I’m sharing another instalment of my Mini Review Mondays, the most recent of which was last week. In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about.
First up, I’d like to talk about What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie. Thank you to The Borough Press for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Anthony Wistern is wealthy beyond imagination. Fragrant wife, gaggle of photogenic children, French chateau, Cotswold manor, plethora of mistresses, penchant for cutting moral corners, tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Unfortunately for him, he’s also dead. Suddenly poised to inherit his fortune, each member of the family falls under suspicion.
And that’s when the lying starts…
Publication Date: 12th September
TW: death, murder, infidelity, harassment, assault, classism, violence, stalking, blackmail
My Thoughts:
What A Way To Go was the devious love child of Saltburn and Succession for me with scandal, schemes and salacious details. It utilises true crime fascination with such a skewering twist.
Bella Mackie has such a gripping writing style – she creates these complex, compelling characters that you sort of love to hate and their voices just hook you straight in. The Wistern family holds immense wealth and status, the type that feels otherworldly. It is a cold and calculated space where love feels sparse and every move is part of the game where power is the prize. So when the death of Anthony, the patriarch, throws a giant wrench into the mix, everything spins out of control.
Mackie allows us to relish in this as we get an insider’s account of everything going on, mixed in with a true crime inspired investigation into what really happened. Without giving anything away, there is also an additional investigative narrative that I absolutely adored and Mackie is inspired for including it. For me, it added an extra layer of forced reflection, which the family deeply lacks. There is just little or no self-awareness. It encapsulates that bubble mentality of the uber privileged, able to move through life unaware of the ripple effects of their actions.
Mackie places the reader as complicit in the interrogation of the family and the shredding of their privacy as gossip spreads and true crime fanatics latch on. This allows for some interesting thoughts about the ethics of true crime, but also flips the script on the expected power dynamics. There is a relishment of their downfall that you delight in, even as you feel some empathy for them.
What A Way To Go was a creative and extremely captivating look at the lives of the privileged and just what may lead to their downfall. It is a darkly comic, delectable read.
Next up, I’d like to talk about Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne. Thank you to Page Street YA for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
After spending the summer wracked with guilt about causing the accident that killed her little sister, ambitious gamer and chronic liar Viv returns to Twitch streaming. She never told her parents the truth about the accident, but she hopes that maybe making it big in streaming and giving the money to them is penance enough for her mistakes.
The weekend before school starts, Viv finds the perfect horror game to make her Twitch comeback, and during an offline practice run, an NPC asks Viv for a secret. She decides to tell them the truth about her sister’s death since a game could never share her secret―in doing so, she accidentally welcomes a demonic mimic into her life.
No one believes Viv when she tells them about her evil doppelganger. Viv has lied to get her best friend’s sympathy and has spread rumors for attention, so why should anyone trust her now? The only person who believes her is Ash, a cute social outcast whom Viv once bullied. In trying to clear her name and kill the mimic, Viv discovers that her lies have hurt people who never deserved it, herself included.
Publication Date: 17th September
TW: : death, death of a child, grief, blackmail, guilt, manipulation, violence, suicide, drunk driving
My Thoughts:
Such Lovely Skin burrows under your skin and heads straight into your nightmares. It is a chilling and carefully considered look at grief, guilt and the ghosts we carry with us.
I heard that concept and saw that cover and I was sold. That haunting image perfectly encapsulates this tale of deception and dopplegangers. Viv is such a layered protagonist and inhabits a space that allows for nuance. You may not agree with everything she does but you can understand her motivations behind most of her actions, especially as the narrative unfolds. The horror aspects are so well executed, blurring the line between fantasy and reality in a seamless manner. It is a concept that is just terrifying and embodies that lack of control that grief can wreck your life with. Alongside this, the pacing is relentless and the stakes are always increasing as more of Viv’s life is taken away from her.
Viv is powerless, constrained by her emotions and the secret she is carrying. It matches her life as a gamer, caught between the virtual and real spaces. I thought the depiction of grief was handled sensitively, particuarly with showing the differing reactions of the family. There is a lot to unpack there and it shows the scale of it and how it is always different for each person. We flip between the past and the present, allowing the ghosts to infect the narrative and have that trauma almost bleed through the pages. You want to uncover the truth but are a bit concerned about what you may find in the process.
Such Lovely Skin was a wonderfully unnerving horror that delved into guilt and grief, spilling your darkest secrets and having them come back to haunt you. After all, it is often the ghosts of ourselves that scare us the most.
A Short Book Lover 
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