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kennedyfio_'s review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
chloep29's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
The premise of this book really intrigued me. I enjoyed the first part but I couldn't really connect with the story overall. I've seen reviews on the writing style but it's worth remembering that this wasn't written in English.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for my honest review
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for my honest review
raphaelle_a's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I read this story in a few hours on a Tuesday night. It was a quick read and to be honest, I am not sure that I know what the author wanted to achieve with this short novel. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but I must have missed what the author wanted to communicate. However, it gives an oversight over the world of sex work, the disdain some have for it despite participating in it and the dangers of it.
Thank you NetGalley & Pushkin Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thank you NetGalley & Pushkin Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
melissagurner's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
thepoisonwoodreader's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
forgottenangstycharacter's review against another edition
2.0
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nothing Can Hurt You Now is a propulsive thriller that forces readers to ask the question: how well do you know your family? This short, translated book begins with Lucinda learning her younger sister, Vivianna, is missing. Lucinda jumps into action. When the police refuse to help, she goes across Brazil to find out the truth about her sister’s disappearance. Along the way, she discovers that her sister has moved from modelling to sex work and has a life that Lucinda is completely unaware of. Lucinda must team up with Graziane, Viviana’s girlfriend to find Viviana before it is too late.
First off there were some cool noir aesthetics in this book, and I’m a sucker for a bit of noir. The amateur detective putting themselves in danger and infiltrating a lawless world, which was captured quite nicely. It was also cool to see queer women inhabiting the noir space as both Viviana and Lucinda are bisexual. While some of the messaging about objectification and feminism was heavy-handed and reductive, there were some great bits around the colourism and racism that both sisters faced when trying to make it in the world. They are two women shaped by a childhood of pretending to fit in.
“The game being played by both sisters was that of appearing normal — in other words, white — just like everyone else at their school.”
These moments did serve to show how both women have taken different trajectories in their lives based on social barriers that keep them constrained and work against them when one of them goes missing.
This story had two major plot lines running through it: Lucinda and Graziane attempting to track down Viviana, and Viviana trying to understand the new situation she has found herself in after being abducted. These two storylines appeared disjointed and seemed to exist because the story had written itself into a corner with Lucinda’s investigation and had to switch to Viviana’s perspective to keep the story going.
The perspectives themselves occasionally got in the way of the story itself. Lucinda narrates what she is doing moment by moment, often passing judgment on her sister before backpedalling to absolve her sister in her mind. She comes across as dismissive of Vivianna’s struggles as a neurodivergent person and sex worker. She refers to her sister’s style as potentially “a chaotic attempt at self-expression by someone who had, let’s not forget, been diagnosed as autistic”.
Lucinda seems to view her sister as some form of warning of what her life could have been like. “If I hadn’t toed the line, it would have been me”. These moments are indicative of the universalist feminist claims that run through this book, often lacking nuance, which is unfortunate in a book that could have said some really important things surrounding the objectification of women. Lucinda’s views are never challenged and are passed off as the thoughts of a protective and scared older sister.
Within Lucinda’s narration there is plenty of cutting in and out of flashbacks and jumping into other’s heads for their thoughts before jumping back to Lucinda. These flashbacks are only signalled by the shift from past to present tense and vice versa. They serve to dump the information on you rather than explain or integrate pertinent details.
Viviana on the other hand becomes a manic pixie dream girl version of the sex work industry. She’s (potentially) autistic but refutes the diagnosis — which is fair enough but the way it's done seems to be done in the “I’m not autistic I’m just quirky”. She’s aloof, she's well-read, she’s unconventional, she’s well travelled, she’s hot. As a reader, we are forced into Viviana’s head and are only given her assertions when it comes to what’s happening around her. She mentions that she “could detect some bisexual signals coming from” a character but as the reader this is never shown to the reader, we just have to trust her assertion. She decides that she “wasn’t all that special in this whole mess” of her kidnapping using some Freudian psychoanalysis to explain things. This is never proven again we have to take her word for it.
