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Our Kind of Cruelty

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*A big thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy for review. This has not influenced my opinion in any way.*

I feel extremely conflicted about this book. It took me months to read it, and I had to force myself to pick it up as I simply was not feeling engaged. There are some things I like about it, definitely, but a lot more that I didn't.

First of all, I didn't like the POV.

The main character, Mike Hayes, is also the narrator and the story is told in first person. Thus, we only get his perspective throughout the entire book. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I hated his voice.

Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of his character and of only getting access to his thoughts and feelings, especially when they are so jumbled and troubled - which makes for a very flawed and intriguing perspective. The problem is I didn't buy any of it. It didn't feel like I was reading about a guy, for one. Everything from his feelings and tastes and overall behaviour made me feel like I was reading about a female character instead. More than that, this person didn't come off half as intelligent as everyone made him out to be, not to mention I find it very unrealistic that someone like him would have survived in the corporate world as long as he did, making it as far as he did, with as much money as he did.

This alone made it very hard for me to enjoy the novel from the first page. But it wasn't all.

The pace was incredibly slow and repetitive and just plain boring. It's unfortunate because this story could have been so much more dynamic and interesting if we hadn't been pestered by Mike's thoughts over and over again - which, I know, we must in order to feel connected to him somehow and end up understanding why he thought and did the things he did. However, being aware of his background and past did very little to make me feel sympathetic or closer to him in any way. Again, part of it has probably to do with the fact that I just couldn't see him as a real person and more like a caricature.

But even if I hadn't liked his character, I guess I could have at least enjoyed the action and how the story progressed. Not even that. I just didn't feel emotionally invested in any way, probably because:

I was extremely confused. Now, this is supposed to be a very subjective narrative and keep you guessing until the very end, which it effectively did. And this why it gets conflicting for me: I kept reading because I felt oddly intrigued by what was going to happen. Despite finding it boring and annoying and skimming through most of the second/third of the book, I wanted to know what was going to happen. And that's great, but still the only reason why I kept reading - to satisfy a curiosity.

Another thing that bothered me was that I apparently missed the entire message of the story. I didn't catch ANYTHING to do with feminism or sexism (which are AWESOME topics that I would have loved to have found in it, by the way) throughout the entire book, except for the very end. And even then, it felt more like an afterthought. I only realised it was an important part of the book when I read the author's afterword - you know, after READING the whole book. Which basically rendered it pointless.

I expected this to be a lot darker and more twisted than it was. It felt so... Lame. So incredibly disappointing in both severity and danger. There wasn't a moment where I feared for anyone's safety, not even at the end. Nothing remotely gasp-worthy happens, which is concerning seeing as I'm not the type of person to even read about anything too crazy. Quite the opposite!

I mean, the obsession, stalking, etc. is upsetting, for sure, but it was never pegged as insanely disturbing. Maybe because Mike never came off as threatening to me - just a bit pathetic and lost. He goes on and on about love and devotion, so much so that everything else either got glazed over or was missed amidst the noise. Again, I'm incredibly squimish and sensitive to this sort of stuff and none of what he did, said or thought brought any troubling reaction. I guess because, for the most part, everything felt unrealistic and distant, which is not something that should happen.

A lot of the stuff that Mike and V shared and did felt, quite frankly, ridiculous. I simply cannot imagine two adults, no matter how disturbed or delusional or whatever it was, behaving the way they did or making up a game like that (I find the name they gave to it especially cringy. I mean, Crave? Really?) The dialogue alone made me feel like I was reading one of those cheesy romance novels, not a thriller.

I think Our Kind of Cruelty had great potential but failed to fulfill it. It was confusing, missed its mark, went in circles for way too long (killing the suspense even before it began), had a failed POV and a difficult character to connect with, made no particular sense for the most part and despite being able to spark my interest midway through, it wasn't the sort of interest that kept me engaged but more like an itch I had to scratch in order to move on to more enjoyable things. It certainly wasn't able to make up for everything else.

