Our kind of cruelty

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.