This book has a lot of potential as a thriller, however, I struggled with the writing.
TikTok: @forgottenangstycharacter | Goodreads: Georgina (forgottenangstycharacter)
Nothing Can Hurt You Now is a propulsive thriller that forces readers to ask the question: how well do you know your family? This short, translated book begins with Lucinda learning her younger sister, Vivianna, is missing. Lucinda jumps into action. When the police refuse to help, she goes across Brazil to find out the truth about her sister’s disappearance. Along the way, she discovers that her sister has moved from modelling to sex work and has a life that Lucinda is completely unaware of. Lucinda must team up with Graziane, Viviana’s girlfriend to find Viviana before it is too late.
First off there were some cool noir aesthetics in this book, and I’m a sucker for a bit of noir. The amateur detective putting themselves in danger and infiltrating a lawless world, which was captured quite nicely. It was also cool to see queer women inhabiting the noir space as both Viviana and Lucinda are bisexual. While some of the messaging about objectification and feminism was heavy-handed and reductive, there were some great bits around the colourism and racism that both sisters faced when trying to make it in the world. They are two women shaped by a childhood of pretending to fit in.
“The game being played by both sisters was that of appearing normal — in other words, white — just like everyone else at their school.”
These moments did serve to show how both women have taken different trajectories in their lives based on social barriers that keep them constrained and work against them when one of them goes missing.
This story had two major plot lines running through it: Lucinda and Graziane attempting to track down Viviana, and Viviana trying to understand the new situation she has found herself in after being abducted. These two storylines appeared disjointed and seemed to exist because the story had written itself into a corner with Lucinda’s investigation and had to switch to Viviana’s perspective to keep the story going.
The perspectives themselves occasionally got in the way of the story itself. Lucinda narrates what she is doing moment by moment, often passing judgment on her sister before backpedalling to absolve her sister in her mind. She comes across as dismissive of Vivianna’s struggles as a neurodivergent person and sex worker. She refers to her sister’s style as potentially “a chaotic attempt at self-expression by someone who had, let’s not forget, been diagnosed as autistic”.
Lucinda seems to view her sister as some form of warning of what her life could have been like. “If I hadn’t toed the line, it would have been me”. These moments are indicative of the universalist feminist claims that run through this book, often lacking nuance, which is unfortunate in a book that could have said some really important things surrounding the objectification of women. Lucinda’s views are never challenged and are passed off as the thoughts of a protective and scared older sister.
Within Lucinda’s narration there is plenty of cutting in and out of flashbacks and jumping into other’s heads for their thoughts before jumping back to Lucinda. These flashbacks are only signalled by the shift from past to present tense and vice versa. They serve to dump the information on you rather than explain or integrate pertinent details.
Viviana on the other hand becomes a manic pixie dream girl version of the sex work industry. She’s (potentially) autistic but refutes the diagnosis — which is fair enough but the way it's done seems to be done in the “I’m not autistic I’m just quirky”. She’s aloof, she's well-read, she’s unconventional, she’s well travelled, she’s hot. As a reader, we are forced into Viviana’s head and are only given her assertions when it comes to what’s happening around her. She mentions that she “could detect some bisexual signals coming from” a character but as the reader this is never shown to the reader, we just have to trust her assertion. She decides that she “wasn’t all that special in this whole mess” of her kidnapping using some Freudian psychoanalysis to explain things. This is never proven again we have to take her word for it.
This book has a lot of potential as a thriller, however, I struggled with the writing.
TikTok: @forgottenangstycharacter | Goodreads: Georgina (forgottenangstycharacter)
kazza27's review
4.0
Lucinda and Vivianna are sisters but could not be more different, Vivianna is a model and one day whilst at work Lucinda gets a call from one of Vivianna’s friends to say she did not meet her as arranged and that she is not answering her phone.
