BOOK REVIEW: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
This was the nontraditional murder mystery I didn't know I needed in my life.
I love my podcast book club! We created it on a whim to try something new and different on the show, and now we have 3-4 book club podcast episodes every year. We just really love talking about books, what can I say? Anyways, this was our read for an episode earlier in the year (I know, I’m way begin in reviews), and I’m pretty sure I liked it more than the other ladies.
You should definitely check it out the podcast if you want to hear everyone’s thoughts (episode #37). You can listen to it on Spotify or here on Substack. Ok, my shameless plug for our Indieverse award nominated podcast is over. Thanks for partaking!
Anyways! I’ll start by saying that I absolutely love 2nd person point of view, you know, that idea of “breaking down the 4th wall.” On a personal note, I don’t really understand why it is called that, but it sounds cool. I just feel that 2nd person POV pulls you in more to the book. It makes me feel like I am a character living through the ups and downs of the story with them, or at least a friend listening to a wild story over a cup of coffee.
On top of the POV being spot on in this book, the audio was absolutely fantastic. Narrator, Barton Welch, brings the story to life. The combination of the narration and Stevenson’s writing had me hooked from the first chapter.
If a killer is ever revealed and your ‘percentage read’ isn’t at least in the high eighties, they cannot be the real killer; there is simply too much of the book still to be read.
After getting ahead of myself, here is the synopsis brought to you by Amazon: Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that. I killed someone? Yes. I have. Who was it? Let’s get started. EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE
My brother
My stepsister
My wife
My father
My mother
My sister-in-law
My uncle
My stepfather
My aunt
Me
Overall, I think this was very cleverly constructed and written. The intricacies of the murder mystery aspect were well timed and placed, and while I figured out who the murderer was pretty early on, I didn’t see the twist coming. The locked room-esque setting at a ski lodge in Australia was used to help develop some of the specific plot elements. And there were new details added the further into the story you got that made these characters more complicated the further and further you go. And, as with any well down mystery, there were plenty of red herrings dropped around.
This all kept the movement of the story going. I appreciate a storyline that does this because I tend to have a shorter attention span with I’m reading than doing anything else. So, I can recognize the success of a book when I need to keep reading and have to see what’s next. It just boils down to a well structured and paced story.. And, being a fan of character driven books, this one had no shortage of characters.
Family is not whose blood runs in your veins, it's who you'd spill it for.
There were at moments too many characters. Ernie, the story teller, has a very large, murderous, and dysfunctional family. For the most part, I felt that they were all pretty easy to keep organized in my head. The only times when I struggled and felt a little overwhelmed with characters were when we really started diving into the back story and past events that have connections to the murder currently at the center of this main story. I will admit that I was surprised by a few of the deaths that took place.
The book itself has a great tone. It was a little sarcastic with a whole lot of unreliability and flaws. I don’t really think the story is meant to be taken overly seriously. If it was, then 2nd person POV was not the way to go. The informality of that perspective changes the tone and the seriousness of the plot, but that, again, is part of why I really loved it. I mean, Ernie writes and self publishes books about how to write murder mysteries even though he has never written a murder mystery, and now finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery. I mean I do respect him as I love indie authors!
Where does this land on my bookshelf?
I placed it on my top shelf. While there have been two more books released based on Ernie, I have yet to read them. I do hope to eventually get to them though. It is a story about family, no matter how dysfunctional. The plot gets a little thick and complicated the further in you get, but by then you are hooked, and you will just have to keep reading. I really just enjoyed the plot, the characters, the setting, the conflict, the style…yeah, I pretty much just enjoyed it all. And, I give added props to the enjoyment of the audio! Definitely check it out if you haven’t already!
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