Lucinda has lived in her sister's shadow but when she goes missing on a trip to Sao Paolo she faces police indifference so sets about trying to find her sister herself. One again Pushkin Vertigo has introduced me to new crime thriller novels and authors that I have not read before and once again I loved it. The setting, story and characters all pulled me in to the story and immersed me and I couldn't put the book down until I had finished it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Short but sweet! Emotional and discusses topics such as sex work. Quite the thriller that'll leave you wanting to find out what happens.

Lucinda has lived her whole life in the shadow of her glamorous and outgoing high-end model sister Viviana. But when Viviana suddenly disappears on a trip to São Paulo, Lucinda drops everything to track her down.

Met with indifference from the police, Lucinda joins forces with Viviana's girlfriend Graziane to launch her own investigation. When she discovers that her sister had a thriving career as a sex worker, the list of possible suspects widens.

Then a cryptic text suggests that Viviana is still alive but being held hostage. With the minutes ticking by, Lucinda and Graziane must track down the men from Viviana's past to discover who might want to do her harm.

A furiously contemporary and vibrant thriller that crackles with danger.

This book was definitely a winner for me, thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend to all.

Recently translated into English, Nothing can Hurt You Now is a Brazilian thriller full of the much stereotyped Latin passion and fury in equal measure.

The story is focused on two sisters, Lucinda and Viviana. The sisters have distinctly different outlooks on life and have drifted apart over the years. Still, when Lucinda receives a distraught phone call from Graziana, Viviana’s girlfriend, saying she's gone missing, the sibling rivalries are pushed aside.

Met with indifference from the police, Lucinda starts to investigate and delves into some rather dark secrets of her sisters. Lucinda must look past those revelations to find her sister before it’s too late.

Nothing Can Hurt You Now is a relatively short novel but don’t be deceived by that – Campos manages to pack a powerful emotional punch and open up some frank discourse about sex work.

The prose is compelling and intriguing, and the tension of these women is palpable, running alongside a narrative on the way women are perceived and the danger strewn complexities of what beauty and femininity mean in modern society.

If you're looking for a thriller with an unusual slant, this one is worth the read 3.5⭐

I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot; the development of a character discovering theh didn't know their sister the way they thought they did, whilst uncovering clues behind her disappearance, was very compelling to read. The switch of perspectives in the second half never quite worked as well for me, although I couldn't quite say why, perhaps just that the tension dropped a bit, although I did appreciate seeing her exercise her own autonomy.

There was a slight sex work shaming throughout that was mostly countered, but left me a little uneasy.

Overall, an enjoyable thriller, but mostly interesting for the backstory of the two sisters, and the discussions of race, colourism, and gender in Brazil.



*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*

Nothing Can Hurt You Now by @simon3campos
Thank you to @pushkin_press for having me on this tour!

Recently translated to English, this thriller shows you the inside look of two sisters, Lucinda and Viviana. Driven apart over time by their different outlooks on life, but when Vivi goes missing, all her dark secrets unravel and Lucinda must look past those pieces to find her sister before it’s too late.

An impressive story that dives into self-image, social expectations and the misunderstandings of Brazilian lifestyle that come with the pressures to fit in. I enjoyed the inside look into Viviana’s private life where she has gone from a modeling career to prostitution and has been writing in a journal about her experiences and outlook on life. This was probably my favorite part of the entire story.

A no holds barred look from her point of view on her lifestyle and how others have treated her or look at her. It’s a very raw look into their lives and the dangers that come lurking around all of these corners.

This is a thriller-and-a-half, with a girl disappearing into thin air and her sister having to find out much more about her that she ever thought she would in order to track her down. I didn't completely gel with the writing style, and found that I didn't particularly care what happened to Vivi, which is why I'm giving this 3* – but I loved the concept of the story and liked the different-to-me setting, I don't read many books set in Brazil and maybe need to change that!

When I requested Nothing can hurt you now I was hoping for and looking forward to reading a novel along the lines of These Women (Ivy Pochoda) and The Queens of Sarmiento Park (Camilla Sosa Villada) which cleverly deals with prostitution and provides insight into the lives of the women involved and their social challenges. The premise for Nothing can hurt you now sounded interesting—a woman (Lucinda) looking for her missing sister (Viviana). Unfortunately neither of my expectations were met.

