Kill Your Boomers

by Fiona Wright

‘a furious take on housing inequality’— The Australian , ‘the big books of 2026’ Your dream home awaits – there’s only two things in your way…

The great Australian dream is slipping out of reach for Keira and her friends. No partner, no house, no kids. At 30-ahem, she is still languishing in a mould-filled share house, with an unexplained and ever-growing hole in the floorboards that threatens to consume her and her housemates.

Her part-time job as a nanny to a pair of atrocious twins – and her role as emotional support servant at the beck and call of their mother, Johanna – provides barely enough money for the G&Ts she finds necessary to get through her other job as a freelance copywriter – though it does allow her to steal a fancy avocado every now and then. Each day she can feel herself falling further and further behind.

When her best friend Dylan is able to buy an apartment with the help of his partner’s inheritance, Keira sees a way out. The bank of Mum and Dad. But what to do with parents who are in the rudest of health, and whose plans threaten to spend the only lifeline she has? From the lounge room of her rotting share house she hatches a deadly plan to speed up the process of wealth transfer.

An audacious book that asks just how far you will go to get your dream house (or at least a one bedroom flat without mushrooms growing in the bathroom).PRAISE FOR KILL YOUR BOOMERS ‘When parental money becomes a looming solution, desperation sharpens into something darker – and all too recognisably millennial.’— The Sydney Morning Herald , Books to look forward to in 2026‘The gloriously vicious revenge plot “The Great Australian Dream” deserves. A devastating portrait of precarity. Funny, harsh, and sharp in all the right places. A book for the one-third of the population who've been kicked while they're down with a rent increase. A book for a well-meaning middle-class book club to fight over. A beautiful book. Another Wright success.’ —Bri Lee, author of Seed  ‘This is a dark, hilarious and urgent book about a younger generation being locked out of the housing market and all the boomers who still think it's because they spend too much on avocado on toast.’ —Felicity Castagna, author of No More Boats

Genres: Fiction

239 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 31, 2026

About the author

Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic. She is the author of two collections of essays, Small Acts of Disappearance and The World Was Whole, and two poetry collections, Knuckled and Domestic Interior.

Reviews

[Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kill Your Boomers starts off upsettingly realistic, then takes a strange hallucinogenic turn into the outright weird. It's a kooky book written by a Sydney millennial, for Sydney millennials, all the more unsettling for how understated it is.

My full review of Kill Your Boomers is up now Keeping Up With The Penguins.

[Holly Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book for 90% of it. The classic inner west imagery was fun and it’s obvious that Wright knows exactly what share-housing is like. Tbh just a bit let down by the ending. The foreboding bad thing ends up happening and then you’re just left to go on your merry way?? No uplifting morality to save the day. Like the whole book you’re kind of connecting with how shitty the protagonists life is, then at the end they’re like yeah it’s honestly always going to be shitty there’s nobody to save you ahahah!!!!

[Alyssa Blackwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Updated review 21/01/2026:

A huge thank you to @ultimopress for this review copy of Kill Your Boomers by Fiona Wright 🏡

Kiera is a 30-ish broke gal, living in a Sydney sharehouse and desperate to have a home of her own.
The sharehouse is full of mould, has a gaping hole in the kitchen floor, and no aircon. A true renters delight.
Kiera gets snippets of joy when she babysits for a rich woman in Double Bay and sees how the other half live, but when this job is threatened Kiera spirals.
She spirals even further when her friend Dylan is able to buy a house thanks to a dead parent’s inheritance.
And maybe this is the way out? If only her very healthy parents would die…

Oh this was so fun. Completely unhinged in all the best ways.
Fiona Wright has very clearly lived in a Sydney sharehouse and faced the horrors of trying to find a liveable place by yourself.
As a renter currently trying to leave a sharehouse and move into my own place, this hit SO close to home. Maybe too close, but it felt great to know we’re not alone in this nightmare.
I also loved reading a book set in Sydney, I haven’t read one for a while so it was a nice little treat!

