Thank you Netgalley for this advanced copy.

This book is darker than expected and definitely has some trigger warnings. Rape and sexual assault are very heavy in this book. It's a fast-paced read that holds your attention, if you aren't triggered.

To many similarities to a book I read in 2020 for it to be a coincidence...
Sorry for the amended review 😞

READ THIS BOOK.

THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY.

DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!!

I promise that you will not regret it and I hope that local libraries pick this one up because I would love love love to hold this book in my hands and see this gorgeous cover in person!

This is the kind of sassy, female empowerment novel that the world (kind of) needs right now. It's cheeky, but fun.

As a whole, the concept is not even remotely believable. However, a lot of people don't read with the guise that everything needs to be "real." If you can get past that, it's fun.

The biggest problem that I had with the book, though, was all of the commentary about being an "influencer." It still surprises me when I come across a novel that has a storyline with someone as an influencer for a full time job. Claiming she gets "recognized." That felt like Brent was writing it a bit like "I wish this was me" kind of approach (which is ridiculous because being an author is way cooler).

How To Kill Men and Get Away With It is an entertaining, satirical thriller from debut novelist Katy Brent.

“Before all this started, I’d thought that squeezing the life out of someone would be easy. The right amount of pressure on their windpipe and they’d just go limp, like when a kitten suddenly falls asleep. It’s actually nothing like that.”

The first victim of trust fund baby and popular social media influencer, Kitty Collins’s killing spree, was an accident. She’d simply shoved the drunken sleaze who followed her from a bar away from her and he fell on the broken wine bottle he’d been threatening her with. The next took more planning. Kitty’s targets are cheaters, liars and predators, men who leave ruined women in their wake without a backward glance, like her ex, Adam, and her father. It’s a much more noble calling than posting photos of herself online. Conveniently, as the heiress to Collins Cuts (even if she is vegan and refuses her share of the profits), she has the perfect disposal method available. There are rules, of course, the most important is to not get caught, but Kitty also has a stalker who seems to know every move she makes.

“I want to live in a world where I don’t have to keep my keys between my fingers in case I’m attacked walking home. Not that I do that. I find a serrated hunting knife and a syringe of GHB much more reassuring.”

In case it’s not clear, this is a satirical revenge fantasy so the the plot has a tenuous basis in reality, and the characters, including Kitty, are more properly caricatures. That said, Brent’s commentary about violence against women in society is on point. I honestly think they’d be few women who weren’t at least a little gratified by the way Kitty turns the table on badly behaved men.

“Red eyes, blue lips, a pale yellowing skin. Oh, and some gorgeous shades of purple later as the blood pools in the lowest parts of the body. The colour palette of death is really rather pretty.”

Full of dark humour, I really like the tone Brent strikes with Kitty’s voice. The sardonic descriptions of mayhem and murder contrasts effectively with our perception of a gushing influencer. Kitty is not particularly likeable, nor is she reliable, but she is amusing and pretty bad ass.

“I look like a walking wet dream. I’m hideous.”

There’s a twist or three to the tale, because no woman is perfect. All are fairly easy to predict but they are fun and generally satisfying anyway.

A delightfully wicked story, I enjoyed How To Kill Men and Get Away With It, perhaps a teeny bit more than I should of.

It started off good and the general story was good in most places but the cutting up of mens bodies and carrying them off in shopping bags was a bit far fetched.

A light read but not for me unfortunately.

Kitty Collins is killing it - quite literally. A social media influencer turned murderer. It all started when she was walking home one night, keys in hand, ready to defend herself from a guy following her after a night out. She pushed him, he stumbled and fell onto his own broken bottle of wine. Now Kitty can’t seem to stop nor does she want to… she has a taste for revenge. She is killing it!
I loved this debut - One of my favourite reads this year. It was hilariously entertaining and addictive. Set in London, this is a dark and juicy story about friendship, romance and revenge. Kitty was fascinating, I loved her sarcasm and was engrossed in what she would get up to next.
This book is sadly very relevant with its exploration of violence, harassment and assault towards women. The sadness that women do not feel safe in society and the harmful nature of social media and society who blame the victims.
#notaskingforit #nomeansno #myoutfitisnotaninvitiation
This is a must read! Especially if you love a psychological thriller.

