The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club by Gloria Chao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is a humorous Cozy Mystery following chemist, Kathryn Hu. Kat is a little socially awkward and hasn’t made a lot of friends in Boston, where she works in a research lab.
She does have a boyfriend though, Tucker Jones, who is the light of her life. At least until she finds out that he has two other girlfriends, Olivia and Elle.
The women decide to team up to teach the cheating jerk a lesson, but when they enter his apartment to exact their revenge, they end up discovering his very dead body.
Crap. Their DNA and fingerprints are everywhere in his apartment. They did arrive there hoping to do him dirty. They’re innocent though. They swear they’re innocent, but who is going to believe them?
In order to clear their names, Kat, Olivia and Elle need to find the real killer. They go undercover and end up finding a lot of folks that may have wanted Tucker dead.
With a hot detective sniffing around, will they be able to uncover the truth before they go down for the crime?
This was really cute. I put off reading it for so long and now I’m kicking myself. I was surprised at how invested I became in this mystery and characters. I would equate the humor and coziness to the Aunties series by Jesse Q. Sutanto, so if you liked that series, this could be for you.
Admittedly, it did take me a minute to get used to Kat’s narrative voice. She’s quite quirky, and makes a lot of Dad Jokes, but I ended up coming to love her. I feel like when you realize her awkward silliness is 100% genuine to who she is, she becomes incredibly likable.
For me the star of this show is the relationship that develops between these three women. All of them were in positions where they could really use a friend and the way they bonded over this toxic man was just so satisfying.
Particularly for Kat. I feel like as the Reader, it’s easy to become so empathetic for Kat’s experience. She’s not close with her parents. She has no real friends in Boston, where she moved for her job, and her colleagues unfortunately just don’t understand her.
The way she grows as a person through her friendships with Olivia and Elle was so beautifully-executed by Chao. While the mystery was fun, the way Kat grew as a character was the highlight for me.
I would recommend the audiobook for this one. The narration by Carolyn Kang brought so much life to this story, and she definitely delivered the comedic timing as well.
Thank you to the publisher, Harlequin Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m excited to continue on with this series. I’m interested to see how Chao is going to build it out from here.