maybe my reaction towards it might be the worst, as it literally couldn’t inspire any sort of emotion from me. I was like “oh okay sure”.

I think an issue with the killings as well was that all of them ended so easily and without consequence. She never had to work for any of it, and luck was always on her side. She has no repercussions for any of her actions. I think by the third killing, as an Artemis, I would probably want to increase security and all. It also made no sense that none of the police ever suspected foul play.

By the way, small tangent, but literally in the summary it tells us that Grace has killed 6 people and yet she is in jail for a crime she did not commit. The whole plot of the story is revealed and absolves the readers of any suspense which is unfortunate.

The writing is not my favorite. I understand others may like this style of writing, but a lot of it felt like it was all tell and no show.