This is so easy to read and has a very different slant on being a murderer! I loved it. Very topical subject and should be read by men and women!

<b>Real rating: 4 stars</b>

<i>How to Kill Men and Get Away With It<i> has the best premise for a female Dexter on paper, but it doesn't work as the author intended. Kitty is an influencer, but her side gig is killing disgusting men who r*pe or s*xually assault women. SOUNDS PERFECT, right?

Well, it does, but I feel like the whole ordeal could've been executed better.

The first two stars dropped because of the author's adamant vegan convictions, which have basically no meaning to the plot, but they are repeated and repeated throughout. We get it. And that's not the problem, I fully respect vegan people, but the sick description of animals being killed... Why? Stick with killing men. Animal cruelty in books always results in stars dropping and this one is definitely not an exception.

The other star, which could've been more if I had more available, is for Kitty. She is the most insufferable person alive with a God complex. She thinks she is soooooo much better than everyone else, because she's "not like the rest." Can we give up this trope, please? Why don't female characters ever admit that there might be some badass women out there who are better than us? How is it helping, really?

And I struggle to understand whether the author intended her, Kitty, the influencer, to act like she's so much better, because influencers all think they're better than most. Or, if, in reality, she really believed Kitty was a good character. Alas, I hope it's not the latter. But I am just rambling here, hoping to save something from this book. Because she's the worst MC I've read in a long time. And what p*sses me off is that she had potential.

I could've respected Kitty more as a person/ influencer if she just admitted that's who she is. That she enjoys spending money in lavish places, living in her parents' house, and hanging out with other beautiful people. That's not a crime. Doing all those things and acting like you hate them, but not changing ABSOLUTELY anything is.

Let's not even get started on the fact that she gets away with murder by magic. There's no planning or reasonable thinking there. It's just magic. I wonder whether the author has ever noticed all the CCTV in London, especially in high-end places. There's absolutely no way, zero, no chance one of the cameras noticed her killing people ON THE STREETS. Come on. It's just lazy.

Let's move on to the good parts. There are a couple of twists there I didn't expect, the pace is generally good, and I LOVE the idea.

Regardless, I think it could've been done better and might've actually been a five-star read.

I so wanted to throw myself into this. I was expecting biting social media-focused satire and a mashup of American Psycho and My Sister the Serial Killer. Sadly, that wasn’t quite what I got.

What works in MSSK is that the narrator is not the killer but a sane person trying to cover up for a psychopath. With Patrick Bateman in AP, his gaze is ours but we know that he’s a monster. Here, the author wants to have it both ways, with us as reader inside Kitty’s head but not really privy to her knowledge. I understand that Katy Brent wanted to keep us guessing but this mixed approach just didn’t work for me with some things hinted at - fair enough - but others coming out of nowhere.

I also wasn’t sure if we were meant to sympathise with her in any way. Was Kitty intended as a ‘meat is murder’ and we’re all essentially meat commentary? Or an example of the vapidity of It Girl and Influencer culture? Wealth corrupts? Witnesses to domestic violence become violent? Plain psychopathy?

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, HQ Digital for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Meet Kitty Collins, heiress, influencer, vegan, oh and murderer.

How To Kill Men and Get Away With It is delightfully dark and amusing! Kitty has taken it upon herself to rid the world of the worst of humanity… a true vigilante, in a pair of Jimmy Choos.

I won’t divulge too much of the plot as I think this book is fun read without much prior knowledge, however if you’re looking for some dark humour and an enjoyable easy prose then this is the book for you!

Kitty Collins is a woman who contains multitudes: she’s a mega-rich heiress, and Instagram influencer, a passionate vegan, and a serial killer. But she only kills those who really deserve it, setting up a Dexter-type situation, but with a lot more hashtag content and binge drinking. How To Kill Men and Get Away With It’s concept is an exciting one - I love a good sociopathic female lead, and I was hoping for some commentary on the social media age via Kitty’s line of work. I did not get this, however - this novel is, unfortunately, a classic case of great concept, bad execution.

Kitty’s sardonic, witty point-of-view is deeply enjoyable, and the multi-faceted plot (more on that in a moment) thunders on, keeping you hooked. Short chapters means it’s easy to burn through, and the actual murders are a lot of fun.

