50 pages • 1 hour read
Bella MackieHow to Kill Your Family
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
At 26, Jimmy met a girl; he’d had other girlfriends, but none so serious as Caro Morton. Reflecting on her feelings of jealousy and loss, Grace writes that she felt “tied to him […]. It’s ridiculous and clichéd and [she] hate[s] that [she] feel[s] it,” but she does (173). She’d never told him about her father, and she’d been so busy planning and carrying out the murder of the Artemises that their contact had petered out. One day, though, Jimmy—now going by Jim—called to tell her about Caro. When Grace met her, she hated the beautiful and “remarkably possessed” woman immediately. Caro was the daughter of a former foreign secretary and a famous author. Just two months after Caro and Jim met, they moved in together. Grace believed Jim had always been in love with her and that she had set the tone of their relationship, preventing an exploration of deeper feelings that could jeopardize their friendship. She admits that while she knows how to exact “epic revenge,” disrupting Caro and Jim’s relationship “felt completely beyond [her] and it made [her] feel like [she] was drowning” (182).
Once Jim moved in with Caro, Grace always had to be the one to initiate communication with him, and this left her feeling angry and “pathetic.” Grace notes Caro’s disordered eating, substance misuse, and violent temper, but Jim proposed, and Caro accepted. After their engagement lunch, Grace told Jim about her concerns, and he acknowledged that it must be hard to see him with someone else. He blamed Grace for never allowing the two of them to move beyond friendship. He said, accurately, “You kept us at a level you felt safe with” (185). Both Caro and his mother had warned Jim that Grace would react this way, and she hated herself for the “weak[ness]” she felt she was showing. When Grace went to a party at the couple’s apartment, she could see Jim had told Caro what Grace had said about her. Grace witnessed an awkward interaction between them, and Caro shoved Jim. Afterward, Grace criticized Caro, and Jim chastised Grace for being unkind. Most of the partygoers left, but Caro wanted a cigarette, so she and Grace went to the balcony, where Caro hopped up onto the railing. Grace confronted her, and Caro—her pupils enormous from the combination of drugs and alcohol—brutally insulted Grace. Suddenly, Caro fell backward.
Chapter 11 Summary
George Thorpe runs through the developments on Grace’s appeal, and Grace returns to her cell to find Kelly clipping her toenails on Grace’s bed. Though Grace thinks of Kelly as an “empty vessel,” Kelly’s interest in Grace’s life irritates her, especially when Kelly “asks […] questions that make it obvious that she knows more than she should” (194). She even asks Grace about any prior crimes, however small, like shoplifting from Sassy Girl. Grace tells Kelly she lived a “dull life” prior to incarceration, “certain” Kelly is unaware of her father’s identity but acknowledging the coincidence that Kelly would mention Sassy Girl. After Caro fell, Grace writes, she went into shock. When Jimmy found her, he blamed Grace immediately, and though Caro had been high and drunk, Grace was tried and convicted for her murder.
Chapter 12 Summary
Before Caro died, Grace killed Janine and Bryony, correctly suspecting that Bryony’s death would affect Simon the most. Janine had moved to Monaco years ago, and Grace learned from a magazine article that the entire house was connected to the internet. She wanted to find out if there was a way to manipulate the system, so she claimed to be a journalist and emailed an academic who researched smart devices. They met, and Grace learned that if she could get access to the house’s hub, she would be able to control all the devices within it.
That weekend, Grace did some research and posted online, posing as a 16-year-old who needed help messing with her horrible stepmother. Pete from Iowa, a 17-year-old with his own horrible stepmother, responded. They chat for a few days, and when he said he could help, Grace booked a trip to Monaco. It didn’t take long to see that she would never gain access to Janine’s flat herself, but she sees a maid walking Janine’s dog at the same time each day. She starts up a conversation with the maid, Lacey Phan, and learns that Lacey does not like her employer. Grace pretends to be a journalist who wants to do an exposé on the terrible way the elite treat others, and Lacey agrees to connect a device to the flat’s hub. Pete tells her what device to buy, and Grace gives Lacey instructions. She plans to trap Janine in the sauna and cook her to death, though she tells Pete she just wants to scare the woman. Once Lacey connects their device to the hub, Pete can control everything the hub does, and they watch Lacey bathe from an existing camera. He turns the sauna on, and when Janine goes to investigate, Pete locks her in and turns up the heat. As Janine’s panic grows, Grace addresses her through a speaker, telling her that this is no accident and that she is exacting revenge for Simon’s abandonment of her and her mother. Janine begins to write Grace’s name on the steamy sauna window, and Grace tells Pete to turn up the heat again. After Janine dies, though, Pete won’t stop messaging Grace, so she threatens to blackmail him with a nude he sent her while they were planning Janine’s death.
Chapter 13 Summary
Kelly now has a cell phone, something she’s told only Grace about, which shocks Grace because Kelly cannot keep secrets. Grace says Kelly is normally generous about sharing, but she hasn’t offered Grace the phone once.
Grace recounts meeting Bryony at random in a nail salon. Bryony looked like “every other girl on Instagram” and was so used to people staring at her that Grace could watch without being noticed (251). Bryony got her nails done, but she yelled at the manicurist and ultimately refused to pay, claiming that the manicurist had ripped her cuticles. There was nothing wrong with the manicure, Grace reports, though Bryony later posted about the whole episode on social media.
