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Release date: May 3, 2018

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MGD

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Blurb:

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.

Review:

You know what I’ve never realized until I started this book? That the majority of psychological thrillers are told from a woman’s perspective, it’s rare but not unheard of for the lead to be a man. That’s probably something obvious that most of you have noticed before, but it was a lightbulb moment for me. Maybe that explains my utter fascination with this book, Mike’s backstory and depressing past were so interesting to me, it was such a unique experience reading about a damaged man compared to reading about yet another woman who may or may not be paranoid/delusional/insert your choice here.

This book will definitely not be for everyone, Mike has a very unique voice and the bulk of the novel is almost like a stream of his consciousness, which can be slightly tedious at times, but I found it to be oddly intriguing. I never tire of getting to see inside the mind of someone toeing the line between insanity and sanity, so this one was right up my alley. I also liked that it was told solely from his POV and laid out in a linear fashion, there were no crazy timeline jumps. It’s also just divided up into three parts with no actual chapters, just another little quirk that I appreciated.

I don’t wanna touch the plot, the blurb is sufficient and entices you enough I think, so if it interests you I say that’s enough to give it a shot! Plus, have you seen Gillian Flynn’s endorsement?! That’s what sold me, she called it nasty and I couldn’t agree more. This is not a pretty little love story, it’s downright ugly and disturbing, again right up my alley!

Our Kind of Cruelty in three words: Slick, Seductive, and Twisted.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.