Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Murder in the Family

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

3 reviews

warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I have mixed feelings about certain things in this book but it was a wild ride. The concept of it being written as a teleplay was really cool and I thought the inclusion of articles and social media posts was fun too. Overall, I thought it was really engaging, like I didn’t want to put it down, which is what I want from a crime thriller. I thought the last third of the book was a little convoluted. The author uses cliffhangers and partial reveals to propel the story and it definitely worked sometimes, I thought it was too much at the end. She kept trying to fake us out about who the killer was, which again can be done effectively, but way too many characters got accused for me, like she was trying too hard with the shock value so the reveal of the killer wasn’t all that shocking because we eliminated everyone else. I also kind of guessed who the killer was before all this, not because of any clues but bc I was like wouldn’t it be funny/ironic if it was this character and then I was right. There were also certain things with the plot that I felt weren’t developed or explored all the way. Mainly, I think the part where

Nick, the producer, reveals that everything was orchestrated that all the cast members have a connection to the case somehow and some of the details just thrown out there but it was never really reflected on. I was at least expecting more information on how Nick was able to do all this investigative work before calling on any of the experts that were on the show, and he mentioned some mysterious backers that he was doing all this for and it was never really revealed who it was. I know Bill was working for that one family but it was not clear who Nick was working for. The final thing I’ll bring up is Mitch’s whole storyline was so 🥴🥴🥴 to me. Like not necessarily the fact that he had a relationship with Maura while she was very underage, while it’s still icky it could have been explored in a certain way that didn’t excuse it. His whole thing about how he was just a “kid” and didn’t know better like no you’re 21 you’re an adult. The whole thing was grooming of a young girl but no they were “in love”. While I’m not the one to definitively speak on this, I felt that certain parts of his character and plotline played into some racial biases, but I can’t say for sure.

My rant aside, I did have fun with this book and if you’re looking for a quick thriller to get out of a slump this is your book.

Content Warnings

leebeeloves's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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1.75

Finished reading: June 12th 2023

"But how do you prove a negative?"

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

WARNING: it's time for an unscheduled stop of the unpopular opinion train!!

Right... I didn't expect this to be happen to be honest. While it's true that I'm late to the whole DI Adam Fawley series and only read the first book earlier this year, I did love Cara Hunter's writing style. Add the fact that the blurb of Murder In The Family sounded absolutely fascinating with its true crime show and cold case angle, and I fully expected to have a fantastic time with this stand-alone. Imagine my surprise when I ended up wondering if I should just DNF more than once instead... Oh yes, Murder In The Family and me sadly didn't get along at all.

Before I continue, I have to say that I still love the premise of this story. In fact, this story sounded so up my alley that I fully expected to find a new 5 star read. I love a true crime and/or cold case angle, and the idea of having things unfold on live TV does sound exciting. My expectations for this story were high, and I have been looking forward to finally dive in ever since a copy appeared on my kindle. Especially since it promises to give you plenty of clues to try and solve the puzzle before the truth is revealed...

My initial excitement died down extremely fast though. Why? Let's just say that it has nothing to do with the content, and everything with the writing style. Boy, did I absolutely despise the way this story was written! Yes, I'm saying that it was the writing style that was mainly to blame for completely ruining this story for me. This basically reads like a literal transcript for a true crime Netflix show, where EVERYTHING is written out including the descriptions, tiniest gasps and facial expressions. I'm not sure why this bothered me to this point, because I've read and loved books with a similar format before (the Six Stories series comes to mind, although that series involves a podcast)... But the fact is that with the way this story was written, it's basically a miracle I didn't end up throwing my kindle against the wall.

To make things worse, Murder In The Family also throws a mountain of other formats at you (including e-mails, texts, newspaper articles, Tweets, maps etc.). This might work better in physical format, but on my kindle this was mainly just a visual overload and it slowed down the pace even more. Some texts were hard to read, and as a whole it not only distracted from what was going on, but it made the story feel less cohesive instead of dynamic. In fact, I started skimreading long before the halfway mark, not bothering with any of the inner background workings of the show nor the other formats at all. Instead I ended up reading just the transcript of the dialogues, and even then I struggled considerably to even make it to the final page. Yikes.

As for the plot: I still feel it has a lot of potential, but as a whole I wasn't completely convinced either. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I guessed the identity of the person behind Luke's death almost immediately. I'm not sure if it's because I read to many crime thrillers or if it's really this easy to see, but I literally said I bet it's that person... Only to be extremely disappointed to find out I was actually right (basically, the only reason I kept reading was to see if I was wrong). There is also an overload of characters, and with the way the story is written, it's extremely hard to keep them apart or get to know them better. I didn't feel invested at all in learning more about any of them as a result either.

Whoops, this review is turning out be quite a rant... I'll just leave it at this and say that despite showing all the signs of the opposite, Murder In The Family most definitely wasn't for me. I sure wish I had just DNFed it instead... I know that I'm in the minority though, because most people do seem to love this story. But just in case there is someone out there with similar thoughts: you are not alone.

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