The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie Book Review

Authors: Jaclyn Moriarty

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie isn't a typical murder mystery novel. Kidzworld reviews this third novel by Jaclyn Moriarty.

She's a Brainiac

Bindy Mackenzie is the smartest girl at Ashbury High. She scores the highest grades, she's the star of the debate team, she's every teacher's pet, she tattles, she transcribes every conversation that takes place around her, and she holds counselling sessions for classmates who "feel like morons." No wonder someone wants to murder her.

Bringing Down Bindy

Bindy doesn't have any friends, but has many enemies who end up being in her Friendship and Development (FAD) course. When given an assignment to write descriptions about each other, they write mean comments about Bindy. So she sends each of her classmates vengeful emails that compare them to gross animals. Soon, strange things start to happen to Bindy. She misses classes, doesn't complete her assignments, fails exams, and even crashes her uncle's car during a driving lesson! Plus, she feels sick all the time and just wants to sleep. Something's very wrong with Bindy... is someone trying to bring her down and kill her?

Bottom Line

The bottom line is, The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie is 491 pages long and not a single page of it is fun to read. Written like a journal, it's extremely difficult to follow Bindy's weird, rambling thoughts - but it's even more difficult to like her. She's one of the most unlikeable characters we have ever read about! If you want to read about kids who don't quite fit in at school, skip this book and check out Schooled or Stargirl instead.

The Murder of Bindie Mackenzie Rating:

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