What I didn’t like, though, was that I truly did not know what the author was trying to say with this one. There’s social commentary alright, but a LOT of it is to do with being vegan and so comes off as lecturing the reader. She then tries to take on all the ills of a misogynistic world, as well as the extreme privilege of the uber-rich. It’s a lot, and as a result, plot and pontification get muddled, and the whole concept falls a bit flat. Brent also deals with a lot of serious topics in this one quite flippantly, in a way that really rubbed me up the wrong way. One or two passages made me genuinely uncomfortable and it felt like the author talking, not the characters.

The novel possibly could have gotten away with some - if not all - of this if it had stronger characters - but with the exception of Kitty, the POV and main character, everyone is a bit crudely drawn, and in several cases, their actions make no sense - this is particularly evident, and annoying, in the case of the primary love interest. Which, let’s be real, a serial-killer-girlboss novel doesn’t need. Charlie felt extraneous to the plot and kind of boring, which is never a great sign.

This is Brent’s debut work of fiction and don’t get me wrong: it’s a lot of fun, much more so than other similar commercial fiction works I have read. But as the unhinged women genre goes, it’s lacking in depth or meaningful social commentary.

How to Kill Men and Get Away With It pulls no punches with its main character, Kitty. She’s not the type of character I’d usually warm to, and the fact she’s an ‘influencer’ and surrounded by people who I found really irritating just adds to that – and yet I really enjoyed reading about her! She acknowledges that people like her are often obsessed with how they look and appear to others, and seems to resent it despite it paying her bills.

What started out as an accidental killing escalates into an overwhelming desire to enact revenge in the most permanent way possible on the various men who have hurt or threatened people she cares about. It’s darkly satisfying seeing her relentlessly take out these awful men and this makes the book a twisty, enjoyable read. There are definitely darker themes to the story with some of the situations Kitty’s friends’ experience, but that gave Kitty a reason to do what she did (mostly) and there’s plenty of humour, so the book never feels hard work.

I don’t want to give too much away about this one – it’s best if you know as little as possible… so I’ll just say that if you enjoy books where women are unapologetically ‘bad’, but for a good reason, then give this a go! It’s definitely good fun and satisfyingly dark too.

This book is absolutely jam packed with dark humour and I completely adored every page. Such a unique read and will be recommending this read to everyone I know.

This book had me HOOKED from the very beginning. Although you probably shouldn't judge a book by its cover I definitely did with this one and it definitely paid off! Kitty was such a fun character to read from, is she a serial killer technically yes but did her victims deserve what they got, yes so there is no sympathy here. This was so fast-paced and I enjoyed every second of it and finished it in just one short day!

Kitty is an Instagram influencer, confident, independent and rich. Yet she can be bored and unappreciative of her fame. Until an encounter with a stalker reveals that she has a hidden talent.

Full of humour and fun, this is a novel that doesn’t take itself too seriously and openly acknowledges its influences. The plot may have a few holes but the story is vastly entertaining and well worth a read.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Just a little slow and unbelievable at some points. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Kitty Collins--gosh, how to describe her. A combination of Killing Eve and maybe Joe Goldberg or Dexter. She's sick of the way women are treated by men and decides to take things into her own hands. But of course, things take a turn for the complicated when she meets Charlie, a man who might actually be worth her time. This was a really fun read, and I'll look forward to Katy Brent's next!

When I first came across this book on netgalley the premise sounded right up my street. Stabby, serial killer, light hearted (kind of) goodness, and I wasn’t disappointed. I read this book in quick time, it was fast paced and I loved the characters.

I had been in a bit of a slump recently and this pulled me right back out of it. If you’re looking for a fun book with a slight nod to how the world is today, paired with a lot of crazy then this is the one for you!

This was SUCH a brilliant read, and Kitty Collins is kickass - think Killing Eve meets Dexter. Sick of men treating women like objects to degrade, ghost and attack at will, she starts to take matters into her own hands.

Kitty has obviously been hurt by men and we gradually get a deeper insight into her past and her motivations.

Things are complicated when she meets Charlie, a man who just might be the one to restore her faith. But now, she has so much to lose.

Totally gripping, absorbing and heart-racing, I want to read this again and again. Kitty was written with such acerbic wit, and says what many of us have felt or thought but not been brave enough to say. But she is complex and also kind which makes her such an interesting character.

Absolutely fabulous read!