To this day, I still have no idea what I read or who "the bad guy" was. I'm not sure if it was intentional on the author's part to keep it so open to interpretation or if I just missed the point completely (it's entirely plausible seeing how much of the book I skimmed through and how I had huge reading hiatus in between possibly vital parts) but the truth was I just didn't get it. I wish I'd enjoy it more, especially when someone like Gillian Flynn raves about it (though I haven't read anything by Flynn either, thus can only trust the hype) but I didn't.

I still plan on reaching out for the genre more and, if anything, this book did make me more curious and interested in finding a story that actually thrills me. Unfortunately, Our Kind of Cruelty just wasn't it.

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If half stars were an option, I would give this book 3.5 stars.

Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall is, as the blurb puts it, Mike's love story. Told in first person from Mike's point of view, readers are shown the depth of his love for a woman named Verity, an ex who no longer returns his affections. In my opinion, Hall does a phenomenal job showing just how out of touch Mike is with reality, both in his thoughts about and interactions with Verity, as well as his relationships with others in his life. In some ways, her writing even makes the reader sympathize with Mike to a degree, as it is made incredibly clear that he is the victim of his own fantasies.

That being said, I found myself consistently waiting for something to happen in this book. The story is told in three parts and, while I won't give away what happens, nothing truly exciting occurs until the end of the second part. From there, I expected the story to take off, but it went back to its usual pace pretty quickly.

Perhaps part of my issue there lies in the fact that, upon reading the blurb, I was just expecting a more intense stalking situation. Instead, readers are met with a character that, for all intents and purposes, are more delusional than dangerous. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just told a different story. In many ways, I ended up appreciating it because it shone a light on a more subtle form of stalking that often goes forgotten.

Overall, I think Hall handled the subject matter with grace and did a phenomenal job pointing out major issues in our society and legal system. I did thoroughly enjoy reading the book once I started to view it as more of a beach read than a thriller. However, with the lack of intense action that I was expecting, it just never quite got there for me. If you go into this one with the right expectations, I think this book will work a lot better for you and you'll find yourself loving it!

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This book was weird, to say the least. I finished it over a week ago and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it, hence, the three star rating. Mike, the protagonist, is a deeply disturbed individual, whose motivations are grounded in just enough logic and just enough reality, that you are never really sure just how disturbed he is. While not a strictly unlikeable narrator, I was never sure how I felt about him. I couldn't decide if I trusted him, felt sorry for him, or wanted him to burn in hell.

Because of this, the feminist slant that really comes forward at the end of the novel was hard to mesh. The author writes in a note after the story that she wanted to emphasize the ways women's bodies have been policed and judged, especially in the past two years. While I see where that comes from, using Mike as the narrator makes that difficult to see, because we only get his focalization. While we can see that his actions are not okay, it's hard to see JUST how bad they are, because of his narration. Think of this as a more subtle version of Caroline Kepnes' novel, YOU.

I'm glad I read it and I know i'll continue to think about this book in the months to come.

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So, this is a very simple, but very unsettling novel.

The author puts us square in the mind of a very disturbed, very obsessed man.

The book is highly suspenseful as you watch him spiraling out of control - and you simply know it can't end well. It's dark, twisted (not twisty though) and you feel somewhat sullied just reading it.

What kept this from being a five star read for me, though, was the sheer simplicity of it. With Mike, disturbed as he is, what you see is exactly what you get. I kept hoping the author would add something to this - something that made this story more than just the workings of Mike's mind - but it never really came.

Still, though, it was a very good book. I read it at breakneck speed, simply dying to know how it would all end.

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Our Kind of Cruelty is a dark and twisted story! I can't wait to see what Araminta Hall writes next!

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What happens when a male unreliable narrator is the sole protagonist of a dark psychological thriller?

The answer is right within this riveting novel’s pages.

