This book had me from the first page! An interesting start to a novel as you don’t know which brothers funeral you are at. The story is told from each brothers perspective and it moves back and forth between the decades. A dysfunctional family fraught with mental illness, dependency issues., and sibling rivalry Keeps the reader engaged throughout entire book. The characters for the most part are nasty and you just want to figure out whose funeral the remaining two brothers are attending. It kept me guessing.!

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I have read all the other Liz Nugent books and thoroughly enjoyed them, finishing them in a day or two, with that being said, this one didn’t work as well for me. While I enjoyed the plot and the characters, I found the different year chapters and chapters told from the different brother’s perspectives to be a bit disjointed .

Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent is a dark, tightly wound and arresting family saga that delves deeply into the emotional chaos of the Drumm family, brothers William, Brian, and Luke, and the enduring effects that careless cruelties inflict, not once, but throughout a lifetime.

Having read the author's previous novels, I found this one to be a bit of a departure in terms of balance and flow, and just general readability. I must admit that I found the alternating voices of each brother, coupled with an erratic timeline, to be a bit distracting and less cohesive than Ms Nugent's previous writing. That being said, this is certainly a gritty tale of familial struggle and resentment, and one that will have you desperate to untangle and decode the many, many demons that plague the family Drumm. 3.5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this ARC.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
This is a dark, disturbing story of a dysfunctional family. None of the characters are remotely likeable, but always intriguing in this compulsive tale of sibling rivalry, competition, insidious mental cruelty, drugs, alcoholism, betrayal, and emotional breakdowns. The author, Liz Nugent, portrays family dynamics at its most shocking and fascinating. There are touches of diabolical black humour to make one laugh or gasp.

The story begins with one of the three Drumm sons dead in the presence of the other two brothers. We do not find out which one is the victim until the end, nor how he was killed, or the motive. Each of the sons has reasons to want the others dead because of the 'little' cruelties inflicted during their lifetimes.

Melissa, their mother, is a cold, self-absorbed woman who was once a popular showband singer. Her sons eventually find themselves in show biz careers after some missteps along the way. Her favourite son is the eldest, William, who can do no wrong in his mother’s esteem. He is a film producer, misogynist, womanizer and sexual predator. She is indifferent towards Brian, a show biz agent who is not above enriching himself by representing family and friends and defrauded his younger brother out of his home. He is regarded as behaving like a miser with his money. William and Brian lack empathy and morals. They perpetuate cruelties on one another and are especially mean to the younger brother Luke.

Luke has always felt disliked by his mother and brothers. He is vulnerable and fragile. He becomes a hugely popular pop/rock singer but fritters away his fame with liquor and hard drugs and suffers bouts of mental illness. Touched by the turmoil and confusion is Daisy, who is the daughter/niece of William and Brian. She had the ambition to be a singer/ songwriter but is damaged emotionally by the chaos that surrounds her.

The story consists of narratives by the three Drumm brothers, told from their individual memories, perspectives and self-interests. Their stories skip around in time without any chronological order. The author skillfully manages to keep all their individual stories running smoothly as the suspense builds up to the final revelations.
Many thanks to Simon & Schuster for this compelling and suspenseful ARC, which is a well-written portrait of family discord. Highly recommended.

Wow, this book lived up to its title. What a cruel family. A few times I just wanted to quit this book because of the characters themselves. They were mean, nasty and I'm surprised that so much hatred lived under one roof for so long. I'm from Ireland and not all families are like this one. I guess that was running through my head while I was reading it. I was hoping that no one from outside the country would think we are all like that. So the author did really great from that prospective. She also fleshed out the characters pretty well. I usually feel for some of th characters in a story like this but nope. Ok well perhaps the Dad.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of Our Cruelties by Liz Nugent. Her other novels Lying in Wait and Unraveling Oliver had me laughing out loud and feeling utterly delightful. You may wonder how that’s possible with a murder in the plot but the characters were brilliantly written and Our Cruelties starts out with that same depth that is so entertaining. Nugent just has a knack for telling a family story, the details melting off the page like butter on hot pancakes! And trust me, you will eat this saga up — it incites curiosity and the appetite to know what’s going to happen next; Nugent’s bluntness is addicting. The “little Cruelties” are like a thousand tiny cuts; your eyes will continue to widen as you read on and you won’t be able to look away! Nugent dedicates the book to her family and claims they are nothing like the characters, but let’s be honest, where did she get all of these quirky and delicious details about people (or her crazy friends)?? I’d love to spend just one day in her imagination and I’m so jealous of her wit. She describes one of the boys’ dates: “her badly bleached hair lay flat on one side like cattle trampled straw, wildly back combed on the other side like a haystack”...hilarious! Last warning: if you’re the type of reader who has several books on the go at once, you won’t be able to do so while consuming Little Cruelties; it’s so thought-provoking and meaty, you’ll only want this wonderful main course — and the after-taste is extremely satisfying!

First off I love this author. This one wasn't on the top of her writing. The chapters and dates where things were happening were all over and hard to follow. It was still an overall good book.


Thanks to the publisher and net galley for an early release of this book.