A review by beepbeep101
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

“Family is not whose blood runs in your veins, it’s who you’d spill it for.” 

Fantastic. Twists all the way to the last page. The extra .25 is for the last quarter of the book or so, as so much happened right after each other that beautifully brought everything together and turned things on their head. I loved the narrative voice of Ern (who isn’t a crime writer but instead is a how-to-be-a-crime-writer writer), who recounts the book’s events with a sense of humor about the writing process. He even gives the page numbers at the beginning on which every death in the book will occur - something which sounds like it would spoil a great deal, but things often happen differently than you expect them to. 

A great read, though definitely check the content warnings, as it wasn’t quite as light as I expected it to be from word of mouth recommendations. It gets into revenge, PTSD, infidelity, infertility, and addiction, and descriptions of trauma and injuries were a bit heavier than I expected. 

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