Sypnosis:

The book revolves mainly around the concept of obsessive love and a surplus devotion between our characters Mike and Verity. This couple plays a twisted game called The Crave.
This is how this game works…

Verity is approached by a suitor at a bar, they begin to flirt and when things look like they’re going the distance, she tugs her silver eagle necklace and Mike comes to her rescue. V and Mike take each other as their reward afterwards.

Although after Mike’s infidelity, Verity marries another man.
This will utterly shatter him, but Mike can’t help but be convinced that V’s endeavors are part of The Crave, and that the rules of this game have certainly changed because this time, someone has to die.

Throughout the last pages, things take a dark turn and the novel becomes more addictive than ever, with that just-one-more-page effect.

My full thoughts:

The story’s events are told from Mike’s perspective, and we become aware of the damaged childhood he comes from and how his upbringing brutally affects the intriguinly dark manner in which he thinks.

As we leaf through the pages, we begin to acknowledge that the author really pushes boundaries and creates a newer layer of dark and disturbing by challenging the thriller genre in the most original way.

Our Kind of Cruelty is more of an exploration of the crooked human psychology than it is an unraveling of a mystery, and also more about the anticipation of what’s going to happen next in our protagonist Mike’s journey.

This psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Patricia Highsmith and gripping thrillers such as Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates.

The book does have a slew of explicit scenes (abuse, affairs, etc), so do proceed with caution.

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I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher. As always, thank you to both.

I chose this book expecting some kind of demented love story with honestly, multiple points of view. Maybe a new way to get out from the <i>Gone Girl</i> craze of thrillers, and I mean, it gets some bonus points for that. Instead I was hoping for something more along the lines of <i>You</i>, which it kind of was, but ..... honestly so much tamer?

This book is done in three parts rather than chapters: Pre-Wedding, Post-Wedding, and a court case (not a spoiler, it's clear from the beginning that there is some kind of court case.) Every review I've read of this book talks about this MAJOR TWIST....I don't know where this twist was?

The acknowledgements of this book change the entire tone of it, which is kind of wonderful, but also should have been woven better throughout the book. Viewing it through a #metoo sort of lens makes it tolerable? I don't know. I really don't know how I feel about this book. If this is supposed to be the case, the woman should be more....tolerable? But also, that's not fair to V? I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS BOOK.

2.5-3 stars.

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This was a twisty thriller with an unreliable narrator that left me guessing until the end. With both main characters seemingly alternately sympathetic and unsympathetic at times, it was hard to tell which was the villain or if both or neither were. It was only in the final pages that the awful truth became obvious. This was an entertaining psychological thriller.

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Oh wow I loved this one! I could not stop reading and every chapter I finished left me with more questions. Was Mike just a sick stalker that couldn't get over Verity ending their relationship? Or was Verity the one pulling all the strings? I loved that the story was told in first person from Mike's POV and the reader is left to wonder how often he misreads situations because of his mental state. It's very difficult to make characters like Mike sympathetic, but the author achieved this and in turn made me very invested in the outcome. The ending was unpredictable and I thought worked very well. Highly recommend this one to fans of twisty thrillers like You.

Review posted on Amazon and Goodreads

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MCD and NetGalley gave me the opportunity to read Our Kind of Cruelty. I was also fortunate enough to win a copy of the novel via a Goodreads Giveaway. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Mike and Verity have the kind of love than many dream they can achieve for themselves. Unfortunately, this perfect relationship is mostly in Mike's mind, as Verity has moved on. Desperate to win the love of his life back after a disastrous mistake, Mike embarks on a quest to give V everything she might want. With his affection bordering on obsession, what will happen when Verity takes charge of her own fate?

Our Kind of Cruelty is a fascinating study of the human mind when stretched beyond its limits of comprehension. Mike has faced so much rejection in his life that his mind cannot allow V's choice to become truth. As his story unfolds, I was amazed to find that I could sympathize with Mike to the degree that I found Verity's story to have holes. This psychological thriller turns what the reader thinks they know to something totally different. I did find the book to be somewhat repetitive and I did not believe that Mike could have hidden the truth from those in his life for as long as he did. I also found aspects of the plot towards the ending, when V is faced with a conflict, that the story unfolds in an unrealistic manner. Despite its flaws, Our Kind of Cruelty was a well laid out novel with good characterization. I would recommend this book to readers who like psychological thrillers and suspense.