Kiera’s downwards spiral is so real and relatable, I think we’ve all felt very similarly.
It’s very easy to feel like you’re falling behind your friends who are able to buy a home or live alone, but the reality is so much different.
I absolutely loved the ending of this. No spoilers but I genuinely cackled when I closed the book because it was just the cherry on top.

Kill Your Boomers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Release date: 31st March 2026
_______________________________________________

Original review 5/01/2026:

Full review to come but oh my god this was FUN.
Set in Sydney and Fiona Wright perfectly captured what it’s like to live in a sharehouse here and how depressing the housing market is.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected - review to come

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 I need someone to talk to about this book 🤣

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuck in yet another shitty rental that’s falling apart and has a literal hole in the kitchen floor, Keira can’t help but think it’s not fair. She’s over educated and under employed, sharing a rental with two other women in their late twenties and the great Australian dream of owning a home has never been further away.

So when the hole in the kitchen floor that the owner refuses to fix starts telling Keira that the only way she will ever get a home is to kill her parents, well it gets harder and harder to ignore.

An Aussie weird girl book! That is unfortunately all too true.

Who amongst us hasn’t felt frustration, despair, and terror when we see that a 3 bedroom dilapidated house is going for over 1mil and knowing we will never own a home? This book ask how far are you willing to go to get some stability?

With biting social commentary this book knows what it’s like to be locked out of the housing market.

It’s a drink with a friend as you make dark jokes about inheritance being the only way out of life long renting.

This was a cathartic read and I devoured this book like the hole in the floor wanted to devour boomers.

[Craig and Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big thanks to Ultimo Press for sending us a copy to read and review.
A story that just goes about its business without anything really happening.
The promise of a good book was a bit of a letdown.
To buy a house or apartment seems to be out of reach for Keira and her friends.
Living in a share house where mould runs rampant and a big hole in the floor dominates their home.
But Keira can’t afford to buy anything.
Her job as a nanny to two rambunctious toddlers and a slave to the mother doesn’t pay much.
Her other job, a copywriter, is just as bad.
Then her best friend inherits money and purchases a property, leaving her more depressed.
The only way to get what she wants, is to get the money from her parents.
One slight issue…..
They are alive and in good health.
So Keira thinks up a plan…..
Sounds good…. right!
It was just an ok read.
I was expecting it to be more macabre and the premise gives off a lot more energy than what was given.
It starts off quite good, then drags a bit and picks up for the ending.
Pick up at your own risk.

[Riley Sadlier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan of this one. Given two stars because it's at least well written and it's an aussie author.

My main issue is the protagonist Keira. She spends most of the book complaining. I think maybe if she had worked full time at some point in the novel and still couldn't get ahead I'd have been able to empathise. But instead all we get is her talking about how hard she's working and we never get to see it. Makes for a pretty obnoxious narrator.

Secondly, the parents weren't mean enough to justify any of the thinking. Her descent into madness wasn't big enough. At around the three quarter mark she just starts doing things when there's been no build up to it. There was no set up and pay off.

I think if you're in a similar situation to the protagonist you'll find a lot to like in the dry humour of the book. Not a winner for me.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was born out of a madness that can only be understood by those of us who lived in Sydney from the mid 2010s onwards. The girls who get it, get it.

[Martina Budimir · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enoyed this book. Beautifully written with a great premise but it felt like the anger and no holds barred attitude at the start petered out by the end. The author pulled some major punches which left me a bit unsatisfied with the ending.



***SPOILERS BELOW***



Things I liked:

The snark, the anger, the hole, the fact that she does indeed follow through with the premise (it's dark, but I like that!)

Things that annoyed me:

Her parents die in very close succession after the doctor has already noted decreased liver function and... there's no coroner? Everyone's like... this is fine? Literally no consequences? Felt weird given how realistic so much of the rest of the novel is.

Johanna and Marc vanishing to Singapore oh so conveniently. The entire supplement company storyline resolving itself way too easily.

