What a Way to Go A Novel

Nachdem „How to kill your family“ mich bereits überzeugen konnte, gab ich auch „What a way to go“ eine faire Chance. Und was soll man noch sagen? Dieses Buch hatte wieder alles, was ich an Bella Mackie liebe. Böser Humor, eine unterhaltsame Story und wundervolle Charaktere! Mittlerweile vermutlich eine meiner Lieblings-Autorinnen.

He is successful. He is happily married. He has four amazing children. His life is perfect. And today it's his sixtieth birthday. Sadly, today is also the day he will die. Watching from the afterlife, he needs to figure out how he died in order to move on. Did someone murder him? Plenty of people seemed to have plenty of reason. On top of that list? His own entire family. Was Anthony Wisterns life really as perfect as everyone believed?... Following Anthony and his wife Olivia, we dive into the life of the rich and the powerful in England. As Anthony desperately tried to figure out how his life was cut short, his wife and children eagerly await to discuss the will he's left behind. What they don't know; an internet true crime fanatic is on their toes, suspecting every single one of them of murdering the head of their family. Witty, funny and sarcastic, Bella Mackie illustrates a picture perfect high society family, faintly reminiscent of Priestleys "An Inspector Calls", where every character is a caricature of a stereotye. This book manages to combine the gripping tension of a murder mystery with elevated humor that makes you chuckle every few lines.

I like Bella Mackie. I follow her on Instagram, occasionally read her Substack and loved "How to Kill Your Family". That said, I found this novel quite hard to get into. After two false starts I finally managed to read it cover to cover, and while it is darkly funny and intelligently constructed, it didn't quite hit the spot. To me it was obvious that the author had watched "Succession" and decided to tell the story of a rich family, whose members were all thoroughly unlikable. And this is the book's downfall. Even though the protagonist of "How to Kill Your Family" was a serial killer, I found myself rooting for her. Here I just didn't care, and in the end the book left me amused but slightly dissatisfied.

“What a Way to Go“ is narrated from three different perspectives: Anthony Wistern (a very rich CEO but also a dead guy), his wife Olivia (an ice cold widow) and the Sleuth (a person obsessed with murder mysteries who gets involved in the case of Anthony Wistern). This makes for quite an interesting reading experience, I especially liked Anthony‘s perspective from the after life! Apart from that the book was not quite for me, I was annoyed by all characters and didn‘t really root for anyone! I think this was intentional by Bella Mackie, as she mentioned something like this in an interview! Like in “How to Kill Your Family“ there were a lot of unexpected twist and turns which I really enjoyed!!

...and what a way to waste time. Sorry, but this book does not work for me...