The first section, told from Lucinda's point of view, is fragmented, repetitive, and uneven, leaving the reader wondering whether this is a crime novel or a family drama with social commentary. Instead of frequently veering off, aimlessly meandering without purpose, it would have benefited from a better constructed storyline that focused more succinctly on Viviana's disappearance. The lack of action and suspense makes it a slow and dull read.

The second section, written from Viviana's point of view, is more coherent and well-constructed. Both narratives also contain cringe-worthy descriptions and commentary that borders on sensationalism and adds nothing to the story. This is especially true with regard to Viviana's diary/novel entries.

Unfortunately there's little character development. Ideally at least one of these characters should elicit some form of sympathy from a reader, but both sisters are unlikeable and one-dimensional. Subsequently the reader disconnects.

The result is a rather unconvincing story with little momentum or suspense that stereotypes women rather than successfully highlighting male misogyny. There are large sections that feature misogyny and male behaviour, but it feels forced and superficial—it lacks conviction. This could be due to the novel's unidentifiable, almost schizophrenic tone. It's wryly humorous at times, almost preachy at others, but neither fits the underlying theme. Instead of emphasising and criticising "the male gaze," the female characters appear to reinforce it.

This appears to be a missed opportunity to highlight important issues driven by a potentially interesting plot. Maybe this is a case of tone and meaning getting lost in translation?

I loved the sound of this book and it started off very strongly with some complex characters. As the time went on though it lost my interest abit. I would have loved the section with VIvi to have been longer and more detailed. The ending seemed a little rushed

Thank you for the opportunity to review it

Nothing Can Hurt You Now is, supposedly, a thriller, following a woman who starts to investigate after her sister goes missing. Now, you would think this is going to easily be a good read. Well, it’s not. This is a lesson in how to make a thriller so completely unthrilling it’s almost impressive.

(A side note here, because I think it’s always hard to tell to what extent the translation is an issue in books like this. Maybe, if I could have read this untranslated, then it wouldn’t have ended like this. Maybe.)

As is probably clear, the major issue I had with this one is that I didn’t find it thrilling in the least. There was no sense of urgency, no build up of tension. The only reason I felt pressed to continue was to actually finish it. I think there were two aspects here: the first half of the book was, perhaps expectedly, not that thrilling. I had hoped it was building up to things, that this was just about the slow discovery that something was wrong. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

In part two, the POV changes abruptly, so that we’re with Vivi (the kidnapped sister), at which point everything becomes clear. We know exactly what happened and who’s behind it and any sort of hint at tension drains from it. The only question to be answered is how she gets out. Because, despite the author’s best efforts, there’s no tension there as to whether she’ll survive. Plus the twist is kind of predictable, given what’s established about Vivi in the first half.

This is, really, the only actual issue I had with the book. But, given that this is supposed to be a thriller, it’s kind of a big one. It’s in the name: I want to be thrilled by it. I want to feel my heart starting to race. Unfortunately for this book, none of that happened.

I love thrillers byt this one just didnt do it for me.Some parts from vivis perspective were just a little cringe and the plot altogether wasnt great

