Piccoli inganni crudeli

by Sulmi Bak, Mary Lou Emberti Gialloreti (Translator)

La vita di Mira è andata in frantumi quando è rimasta orfana. Un anno dopo il terribile evento che l’ha privata della madre e del fratellino, Mira inizia a lavorare come insegnante di ripetizioni di Yujae, un adolescente schivo e problematico, che abita nel suo stesso quartiere ma in una casa infinitamente più lussuosa della sua. Yujae ha un fratello maggiore, Yuchan, che all’opposto è geniale e proiettato verso una brillante carriera accademica, spinto dall’ambiziosa madre Jiwon. Ma il più piccolo dei fratelli è davvero il più fragile? Mira è davvero soltanto un’insegnante di ripetizioni? E Jiwon è solo una madre ansiosa e protettiva? In un romanzo in cui nulla è come sembra, e in cui a condurre il gioco non è mai chi all’apparenza lo guida, la verità emerge a frammenti taglienti, spiazzanti, fatali. Una verità fatta di onore tradito, di dignità spezzata, di ambizione e rancore. Pagina dopo pagina dilaga tutto il gelo di una forza la vendetta. Il lettore ne è a poco a poco pervaso, poi braccato. E non ne può uscire. Come nei thriller migliori.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Novella, Asian Literature, Mystery Thriller

121 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2013

Reviews

[TheConnieFox · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book heavily discusses animal cruelty. I cannot read about children murdering animals! This book is disgusting and disturbing on a whole other level! I give this a zero out of 5 stars! I did not finish this book.

Thank you NetGalley, author Sulmi Bak and Little, Brown and Company | Mulholland Books for this digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

ARC for review. To be published November 11, 2025.

1 star - DNF at 60% but I feel like I read enough to give it a rating.

I chose to read this book because it was compared to one of my all-time favorites, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and I see why the publisher or whomever thought he/she could make the comparison, this is an epistolary novel about a bad seed, but that’s where are likeness between the two stops.

Here we have Mina, who is hired by Jiwon to tutor her son Yuchan. Mira is haunted by the death of her mother and sibling and wants to get even. Mira believes Yuchan was cruel to her mother, but comes to realize that may not be true. We also get to know Yuchan’s younger brother, Yujae as each of these four characters writes their own section of the book as a journal.

I was concerned when the book started with a reference to animal torture, but it was used to show how people don’t get punished so I soldiered on…but I stopped for good when the author returned to the animal cruelty and was clearly going to go all in on the details. I can’t read that stuff, so I was done.

That would be enough to make me dislike the book, but it also read to me as the work of some for whom English is not a first language, perhaps? It’s often very stilted and words don’t quite seem to fit. Taking on something like writing a book is a really admirable effort if English is not your strongest language, but you probably should seek some help with the finished product before sending it out to the masses.

The plot just seemed a bit tired and Jiwon’s failure to act was frustrating. So, overall, just not a good read.

[Jessie ツ]

SELF NOTE ❌ - Excessive animal cruelty. (see other reviews). Will not be reading, not for me.

One of my only hard stop triggers is animal cruelty, especially to the level it appears in this book (per other reviews).

[Kurryreads (Kerry) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark twisted little story. Lots of animal cruelty

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTM3347n7/

[Chiara Carotina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Portare all'interno di un romanzo tematiche come violenza su donne/animali/bambini e ricreare nel testo scene disturbanti non l'ho mai trovato esagerato o sbagliato, ma è corretto farlo solo quando aggiungono qualcosa al racconto e sono funzionali all'evoluzione dei personaggi; altrimenti è solo dolore gratuito che si vuole infliggere al lettore. In un libro di solo 120 pagine mettere tantissime scene di violenza sugli animali non è servito a nulla, ha tolto solo spazio alla costruzione della storia, che infatti risulta piatta e inconcludente.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts off strong, it reminded me a lot of Kanae Minato's Confessions, a subversive novel that has lots of twists, switches in POV, and is really smart in how it uses shock value. But while this one starts strong, halfway through it loses focus and surprises, turning into something much more limp. When you're going to deploy violence to the extent that Bak does (the animal cruelty here is particularly intense) you need to take the reader somewhere worthwhile so it isn't simply gratuitous. But here it never moves past gratuitous, the shock doesn't serve a purpose.

It isn't nothing to build something up the way Bak does in the first half. But build up doesn't have a point if you don't have somewhere to go.

