What a Way to Go
What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Guardian, for a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedMackie's follow-up to her debut trades that book's single-narrator fury for an ensemble structure, a dead patriarch narrating from beyond the grave, his wife, and an amateur internet sleuth, and reviewers largely agreed the wider lens suits her satirical instincts better than a straightforward thriller would. The recurring comparison to Succession isn't lazy shorthand; critics kept landing on it because the novel's real target is the specific moral vacancy of inherited wealth rather than the whodunit mechanics.
In the press
“A blend of Miss Marple-style whodunnit and social comedy — a gleeful satirising of the awfulness of the 1 per cent”
The Times“Mackie has assembled a gloriously repugnant cast... a dark, funny story of a very dysfunctional family”
The Observer
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Guardian | 0.85 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.59 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.59 → 13 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is What a Way to Go on?
What a Way to Go appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Guardian.
What is its Consensus Score?
What a Way to Go has a Consensus Score of 13 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.