Our Kind of Cruelty
ARC provided by publisher to facilitate this review
This is a love story. This is a tragedy.
This is a book about a break up so bad that when you put the pieces of the love story back together, what you get is murder.
Mike understands that most of us travel through the world as one half of a whole, desperately searching for that missing person to make us complete.
But he and Verity are different. They have found each other and nothing and no one will tear them apart.
It doesn't matter that Verity is marrying another man.
It's all just part of a plan: you see, Verity and Mike play a game together, a secret game they call 'the crave', the aim being to demonstrate what they both know: that Verity needs Mike, and only Mike.
Verity's upcoming marriage is the biggest game she and Mike have ever played. And it's for the highest stakes.
Except this time in order for Mike and Verity to be together someone has to die ...
Expertly written and brilliantly executed, Araminta Hall has written what is sure to be one of the most buzzed-about novels of 2018. A tale of toxic love from a wholly unreliable narrator, OUR KIND OF CRUELTY brings us an anti-hero that you’ll love to hate.
But…he is unreliable if he truly believes everything he’s relaying to the reader? Mike Hayes will get into your head like few characters can. His POV is both unsettling and fascinating. The reader cannot help but to feel sympathetic towards him, while at the same time feeling distrustful of him.
Araminta Hall has left me wondering, even after days spent in Mike’s head, exactly what it was that happened here. Her storytelling is smart and devious, leaving me questioning everything I believed throughout this novel. Is Mike really deluded? Or are there other machinations at work here?
While at times, the story did drag a bit for me, I couldn’t stop turning pages, trying to figure out which way was up, finding myself craving the delicious confusion and needing to know more, more, more.
After finishing this book, I was infuriated, I was confused, I was even a little sad. The climax of this book will leave you reeling. Questions will linger and you’ll find yourself doubting, never quite sure of what kind of cruelty you just witnessed.
I’m intrigued now!! Hmmm…. going to have to look this one up!
If you’re a fan of some of the psychological thrillers that have some out in the past few years, I think you’ll like this one!