Book Review - This Little Family - Ines Bayard

This Little Family by Inès Bayard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three bodies around a dining table.  Marie, her husband Laurent and their little toddler, Thomas, in his high chair.  All three of them have been poisoned by Marie.  But why?


I really struggle sometimes with how to rate a book on the star system here. This definitely wasn't a five star book for me and the rating of 3 states suggests I liked it. It feels wrong to say that when the subject matter is so dark. The blurb on the back of the edition I have outlines the opening chapter detailing the deathly scene of a family who have been poisoned by the Mother.

The rest of the book details what led to this awful tragedy.

The blurb also suggested to me that this is a crime thriller/mystery but it's not. It's the chronicle of the Mother's (Marie) breakdown after a shocking event of sexual violence. Strangely though it's told from the POV of the third person rather than first. I think it would have been better in the first person.

It's definitely shocking and very graphic in places. I liked that it challenged me as it's far removed from most of the books I read. (It's translated from French too.) It's quite short which was good because it was compelling. I didn't want to put it down although some aspects of it didn't feel credible to me, certainly not if the events had taken place in the UK.

Would I recommend it? Only with a big dollop of caution to any sensitive readers.

And for anyone wondering why I wanted to read this book, it was gifted to me.

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