Our kind of cruelty

I picked up this book based on only what the blurb told me because it ticked a few boxes - unreliable narrator, obsessive relationship, and psychological suspense. Because this is the kind of book that is best read when you know very little, I'm not going to summarize the plot, but I'll say that if you liked books like [b:You 20821614 You (You, #1) Caroline Kepnes https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411958102s/20821614.jpg 39913517] by Caroline Kepness or [b:Best Day Ever 34007977 Best Day Ever Kaira Rouda https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1496783181s/34007977.jpg 55005136] by Kaira Rouda, this might a book for you.The thing that sets this book apart for me is how it touches on how the media often treats women unfairly in cases of relationships gone wrong. As the author notes in her acknowledgements, this book is “a mad spurt of anger at the continued injustices perpetrated against women in our so-called civilized society.” The trial scenes in the second part of the novel are when the book really picked up the pace for me and I found myself unable to put the book down. Also, Hall keeps you guessing through an incredibly manipulative writing style, so that you don't really know what the truth is until the end. Even in the final chapters I was only pretty sure I knew what was happening. This book won't be for everyone, but if you like being in the head of obsessive creepers, I highly recommend it!

I'm always a little dubious when a book is marketed as the “biggest/most gripping/crazy thriller of [insert year]”, especially when that is actually after the book title when you buy or download it (for example, Amazon has this as “The most addictive psychological thriller of 2018, tipped by Gillian Flynn and Lisa Jewell). When this little marketing tagline is included, it generally doesn't end up being that way and unfortunately this was no exception.

In my opinion this isn't really a thriller, it's a psychological suspense and character study of a man's obsessive love of his ex-girlfriend. Just something to be aware of if looking to pick this up.

This follows Mike and V (Verity), we get some of their back story when they were together and we find out V is marrying someone else so we know immediately that their relationship didn't work out. This isn't a spoiler.

I will say this is well written and does completely pull you in from the start, it's fairly quick to read and the pacing suits the story. Mike is such a complex character to learn about, you know his obsession is just not right but he's actually likeable and you end up wanting the best for him despite his actions with V.

My main issue with this book was the structure, it is split into three parts - parts one and two cover the back story, current situation and the main ‘action' in the story, then the entire third part is basically the trial (again not a spoiler). I can't help but this this might have benefited from some back and forth between the first section and the trial in a sort of flashback or time switch format. The issue with the different parts is that the action has already happened in part two, so there's no climax to the end of the book. It just sort of ends with the end of the trial, somewhat like a true crime book, but this is fiction. It's just a bit flat.

I appreciated the afterword from the author where she explains why she wrote this particular story, it did help to understand some elements of the novel. I also appreciate that this book will not be for everyone and I think it will raise a lot of discussions as people will like different characters, different side of this and will end up with an entirely different view on the ending but that is the beauty of reading.

All in all, I did enjoy this for the most part as the story is interesting and well written, but the latter half an ending was quite unsatisfying and just left me feeling a bit sad.