Gwen, the roommate who literally says "thinking about killing your parents?", never following up when Keira's parents die very soon after?

Keira now has the funds to get the apartment and a Johanna style makeover but literally nothing about her has changed internally (she's still avoidant/sneaky) and still working dead end freelance gigs. I can't believe she could actually keep the apartment if she got it (and maybe that's part of the tragedy?).

The Hole - probably my favourite character - meeting a rather anti-climactic end. Honestly expected something more along the lines of The Telltale Heart or some real horror.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the ending. I wanted to be cheering for her but it felt a bit flat (for all the reasons above). I don't know that the author intended for her to come across as hollow by the end, but that's the feeling I was left with. A part of me wonders whether it even happened or whether she hallucinated the whole thing.

Also, never found out who got the Tesla.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was perfect to me - I’m not sure I would change anything about it (besides the potshot at people who organise their books thematically - guilty as charged - I kid). It gave me nightmares and made me feel physically ill to read some parts of the book, but that just shows how incredibly effective it was. I read The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey (another novel focussed on the great Australian real estate dream, but from the Boomer perspective) earlier this year and this was the perfect antidote.

Favourite things about this book:
- how it fluctuates between incredible realism (you can tell Fiona Wright has personal experience of long term renting and sharehouses) and the complete absurd, which, in my opinion, is the only sane way to address the current state of housing in Australia
- the clever zombie fungus nod about the hole’s mould invading Kiera’s brain that wasn’t outright stated but felt obvious to me
- the subtlety of the book in general that at the same time clearly foreshadowed what was coming
- the housemate that needs things to be scientifically accurate, loves fungi and is fatalistic about climate change (I feel like this character could’ve been based on me, and it also gave me faith that the science of this was well researched, which was confirmed by my Google searches about a few of the supplements mentioned)
- the subtle critiques of wellness culture
- how deftly grief was handled
- the absolutely gorgeous cover design and fonts used

Every second I wasn’t reading this book, I was thinking about how I wanted to get back to reading it. The audiobook is also really well done - I swapped between print and audiobook.

I can’t believe this book doesn’t have more buzz about it!

[Julie (Bookish.Intoxication) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kill Your Boomers, firstly, what a title! That piques your interest before you even flip it to read the blurb! Secondly, this is such a clever novel, encapsulating what it genuinely feels like to be a woman in her 30s, trying to achieve the 'milestones' of being an adult.

The chapters are short and punchy, which makes the pages turn easier and with an urgency that our protagonist Keira, also oozes.

The common theme in this novel, is the idea of fairness, how we, as humans are constantly looking for things to be fair. And how that just isn't achievable. How everyone's circumstances, lives, families and work commitments are different, and how that shapes what our communities and friendships look like. A clever and thought provoking narrative.

Kill Your Boomers is whitty, expressive and cleverly written. And as someone who is in the same stage of life, as our protagonist, it is incredibly easy to relate to her struggles. Money, work, family, a roof over your head. This novel is raw and gritty and says all of the things that we never meant to say out loud. Its refreshing.

This novel is a conversation starter. It is easy to read, filled with characters that feel real, like people you know. and by the end, i definitely felt connected to the hole in the kitchen...

Thank you to UltimoPress for sending a review copy of this title. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Susan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a boomer, perhaps more an older GenX but I can appreciate the housing inequity that plaques the younger generations.

This is not a way to solve your house ownership problem but it made for a deliciously wicked story. I had a hard time liking the main character Keira. My instinct was that she wasn't working productively towards her dream but then I am not a 30 year old working in the gig economy in Sydney as a freelance writer and part time nanny to an obnoxious "wellness warrior". Some 30 Year olds have embraced the responsibilities of adulthood, others are just waiting for the privileges of adulthood to fail into their lap. I really need to check my own privilege.

The hole in the kitchen was an interesting character on its own and you only need to be aware of the work of 'Purplepingers' in the rental space to know that many of the things that were described as being wrong with the house Keira was sharing with two others is probably more common in some markets than being uncommon. In the book many of the reasons for housing inequality are mentioned, especially when Keira walks past some of her old sharehouses.