A banger of a premise is let-down by sensationalistic storytelling, a banal plot, and a writing style that for all its attempts to be gritty & edgy comes across as laughable. Worst still, the narrative seems under the impression that it is doing a lot, in terms of unconventional female characters and challenging simplistic representations of women. Ironically the novel’s portrayal of a female character who is presented as someone who we should see as empowering and irreverent seemed very male-gazey. Had I not known the author, I would have assumed her to be the classic product of a male author who thinks he is single-handedly breaking the mold in terms of fictional women by presenting us with a beautiful, clever, and manipulative young woman who is able to maintain an expensive lifestyle through sex work. And she also has a girlfriend, who is just as sexy, and they sometimes work together because tee-hee their clients don’t realize that they really do enjoy having sex with each other. But before my rant continues, I will give an outline of the story: set in Brazil the first chapters follow Lucinda, who has long felt overshadowed by her younger sister, Vivi. Vivi works as a model, not a particularly famous one given the colorism rampant in this sector, and seems to lead a fairly glamorous existence. The two sisters are not particularly close but when Lucinda learns that Vivi has gone missing on a trip to São Paulo, she immediately tries to track her down. The police do not seem particularly concerned or competent enough to do anything about it so Lucinda has to rely on her barely-there-investigative skills. She gets some help from vivi's girlfriend Graziane, and soon discovers that they were both sex workers. This makes Vivi’s disappearance all the more concerning as she could have been taken by one of her clients. We also get chapters with Graziane, who, other than being white & stunning, does not have a semblance of personality. Later we also get to follow Vivi herself, as she tries to survive and outsmart her captors. Her chapters were the most risible of the lot. If you like the writing of Alex Michaelides or the duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen , I can maybe see her chapters working for you. I however found this type of writing utterly ludicrous. Worst even that having to follow Vivi directly, are her smutty book/journal entries. Such as: “My monster’s insides writhed languidly, wanting more”, “I offer up my fingers as a sacrifice and feel the hungry creature devouring them until it’s satisfied”,
Lucinda believes will be a bestseller…se, ciao. To me, Vivi’s writing was beyond garbage. Maybe if it had been more campy and self-aware, as opposed to trying and failing to be erotic and real, when it was anything but, I could have coped with them…but as things stand, Vivi’s writing is beyond cringe. Lucinda initially seems like a bit more of an interesting take on the very much tired dynamic of the two sisters or bff where the one who is charming & magnetic goes missing or dies, and the more conventional and boring one is left behind. Lucinda does muay thai, and that’s about the only interesting thing about her. Her character, similarly to Graziane, besides her physical appearance, is not at all fleshed out.
The characters in this book are incredibly cliched and often verge on stereotyping. Why did the author have to make Vivi, who cannot help being cold and intelligent, ‘autistic’? Why adopt a male-gazey lens to depict sex work and an f/f relationship? Why are all the men more or less the same shade of bad? Why rely on so many sensationalistic plot points and scenes?

While I did find the narrative’s take on female empowerment and its exploration of sex work and male-perpetuated violence against women flashy and shallow; these are realities that deserve to be portrayed with depth and nuance, not to make your characters into #edgygirlbosses. Vivi is a walking talking cliche. From her various ‘personas’, from the ‘party girl’ who she describes in a way that seemed to me an embarrassing take on Amy Dunne’s ‘cool girl monologue’: “How to define the character who gets me places in life: the party girl? It’s like that Sia song, the one that begins ‘Party girls don’t get hurt.’ But not the depressing bit, the positive bit. […] sheìs well-travelled, she’s cool, never a downer […] she’ll open her mouth and sing […] almost like a geisha and her shamisen”. But she also has a quirky side, almost a la Manic Pixie Dream Girl, because she reads comics and speaks “a little Japanese” from “watching too much anime” and “invents her own fashion. Paperclips as earrings […] dungarees and clogs”. But wait, you say, Vivi’s characterisation is intentional. Lucinda reminds us that she may be this way because of an intentional act/effect on her sister’s part: “‘I’m a weirdo girl’ thing. Hiding in plain sight with her glittery Nomi Malone-Sailor Moon”...which may as well be but to describe it this way makes it risible. Vivi’s chapters also try hard to impress on us that she really is super edgy and built differently. Her pov is so affected as to be entirely OTT in a story that tries to be gritty & real: “It’s so unfair. I never asked to be this self-conscious”. Rather than allowing us to see Vivi, and to realize why she may behave/seem as she does, we are told straight-up: “I know that my apparent lack of interest in everything around me can appear to come from pure coldness. But I’m not trying to appear cold and distant, nor do I take pleasure from it’”. Her inner monologue was painfully studied and not at all convincing. The narrative's attempts at self-awareness when it comes to female characters and how many women have learnt social strategies to adapt to socially accepted gender norms made its shortcomings all the more glaring.

Although we are told that Vivi and Graziane are in a relationship and care about one another I did not buy them together. Their moments together or the passages detailing their relationship conform to your straight man’s feitish-y vision of wlw. The way their scenes were written ranged from icky to strangely mechanical: “But what really sealed the deal was when Vivi went home with her and gave her that wonderful oral. Graziane often tried to repay her with her best technique”, “The two of them were symbiotically in love. Any time they were in the same city, no matter how exhausted from their respective appointments each always ready to spoil the other with an orgasm, one woman totally focused on the other” (that last line…dajeeee).

