Love, Obsession, Murder-A Fairytale Romance
Image Source: MacMillan Publishers
The story starts like most other romances, the troubled boy falls for the pretty girl way out of his league. That is until the love turns into a gruesome obsession and breeds a new age type of stalker. The kind of stalker who doesn’t have be right outside your door to know what you are doing, rather check your internet profiles. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat all these outlets are the way we as people stay connected to each other, or so we claim. More like check up on old flames and those evil kids who bullied everyone but preached an all-loving attitude and the adults they have manifested into.
In Araminta Hall's Our Kind of Cruelty, we follow the inner monologue and everyday activities of a very interesting and distraught Michael Hayes. He is a man with a very upsetting childhood, his father gone or dead, he doesn't know. His mother a drunk and druggie, with a revolving door of men who each in their own way leave a mark on Michael. Eventually, child protective services remove him from the toxic environment and into the system he went and stayed. Until he found a semi-permanent pair of foster parents, Elaine and Berry. Good people, they always meant well.
Michael found his life's most epic adventure in a vibrant, rich and very intelligent Verity. A girl who develops Artificial Intelligence and can bend men to her will in the blink of an eye. Manipulative and beautiful a weapon of her own making. They met at University and Michael fell into her web of lies and deceit as easy as opening his eyes. Eight years later is at her parent's door begging for a second chance after lost his sight of their future and fell into a coworkers bed, a woman named Carly.
A couple months after the breakup he moves back to the U.K. from New York where his infidelity lived in a breathing person and he needed to win back the only that mattered in his life. Got a high paying job, became an exercise junkie, and went to Verity’s wedding. He later found out that she had been seeing a man named Angus Metcalf for a few weeks before he cheated on her in America and she used his mistake and an escape. During their time apart he wrote countless emails and called her several times. Some threatening, some loving, mostly incoherent overall obsessive behavior.
He pushed people away at work, hid in a huge house he claimed to have bought for him and Verity and told many people so, he drank and drank and stalked and ended up murdering Verity's newlywed husband Angus. Michael and Verity played a game during their eight years together, they named it Crave, they would go out and Verity would find some man to make Michael jealous and get right up to the line and Michael would break it up. As a result, they would have animalistic sex of which they included a female at a time or two. It was the string Verity tied around Michaels' heart, a way to play with his emotions and mind.
He believed that the break up over New York was not real, so much so he stalked her and tried to ‘save her’ from this Crave. To Michael it was all too real, her games weren’t fun anymore and he needed it to end. The murder of Angus Metcalf brought both Michael and Verity’s dirty laundry out to dry for the entire world to watch and unfold. They both ended up on a trial, both for different reasons. Ending the book with a letter Hayes wrote to Verity stating that “We must work and bend the truth. Others might see it differently, but, my darling, our kind of cruelty is love by any other name” (Hall 267).
The overall take from this book is, wow. To step into the mind of an obsessive stalker ex-boyfriend is like a shock to the mind. Following the story of how Verity left easter eggs proving what Michael was believed was the truth. But how she played this game with his mind and heart was painful sometimes. She wore an eagle necklace he gave to her as a gift many years ago, DURING THE ENTIRE COURSE OF THE NOVEL. That fact in itself proved she is a lying and manipulative person.
The fact that she is an AI programmer proves she can create a person, and identity and all the attributes to make the identity believable. She did just that to Michael, she took a broke down piece of hardware and reprogrammed him into what she wanted. A man who is 100% devoted her, even willing to murder for her.
I really enjoyed this book and give it a 9/10 on my own personal point scale and would recommend to anyone who wants to step out of their comfort zone and experience a really thrilling story.
