A Review of Joseph Souza’s Cruel & Bitter Things

There are many things that mark out good thrillers, those special ingredients that have you sitting on the edge of your seat hanging on every word as you try to figure out what is happening and how the protagonists will worm their way out of their situations. When done well they’re exactly what they are called: thrilling. I would love to be able to tell you exactly what it takes to write a good thriller, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. What I know, is that some hit and some don’t. Unfortunately for Joseph Souza, his Cruel & Bitter Things does not hit. It is an interesting premise and a well designed story but somehow it just didn’t leave me desperate to keep reading. That’s not to say that it was not a good book! It was well written and Souza clearly knew the theory, it just wasn’t the best thing I’ve read so far this year.

Written from three perspectives, Cruel & Bitter Things is the story of Gwynn Denning who seeks vengeance on a successful business man for date raping her friend when they were at university. And by vengeance yes I do mean that she killed him. But murder tends to get messy and things spiral out of control as she seeks to control all of the variables in order to maintain custody of her son. Our other perspectives are Denning’s therapist and the detective solving the case, providing readers with a well rounded view of the situation. This does not mean to say that you are encouraged to draw your own opinions as to whether what Denning has done is right or wrong, we are merely lead to accept that she does what she does in the name of God and so as to protect her son. Righteousness is a central tenet to the character, who is quite successfully well drawn. All of the characters are three dimensional, even those who appear fleetingly.

Within the storytelling itself a few things stood out. Working from a proof copy, you are always bound to find the occasional typo; however, some of the phrasing gave me pause and left me to question whether the everyday idioms being used were actually misphrased. But this is a quibble and I won’t dwell on it. There were an array of instances in which unnecessary exposition was inserted, much of which was repeating information that the reader was aware of. It felt as though the author was concerned that his readers would not be able to follow the unfolding narrative, so to Souza I say have a little more faith! Otherwise, the language on the whole was a little jolting, fluctuating between formality, slang and old fashioned in an unexplained manner. Confusing but not entirely off-putting.

On the whole, this novel was a solid three star. It had the bones of a good story, well developed characters and an interesting premise. It just didn’t stand out. But that’s ok, not every novel has to be earth shatteringly tense and life altering, some can just be quiet explorations of a concept.