In comparison, the narrative’s depiction of microaggressions as well as its examination of sexual harassment, racism, and colorisms seemed to be far more grounded in reality. I just wish that the author could have maintained that level of sobriety and uncompromising realism when delving touching upon other serious subject matters.

The setting was rendered fairly well but I did grow tired of the narration having to really emphasize certain things in a way that failed to be nostalgic and just seemed very much a la ‘back in my day’. For instance: “It was 1998 . People still thought CDs”...And some places are described simplistically, especially in Vivi’s novel/journal: Dubai is “very masculine” and “very Arabian Nights, only with technology”, men love going there because their “pricks feel a mile long”. There were several passages discussing porn and making very generalised pronouncements on young men vs. older men.

I also found myself questioning many descriptions, such as “His chest was also brown, but from the sun, not naturally. It was also shaved: he must have been a swimmer. Or a rent boy.” Or having a character wondering whether a male character has feelings for another man she can’t just say that, she has to add: “Brokeback Mountain kind of thing”.

The novel’s trying to be gritty tone did not mesh together with the overdramatized storyline and affected the writing style. These kinds of one-note characters might have worked better in a noir, but their tumblresque way of speaking would have still come across as farcical. Maybe if the narrative had really leaned into being playfully absurd, a la Mona Awad, or more entertaining, a la Oyinkan Braithwaite, maybe then I would have bought into the silly and pulpy writing and exaggerated characters. It seemed like Campos was trying to be something dark and heavy-going along the lines of something by Gillian Flynn, but then ended up being closer to Victoria Helen Stone's Jane Doe or Colleen Hoover's Verity. If you happen to like those novels, chances are you will like Campos' Nothing Can Hurt You Now. But if you are looking for a psychological thriller or a more nuanced exploration of sex work, sisterhood, and violence, like in Liz Moore's Long Bright River, you might want to give Nothing Can Hurt You Now a wide berth.

My experience whilst reading Nothing Can Hurt You Now was one of being fully engaged by and immersed in the narrative, however this impression has cooled somewhat since finishing the book a week or so ago. Whilst it made for a propulsive read at the time, looking back I think there are threads of themes that the novel touches on and leaves unexplored, which if they had been explored in greater detail would have made for a more satisfying read overall: some of the characterisation was pretty surface level and things resolved a bit too conveniently.

I am afraid that I struggled to connect with this book. It is my fault for requesting it, but I am afraid it wasn't a good read for me, I hope other readers enjoy it more.

This is a really original story about two sisters in Brazil. Viviana disappears and Lucinda tries to find her, with help from Viviana's friend Graziane.
While trying to trace Viviana, Lucinda finds out a lot about her sister's life and work, and this informs her feelings about her own experiences. The search gets very tense and exciting, with a great cast of characters and detailed back story for all of them. The translation is excellent. Highly recommended.

I had no expectations before picking this up, as this was my first Simone Campos book, but wow, this was brutal. Nothing Can Hurt You Now tells the story of Viviana, who has been missing for almost a full day and her sister is desperately trying to find her. She must face the dark things she discovers about her sister on the way and join forces with her girlfriend if she wants to have any chance at all of finding Viviana, alive or dead.

The first half of the book reads more like a mystery and I did not always enjoy it, but the second half blew me away. I will not go into specifics as to why because I really don't want to spoil anything, but it was brutal, and such an unflinching look into the prejudice and complete apathy that women will face when they suffer a crime, not only generally as a woman, but so much more if they are poor, non-white and a prostitute.

The translation had a couple of points where I feel it was a bit awkward but not a huge problem in my opinion. Also the writing was rambling a lot in the beginning, a mix of actually looking into the mystery of the disappearance and musing about Viviana's situation, Lucy and Vivi's life story, chasing dead ends and so on. Now that I finished the book, I don't mind it so much anymore, I think it keeps the book real. But it did drag a bit.

I was between two and three stars during maybe half of the book, but as said, the second half knocked it out of the park and cemented Simone Campos for me as a fantastic thriller writer.

I really enjoyed this book it was well written with well developed characters and a gripping storyline. It was well paced, twisty and I couldn't put it down