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A review by niamhreviews
What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie
3.0
I was very kindly given an e-arc of this book via Netgalley and HarperCollins.
Following the explosive success of 'How To Kill Your Family', 'What A Way To Go' suffers from less from the sophomore slump and more of the sophomore 'slowdown'. It's a literary thriller insofar as it's overly literary and not much of a thriller, with far too many characters, a plot that feels like wading through treacle at the best of times and chapter choices that add nothing to the plot but an endless ream of exposition that confuse things even more. Bella Mackie is not a bad writer and me even finishing this book despite taking more than a week to read it is a sign that there was clearly something about it that kept me turning the pages.
What I think the problem is is that there are too many ideas being included, but only skimmed over. The narrative jumps between three voices - Anthony, the dead man, Olivia, his wife, and an amateur true crime blogger who starts investigating the case as a murder, not an accident. Anthony's POV largely comes from the purgatory he's ended up in and I did enjoy that - it's a new angle that doesn't really get explored. How do you solve your own murder from beyond the grave, that was really interesting. All of the characters are horrible people, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - the inclusion of the blogger helps to balance things out a bit. I also didn't see the twist coming towards the end. I had an inkling, certainly, but I felt the ending was satisfying enough, if a little rushed.
For me, I think what has knocked this book down two stars was the pacing. This is an eye-wateringly slow novel. Some of the chapters go on for far too long while contributing nothing to the plot. The characters don't change or move very much in any given direction and much of the page is taken up by inner monologue and critiques of other characters - some of whom you've never met - that offer nothing at all. I'm not sure where this has come from because I read Mackie's first book and it was not this bad. Things did start to pick up pace as we got to the second half, but really, you don't dozens of chapters of 'here are my scrounging children doing scroungy things' because it's just deathly dull.
It's hard to justify 400 pages for this - I feel like it would have been much tighter and more interesting in 300 or so. Not quite as spitfire-y as her debut, but still a sign that Mackie can deal with the literary thriller genre rather deftly.
'What A Way To Go' will be available from September 12th.
Following the explosive success of 'How To Kill Your Family', 'What A Way To Go' suffers from less from the sophomore slump and more of the sophomore 'slowdown'. It's a literary thriller insofar as it's overly literary and not much of a thriller, with far too many characters, a plot that feels like wading through treacle at the best of times and chapter choices that add nothing to the plot but an endless ream of exposition that confuse things even more. Bella Mackie is not a bad writer and me even finishing this book despite taking more than a week to read it is a sign that there was clearly something about it that kept me turning the pages.
What I think the problem is is that there are too many ideas being included, but only skimmed over. The narrative jumps between three voices - Anthony, the dead man, Olivia, his wife, and an amateur true crime blogger who starts investigating the case as a murder, not an accident. Anthony's POV largely comes from the purgatory he's ended up in and I did enjoy that - it's a new angle that doesn't really get explored. How do you solve your own murder from beyond the grave, that was really interesting. All of the characters are horrible people, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - the inclusion of the blogger helps to balance things out a bit. I also didn't see the twist coming towards the end. I had an inkling, certainly, but I felt the ending was satisfying enough, if a little rushed.
For me, I think what has knocked this book down two stars was the pacing. This is an eye-wateringly slow novel. Some of the chapters go on for far too long while contributing nothing to the plot. The characters don't change or move very much in any given direction and much of the page is taken up by inner monologue and critiques of other characters - some of whom you've never met - that offer nothing at all. I'm not sure where this has come from because I read Mackie's first book and it was not this bad. Things did start to pick up pace as we got to the second half, but really, you don't dozens of chapters of 'here are my scrounging children doing scroungy things' because it's just deathly dull.
It's hard to justify 400 pages for this - I feel like it would have been much tighter and more interesting in 300 or so. Not quite as spitfire-y as her debut, but still a sign that Mackie can deal with the literary thriller genre rather deftly.
'What A Way To Go' will be available from September 12th.