The Book:
How I’ll Kill You by Ren DeStefano
Published March 21, 2023 by Berkley
Date read: April 5, 2023
The Characters:
Triplets Sissy, Moody, and Iris
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
Make him want you.
Make him love you.
Make him dead.
Sissy has an…interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison–and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy’s family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on.
But then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and then, before she can help it, she’s fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?
How did How I’ll Kill You end?
My memory is foggy, but:
Sissy fell in love with Edison and didn’t want to kill him. To punish her, Iris and Moody kidnapped Edison’s stepdaughter. When Sissy found them, the other sisters told her to choose: kill the stepdaughter, or be estranged from the family. Sissy chose to protect the stepdaughter (I don’t remember her name. Sadie?).
Somehow cops arrived. Moody took the fall, and Iris was possibly shot? She ended up in a coma. Moody admitted that she had killed Iris’s boyfriend, the first kill, and that all of the subsequent kills were to make up for killing Iris’s first lover. Sissy had thought that Iris was the ringleader.
The Ending:
Moody went to jail and I think Iris was still in the coma. I think Sissy and Edison got together despite Sissy’s real name being all over the news and him knowing she meant to kill him. She was pregnant. Her real name was Emily.
The Review:
Thank you to PRH Audio for this gifted ALC.
Right out of the gate, How I’ll Kill You reminded me of Look What You Made Me Do by Elaine Murphy. In both books, the MC is the sister of one or more serial killers and often serves as the clean-up crew when things go awry. However, in How I’ll Kill You, it has just become Sissy’s turn to do the killing. She carefully chooses her mark, with the help of her triplets, and begins to lay the groundwork to get him to fall for her.
I really liked Sissy, although I didn’t understand her motivations once she fell for Edison. Why not tell her sisters to leave her alone, and that she didn’t want to kill him? I also didn’t quite understand why they were serial killers in the first place–we got some backstory, but not enough to get the motivation beyond the first kill.
This popcorn thriller was a fun, quick read (if a little predictable), and I adored the narration by Karissa Vacker. She did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, and her narration really carried the plot.
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