I also can't say I liked the two parental characters, and their actions generated some sympathy for Keira's thoughts and intentions but over all - don't attempt to kill your parents/grandparents.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collision of the despair of the current housing crisis, the yearning for a place of your own, and all that symbolises for your life. An unhinged cascade of inner spiralling about identity, expectations, and the wish to avoid moving house again.

People around our protagonist here are buying houses, moving in, having a family, living their expected lives, whilst she is barely cobbling together rent with freelance writing, and a too temporary nanny gig.

The painful, and all too close to home, truth that to be in a position to own your own property these days, following university and figuring out a career, is for at least one of your parents to die. A brutal reality. And sadly, true for many of us.

The want for permanence, a place to call your own, to hang pictures on the wall, plant a garden, repair things in a timely manner, not have to negotiate shared bathrooms and kitchens and spaces, and to not have to move again. It's destabilising, and consuming, and tips our protagonist to dark places.

The streets of Inner West Sydney are as much of a character as the hole in the sharehouse kitchen. The hole, however, develops a presence all too commanding, suggestive and haunting.

An examination of the state of our world of unaffordability, everyday survival, and the pressures of expectations, and the impact on our lives and mental health.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Kill Your Boomers. The Sydney setting is a standout and feels lived‑in, from the sharehouses to the streets and suburbs, grounding the story firmly in place.

I found Kiera frustrating at times (murder plot aside). Her choice seemed limited to living in a decaying sharehouse or offing her parents, with little consideration of alternatives like moving further out or taking a different kind of job. She seemed limited to writing, although not particularly driven to. That frustration, though, feels intentional and feeds into the book's wider commentary on housing, work, and generational expectations. Is it ever realistic to expect the trendy inner city to be our first property purchase, though?

The novel made me think about the present moment, and about how my own children might ever afford housing without an inheritance. The ending feels inevitable - slightly spoiled by the title and blurb - but still effective. A sharp, thoughtful Australian read that captures something very real about modern Sydney life.

[Penne Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kill You Boomers by Fiona Wright was a really fun read. Keira is in her 30’s flat sharing a mouldy house with a big hole in the kitchen floor. With no money, 2 jobs going nowhere and a borderline obsession with open houses, it feels like her dream of owning her own place will never happen. So what else can you do but take advice from the hole in the kitchen floor around killing her elderly parents for the inheritance! This book was dark, funny and somehow really worked as I read it in a couple of days wanting to see the outcome. 4 ⭐️ thanks @ultimopress for the ARC

[Char · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you Ultimo Press for sending me this advanced copy.
Okay. Real talk.
I was so excited by the premise of this book.
but….
It was a let down.
Keira spends a lot of this book either complaining or hearing the hole in her kitchen talk to her…
It was just underwhelming
Don’t get me started on how I also wanted to DNF because there was more than one instance of snarky comments about colour organised bookshelves. Like. Excuse you. I love my rainbow shelf.

[Aneets · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK the premise of this was genius and loved the very Sydney setting. Love reading books set in my home town (even if am not from the inner west). It reminded me a lot of Best Offer Wins, which I also really enjoyed. However, I really disliked the main character & found it hard to sympathise with her. I feel like it would have hit harder if I had felt more sorry for her. Ending was also quite abrupt, I needed more. 3.5 stars

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was strange . I like some parts - I wanted the relationship of the hole in the floor to go somewhere or become more malignant and terrifying . But reality didn’t go anywhere . In fact the main character is a bitch . Unhinged . Not that likeable but I think it was relatable and an refreshing

[Corrine]

The protagonist craves housing security but short of her parents dying, can’t see how she’d be able to afford entering the housing market. Deeply satirical look at the impossible Sydney property market. The writing is detailed but so readable- such talent.

[Tom Boniface-Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fun, in an incredibly depressing way.

[Brendon Fehre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great read. Plows along and you get caught up in the story just reading to know what happens next. Five stars.