How To Murder Your Life

With a cover that bold and a title that outrageous, how do you not stop to pick this book up?!

I had How To Murder Your Life marked as to read on my Goodreads for a while. A friend of mine picked it up first and was listening on audiobook. She played the first minute or so of the intro and I’ve never added a book to my amazon cart faster!

This book isn’t your typical memoir by any means. Cat Marnell, former Lucky beauty editor, takes us through her life, ups downs, even more downs and her struggles with addiction.

I love getting an inside look into industries that seem so untouchable. Fashion is definitely one of those industries to me, where there is very clearly an insiders group and outsiders (but I guess that’s any industry). It’s why I can’t stop watching Eva Chen’s 10 hour long Instastories (and I rarely tap through).

So the idea of a former editor spilling it all and giving us an inside peek into what life is like was intriguing. But Cat did so much more than take us into the life and times of a former editor. Way more.

I have to start by commenting on the subject matter. It’s dark. Very dark. Cat doesn’t gloss over or sugar coat anything that she’s done. And if you’re sensitive to graphic stories of addiction or recounts of battling an eating disorder, this may not be the book for you.

Cat opens up here about everything from her tough relationship with her family (due in large part with her addiction), how she build and ruined her career (literally murdered it) and where she is now. The stories she tells will definitely have me looking a bit closer at the people around me that seem to have it all.

An interesting thing throughout the book is that you want to root so badly for Cat, even when she’s clearly the bad guy. It was easy for me to point fingers at everyone else she introduced us to. But I felt so connected to her throughout the book I wanted to look out for her more than I wanted to blame her. Granted, she deserves lot’s of blame.

Now, the writing in this book is stellar. Cat managed to tackle the darkest periods in her life while still making me laugh along the way (between gasps and shocked faces). You’ve got to hand it to a woman who can make a book about self destructive behaviors and a dark addiction read humorous.

I tend to have an issue with memoirs where I feel like they’re al 50-100 pages too long. I definitely didn’t get that feeling with this one. I felt so invested in Cat’s life, in her journey and her struggles that I felt like I needed to see it through, and didn’t want it to end.

And speaking of endings, this one kind of through me. It didn’t leave me feeling settled or necessarily satisfied, but I’m not sure how I expected things to end honestly.

A bonus? Every incident, article and moment mentioned in these pages is highly google-able. Not to mention, all of Cat’s social media accounts are public and very, very frequently updated. So while the book may end on page 384, you can keep the ride going well beyond the book’s ending.

I gave How to Murder Your Life 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads , and would definitely recommend it.