Lucinda contacts Graziane who she discovers is more than a friend of Vivianna, and that is not the only thing that she discovers about her sister. This is a really interesting read not something that I would pick up usually but I really enjoy translated fiction and the author Simone Campos is Brazilian and the book was translated from Portuguese and I was drawn to the blurb.
Lucinda is horrified by what she discovers about her sister, the book is spilt into three parts, the first sets the scene of Vivianna’s disappearance and the second is much faster paced and dramatic and the third is the gripping conclusion. It is a dark read and in places it is a graphic and brutal, it was a thriller that kept me reading until right until the end.
Lucinda contacts Graziane who she discovers is more than a friend of Vivianna, and that is not the only thing that she discovers about her sister. This is a really interesting read not something that I would pick up usually but I really enjoy translated fiction and the author Simone Campos is Brazilian and the book was translated from Portuguese and I was drawn to the blurb.
Lucinda is horrified by what she discovers about her sister, the book is spilt into three parts, the first sets the scene of Vivianna’s disappearance and the second is much faster paced and dramatic and the third is the gripping conclusion. It is a dark read and in places it is a graphic and brutal, it was a thriller that kept me reading until right until the end.
kikireads_'s review
3.0
2.5 ⭐️
This book had so much potential, but just didn’t get there for me.
How well do we really know the people we love? The story initially follows Lucinda who has just found out that her sister Viviana has gone missing. As she starts to worry, she begins trying to find her while reflecting on her relationship with her sister. During this process, Lucinda discovers that Viviana is hiding many secrets from her family, including a secret relationship and career. Lucinda and Graziane must track her down by discovering who would want to cause her harm.
The first part of this book felt a little disjointed with time and point of view changes. We got maybe one or two pov’s from Griaziane which didn’t really add anything to the story and felt very haphazard. I did enjoy the second part from Viviana’s point of view, I found the writing and her thoughts interesting. I also felt that the themes of racial and sexual prejudice from law enforcement were important but could have been explored more.
This book had so much potential, but just didn’t get there for me.
How well do we really know the people we love? The story initially follows Lucinda who has just found out that her sister Viviana has gone missing. As she starts to worry, she begins trying to find her while reflecting on her relationship with her sister. During this process, Lucinda discovers that Viviana is hiding many secrets from her family, including a secret relationship and career. Lucinda and Graziane must track her down by discovering who would want to cause her harm.
The first part of this book felt a little disjointed with time and point of view changes. We got maybe one or two pov’s from Griaziane which didn’t really add anything to the story and felt very haphazard. I did enjoy the second part from Viviana’s point of view, I found the writing and her thoughts interesting. I also felt that the themes of racial and sexual prejudice from law enforcement were important but could have been explored more.
thebooktrail88's review
3.0
Discover the locations in the novel
So this isn’t the prettiest book I have ever read but I like to push my reading boundaries. A book set in the world of prostitution, in Sao Paulo was always going to test me. What a book though. What a story. Sad to think that this could be true.
A girl heads out to Sao Paulo as her sister is missing. Now, imagine that. Missing in a strange city. The girl joins forces with Vivianna’s girlfriend and they try to find out what on earth happened to her and how she could just go missing like that.
That’s when the setting of the novel really shines. Well, through the grime. Sao Paulo, the city we see here at least, is dark and dank. The reality of life here is grim and dangerous. From the favelas, shanty towns and dark corners, we head past the posh houses to where the street walkers tout for business. It’s awful to realise this exists and that girls are trapped into this life through no fault of their own. It’s big money and big crime although they don’t get much cash and the crimes are always against them.
What this book does is look at women in this part of the world as they fight to survive. When one is the victim of a crime, she is treated like a criminal herself. Add a woman who is poor and non-white then you have trouble. If you add prostitution on top of that – well , she ‘s got no chance.
There’s a lot of detail early on that I think the book could have done without but when you finish it and sit back, I really did appreciate the threads that had been woven together.
Hard hitting and raw.
conveniencestorewoman's review against another edition
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5