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This was a really good dark psychological thriller. It was the first book I've read by this author but won't be the last.

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****REVIEW FOR NETGALLEY*****

I must say, I don’t even know where to begin. I now know what is like to know the ravings of a mad man. I will say this wasn’t what I thought it would be.

As you read, you do start to feel bad for Mike, you know his background and you know he is lost, but also know not everything is as Mike says it is. My heart broke for him, and you see others try to reach him. But everyone has a breaking point.

At first, you hate V, Mike’s girlfriend/“girlfriend”, but then you realize not all is her fault.

This is about mental health, abuse and crimes against women. But sometimes you can’t help those who don’t want to help themselves. It’s a hard decision, do you take away someone’s right to decide if they need help. I believe most turn a blind eye.

This book was heartbreaking for the injustices done to both mike and V.

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The premise of this novel was great (and I love a good ol' fashioned unreliable narrator!). But the execution was just way off. The author wants us to go inside the twisted, tormented mind of Mike who can't seem to stop stalking the ex he's convinced is still in love with him. The reader keeps guessing - is Verity still truly in love with Mike? Or is everything made up in his deranged mind? Except that there were too many unclear elements for me (especially at the end). Parts of this just dragged on and on instead of the quick pace you'd expect from a thriller. I liked the idea of getting inside the mind of a stalker, but this whole book just left me frustrated...and bored.

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Mike is one of the most terrifying people I have ever read about. Ever, ever, ever. The level of ferocious belief in his relationship with Verity is breathtaking. I have heard about mental gymnastics in order to maintain a belief despite all evidence to the contrary. For Mike, it never seems like work, though. He simply believes, with all of his heart, apparently, that he and Verity are meant to be. There is no love in the world like theirs, and nothing in this world that can break them or keep them apart.

There is a question - a very big question - raised by Verity's response to Mike and all his attentions. As he's refusing to accept her impending marriage, popping up unexpectedly, sending email after email, she never truly rebuffs him. It seems that no matter what he does, she never just tells him off and refuses further contact with him. Why is that? She argues that it's because of their history, and his history before he met her. He's been through so much in his life. She does not want to be cruel on top of all the cruelties he's already experienced. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Or is it because Mike is actually right, after all? Is her relationship with Angus all a carefully constructed sham to punish Mike for hurts he's caused Verity? After all, he never tried to hide how he felt about her or what he thought of everything going on. If she was really concerned about him, she could have put a stop to it. Couldn't she? She could have even called the police if she was afraid. So the big question is, why didn't she?

As more people become aware of Mike and Verity's relationship, as more people get involved, those same people start asking the same question. Why didn't she put a stop to it if Mike was so wrong in all his thoughts and assumptions? Going through the story, it is natural for the reader to ask this, as well. I kept thinking of Verity's explanations, and never quite understood why that wasn't enough. Why is it so hard to accept that maybe she just didn't want to be cruel to this man she's known for years? Why is that so unreasonable?

I kept thinking what likely would have happened if Verity had crushed Mike, verbally slammed him and left no question as to where she felt they stood. I can only see one of two outcomes from that:

1) He is completely devastated. Given his wounded background, the level of suffering he has already endured in his life, it would be unsurprising to others that he be grief-stricken at the loss of Verity and at her aggression towards him. He may even harm himself, and Verity would be blamed for being so unnecessarily mean.

2) He continues to think that he simply has to do more to prove that he is worthy of her. Continuing to escalate until someone is seriously injured or worse. In which case, she may still be blamed, because she knew what he was like - clearly, since she so adamantly demanded he leave her alone. Therefore, she should have done more to stop him.

