Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

This is a book where the narrator is telling you a murder mystery while also writing a book about how to write a murder mystery - and it gives the murder mystery a nice spin.

The Cunninghams are spending a weekend at a ski resort as a family reunion. But it's sure to be an interesting reunion as our protagonist Ernie hasn't seen his big brother since he testified to have him put in jail. They all have a pretty colourful past and the further you delve into the mystery the more you start to learn about those skeletons in closest.

This is almost like a combination of Knives Out and Underbelly.

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jessgj's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Okay, so for anyone who looked at this and thought "FAMILY OF ASSASSINS!", sorry, this isn't that book. Instead, the book starts off with the eventful encounter when our protagonist and narrator Ern gets a call from his brother in the middle of the night, needing his help to dispose of a body. That's the start of the book but definitely not the start of their story. Slowly, we get around to how in fact, everyone in Ernest's family has killed someone, although "Killed" has some looser means than we initially think.

The book took a little while to really get started for me. Fortunately, I was listening to the audiobook and I quite liked the narrator, both the voice actor and Ernest. Ernest breaks the fourth wall quite often but not in an obnoxious way that I've seen other people do and I appreciate his efforts to be honest to the readers. It's definitely a book that rewards its reader for paying attention as I was able to keep up with the big reveal and didn't feel cheated. 4.5 stars for me

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bubblehead_1994's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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emilywemily6's review

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this book! Though the humor is definitely more slapstick/punchline than my personal humor. This book is also extremely self aware (the narrator is one of the family members telling the story) and refers to the editor, specific word choices as the writer, etc. There were also lots of page numbers mentioned (to foreshadow when people die or when certain cryptic events happen, to look back on previous happenings and add more clarity to them, etc.) which was fun and different. I kept flipping back and forth to double check things and to see when the next mention of death was. So this was a fun read, even if the style was not the perfect fit for me and took a little bit to really get into it. My biggest gripes are that some of the evidence reveals were really hard to understand even if I kept rereading them, and the flow of information was sometimes hard to follow as a result of all the time hopping. The narrator told the truth as he knew it to be at the time things happened, but he didn’t have a perfect knowledge and that muddied the waters too. The plot twist at the very end of the book did me in and left me with more questions than the original plot of the story unfortunately. But I enjoyed this book and I liked how different it was from other books I’ve read. The subtle commentary on killing versus murder was an interesting aside as well (because as the readers we are also biased by how we read into words). I will look forward to reading other things by this author.

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cartridgepink's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Great book. I was having so much fun I stopped trying to work out the mystery and just enjoyed reading instead. (I did work it out anyway but that's not the point.) Funny, layered without being overly convoluted, great characters, and a satisfying mystery to boot.

Last year I went to a Melb Writers Festival event where Ben was a speaker. I hadn't read the book but was a fan of him + his brother's musical comedy. Panel goes well, Ben cracks jokes all the way through, then they open it up to Q&A and an elderly lady in the front row says, "Are you actually a comedian?" Honestly as brutal as some of the murders in the book. Gotta respect it.

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sabrinahughes's review against another edition

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4.0

Really fun read.

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ireanirean's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.75

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75ayla's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

More like 3.5/5. But I always round up if I like how the author wrote the story line.

I very much enjoyed the satirical way the author wrote this. You won’t guess the twist at end in a way I’m not sure felt entirely satisfying but in a way that gave a very dramatic ending.

I would say if you’re looking for a comical take on a thriller this is probably the way for you to so.

That being said check your trigger warnings before you get started, especially is child death is on that list for you. Not positive if this would be considered a big spoiler so I marked it just to be safe.

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