Bryony lived with her parents even though they had bought her a house of her own. She had no real friends or job, and she seemed “immune” to criticism. Grace considered various ways in which she might kill her half-sister, hoping for an “elegant” way to do it but admitting that “it would be the height of vanity” to insist on specific details, especially because “vanity can get you caught” (262). From following Bryony’s social media, Grace learned of her peach allergy and elected to exploit it. Checking in with the reader to make sure they’re keeping up, Grace explains that the order of murders was “crucial” because she wanted Simon to experience them all; only then would she reveal to him everything she’d done.
Grace bought a variety of beauty products and added peach seed extract to one of them. Then she sent the basket to Bryony with a note telling her to “enjoy” the products. The death needed to happen while Bryony was doing something typical for her, and Grace claims there’s “a certain art to a good murder” (270). Grace identified a big party in Ibiza that Bryony was supposed to attend, and she planned to get a job as a server there so she could sneak some peach into Bryony’s drink. The party was organized by an English company, so she filled out an application. After a quick interview, Grace worked a couple of local events and then planned her trip to Ibiza. However, the night after she booked her flight, Bryony died. Grace learned of the death from the newspaper. Bryony was found unconscious in her bedroom and pronounced dead at the scene—killed by the peach-infused beauty product. Grace wonders if Simon has any inkling of why his family members are dying. She regrets her lack of control over Bryony’s death, having learned of it the same way everyone else did.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
Grace continues to belittle her cellmate, Kelly, though Kelly’s recent behavior and mysterious acquisition of a cell phone suggest she might be more cunning than Grace realizes, emphasizing the theme of Pride and Miscalculation. Grace thinks of Kelly as an “empty vessel” who lacks even the sophistication to feel embarrassed after being caught cutting her toenails on Grace’s bed. Though Kelly asks questions that indicate she knows more about Grace’s life than what Grace has told her, Grace is “certain she doesn’t know that Simon Artemis is [her] father. She wouldn’t know who Simon Artemis was” (196). Grace takes pride in being more worldly, sophisticated, and educated than Kelly, and it prevents her from considering that Kelly could manipulate her. Kelly’s behavior—and her insistence that her “crime works” despite multiple incarcerations—suggests that she is smarter and, perhaps, more capable of deception than Grace gives her credit for. The fact that Kelly continues to blackmail people despite having been incarcerated for it multiple times makes Grace think of her as unevolved and stupid, but her pride prevents her from considering that Kelly could blackmail her. She doesn’t even ask Kelly where the phone came from. Grace thinks “women like [Kelly] are a dime a dozen” (195), even when Kelly casually mentions shoplifting from Sassy Girl stores, in particular. Grace gives her cellmate a fake smile, crediting herself for the “work” it takes to “mak[e] it look real” (196), suggesting a belief that Kelly is too dumb and lazy for such artifice. Grace convinces herself that Kelly mentions Sassy Girl only because their shops are so ubiquitous and not because Kelly is aware of Grace’s history with the company or its owner. Grace tells herself that “it’s just a coincidence,” though she admits, “I don’t like coincidences” (196). She has an inkling of fear that Kelly knows something incriminating about her, but she writes it off because she sees Kelly as her intellectual inferior, a judgment that—Mackie hints—could be a major miscalculation.
Grace even begins to condescend to her reader, suggesting that the reader might not be bright enough to follow her plans, further evidence of her pride and The Illusion of Control it gives her. After she recounts watching Bryony livestream a visit to a hospital emergency room after ingesting something containing peach, Grace speaks directly to the reader: “You know where I’m going now, don’t you? You should, it’s incredibly obvious. I don’t want to have to be holding your hand as you read this. Fucking inspired, if I do say so” (264). It is not enough for Grace to assume every man loves her or wants to sleep with her, to speak critically of almost everyone in her orbit; she also suggests that readers might be too stupid to guess how she plans to murder Bryony even after a lengthy discussion of Bryony’s allergy. Finally, though Grace calls the strategy “obvious”—a dig at any reader who hasn’t figured out her plan—she also says it’s “inspired,” highlighting her belief in her superior intellect. In speaking directly to the reader in such condescending terms, Grace reiterates her need for control. The narrative of her revenge should be the one place where has unquestioned control, since she is its author, but as Harry and then Kelly intrude on the narrative at the end, even this authorial control breaks down.
Grace warns that “vanity can get you caught” (262), not long before claiming that there’s “a certain art to a good murder” (270), essentially elevating her actions to those of an artist while claiming to be too smart to fall into the trap of vanity. Grace demonstrates her vanity at every turn. It allows her to think she’s in control, that she’s smarter than everyone around her, and cannot be tricked or deceived by them. Despite a potent sign that her control is tenuous and partial at best—that Bryony dies alone and Grace doesn’t even know how she died—Grace confidently asserts, “Daddy dearest, I [am] coming for you” (277). To admit that she is not in control of her life and plans, despite the circumstances of Bryony’s death, would shake Grace to her core and ruin her sense of self. She felt similarly out of control when Jim and Caro got engaged, especially because she long believed that she controlled the status of her relationship with Jim. Jim accuses Grace of never allowing them to become more than friends, and she compares her powerlessness in the face of their relationship to the sensation of “drowning,” a metaphor that highlights her loss of control. Then, when she told Jim about her concerns, it made her feel powerless and “weak,” which is a feeling she does not enjoy. Grace associates a lack of control with weakness and victimhood—qualities she associates with her mother, whom she longs to avenge and fears becoming. She is determined not to be weak, which means she must maintain that sense of control even when it isn’t real. Writing her story allows Grace to take pride in its telling—and in her intellectual and moral superiority over the people in it—as well as to wave her cleverness and wit in front of potential readers as well.