As I read "Our Kind of Cruelty," I got a very strong sense that, no matter what, Verity was going to be judged as having done something wrong. People tend to be very quick to condemn women in relationships for everything that goes wrong. Even if their partner was a terrible partner, then the woman just should have known better than to get involved with them. Sometimes it feels like a no-win situation.

This book was beautifully written. Mike is so incredibly unbalanced, but expressive in a way that constantly makes one question if he is a bad guy, or if maybe he just needs some help. I never really got angry with him, and that made me feel very surprised, and very in sync with Verity.

The only thing keeping me from giving this book five stars is what I read in the Acknowledgements. Araminta Hall wrote that this story came "...in a mad spurt of anger at the continued injustices perpetrated against women in our so-called civilized society." That is exactly how I felt, reading this book, but I didn't feel like those thoughts and feelings came from the book itself. I read this through the eyes of a domestic abuse survivor. At times, the story actually made me very angry, because there was so little outcry from Verity as to why she acted the way she did, or said the things she said. Allowing society to make assumptions about us is where a great many of our problems come from. We need to speak for ourselves, explain ourselves, stand up for ourselves. Verity never once did, and it felt very upsetting.

Although it's Mike's love story, I feel very strongly that Verity deserves a voice and I never got the sense that she had one.

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Started off strong and was rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, it kind of careens off towards the end. I definitely wanted to like it more than I did.

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I will still be recommending this book even though it wasn’t for me. It started strong then seemed to slow down quite a bit until the end. I had to force myself to get through it.

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Wow was this a great book. This one had me one the edge of my seat. Totally dark and twisty. My favorite kind.

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Mike and Verity “V” are in love and like to play harmless games like the “Crave”. Mike changes himself completely to adapt to V’s needs but V moves on to another relationship and when he receives an invitation to her wedding he knows it’s just another game that V us playing with him because after all they belong together

Our kind of cruelty is a dark obsessive tale of love narrated by Mikes POV. It’s a disturbing story of a delusional person and how far they can go building fantasies in their own mind.Though it was interesting to read the book from Mike’s perspective I would have enjoyed it more if there was a chapter about Verity’s thoughts and feelings.

I would like to thank Farrar, Straus and Giroux & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

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While I did find this book to be a bit slow-paced early on, once it got its hooks in me, I found myself rather lost in it. Mike had a tragic childhood and isn’t much of a people person. The few people he does love, he is very loyal too and especially protective of. This is particularly true of his longtime love Verity. When she leaves him, seemingly over a mistake he made, he is beyond devastated, and becomes convinced that it is an elaborate play in a bizarre love game they created years ago. Ever loyal, he “plays along”, despite her protests, and in the end, neither of them knows which way is up.

The thing I love most about this book is how well-crafted it was. Even now, I’m not sure what I believe. Maybe I was so invested in Mike that I’ve developed some bias, or maybe my distaste for Verity made me see something that wasn’t there. I. Don’t. Know. And it isn’t that it was confusing, it’s just…I liked Mike. I empathized with him. Things are not always black and white, and Mike is heavily in the gray area for me. It would not surprise me to hear that many others disagree. 

Ultimately, if you are ok with a slow start, this is a pretty decent read. In fact, I might put it in my reread pile just to get some clarification for myself.

Note: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley. I pride myself on writing fair and honest reviews.

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It took me a really long time to get into this book and even then I was never fully immersed. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat, or staying up extra late just to finish. I just didn’t connect with the characters especially our unreliable narrator, Mike. Maybe it was because he was a guy and I tend to go for female suspense narratives (like The Girl on the Train, or I See You) but I just didn’t feel anything for him. I wanted to feel sorry for him or disgusted by him, or even slightly frightened by the possibility of someone like him, but I was just apathetic to be honest. I found myself predicting a lot of what was going to happen and being right, so the lack of surprise may have contributed too. I liked the writing style and the author herself was very engaging at times, but the book as a whole was just so-so for me.

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