[Ilaria_ws · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doveva essere un thriller psicologico, una storia di vendetta, ma in realtà si è rivelato una lettura inutile.
Poco approfondito, scritto in modo eccessivamente semplice, pieno zeppo di scene di violenza gratuite che non aggiungono nulla alla storia.
Insomma, una vera delusione.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

He couldn’t have expected this, either. That his petty lie would become a lethal poisoned needle that would snatch away people’s lives. And more than that, he could never have imagined that the same needle would veer around and hurtle toward himself.

Petty Lies is the translation by Sarah Lyo of 사소한 거짓말 by 박설미 (Sulmi Bak). [The Korean original does not appear to be on Goodreads]

The novel begins with a letter, the chapter titled "I am a Bad Tutor (Mira's letter)" - "나는 나쁜 가정교사입니다(미라의 편지)" - which starts

안녕하세요， 유재 군 어머니
제가 왜 갑자기 어머니께 편지를 썼는지 궁금하실 거라 생각됩니다． 그 이유를 차차 써내려가기 전에， 이 편지의 팔 할은 과외 전에 미리 써놓은 글이라는 걸 알고 계셨으면 합니다．
지금부터는 집중해서 제가 하는 말들을 읽어 내려가야 하실 거예요． 1년 전에 일어났던 일에 대한 얘기를 꺼낼 예정이기 때문입니다．
네， 압니다．
아득히 먼 옛날 일을 지금 와서 굳이 언급하는 이유가 뭘까 생각하고 계시겠죠． 하지만 어제 일처럼 또렷이 기억날 만큼 제게는 무엇보다 중요한 사건이니 아무쪼록 끝까지 이 편지를 읽어주셨으면 합니다.

Hello, Yujae’s mother. I expect you’re wondering why I’ve suddenly written you a letter. Before I give my reasons, I’d like you to know that four-fifths of this letter had already been written by the time I started tutoring your son.
You may need to pay attention from now on as you read my letter, as I’m about to discuss events that happened one year ago.
Yes, I know.
Why now bring up the far-distant past? you’re thinking. But since those events matter more to me than anything else, so much so that I remember them as clearly as if they happened yesterday, I hope you’ll read this letter to the end.

I have deliberately stopped quoting the letter there, as the next paragraph Mira, the tutor, reminds Jiwon, Yujae's mother, of an incident last year where a dog was mutilated, something which seems to have been triggering for many English-language readers judging from reviews. And this may actually speak to a cultural difference which underpins the text, since here two different characters in the novel lament how animal cruelty or even striking a child are regarded as much less seriously that striking an elderly person - I'd say it is the opposite in the UK, where elderly abuse is the forgotten, and underfunded, topic.

Mira reveals in her letter that: the abused dog belonged to her family; the consequences of that abuse extended beyond the animal; her suspect is one of Jiwon's sons; and hence she wormed her way into their home as a tutor planning revenge.

What follows is a series of letters and diary entries and a twisted story involving: Mira; Jiwon and her sons Yujae and Yuchan; some of Yujae's classmates; and Yujae's original tutor, a university alumni of Mira, who helped secure her position.

And however much person A thought they had tricked person B, it turned out that with C's help it was actually B manipulating A to think they'd tricked B. Except in reality C was helping A who knew that B knew they had tricked them ....

It's all a bit reminscent of the my link textBattle of Wits in the Princess Bride, and indeed even involves an odourless, tasteless, deadly poison - although Vizzini in the movie brilliantly managed to have the battle entirely with himself.

VIZZINI: Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I'm not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
MAN IN BLACK: You've made your decision then?
VIZZINI: Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
MAN IN BLACK: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
VIZZINI: Wait till I get going! Where was I?

And, that scene lasting only a few minutes, this is a similarly quick read.

It's all rather contrived - and the logic of some of the final twists, particularly Jiwon's last card, rather escaped me, which is a problem as a novel like this, so carefully (contrivedly) constructed, does depend heavily on the final revelations.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC. But I think I fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But only slightly less well known is this: "Never read a Korean translation of a book you wouldn't go near in a English original."

[Michela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unpopular opinion alert! ‼️

I bought this exclusively because of the low ratings and joked that I would raise the avg rating once I read it, and I was correct 😅

I read it in one sitting and it got me out of the worst reading slump. I don’t have expectations for thrillers, I don’t really think the genre can blow my mind or surprise me, but I love Korean thrillers, I love the smooth prose, I love the creative structure, and this just kept me interested the whole way through.

Give it a chance if you love Korean lit!

[Meserah Abdullah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable quick read for anyone who enjoys thrillers. I liked the character dynamics and found Yujae and Yuchan's opposing personalities interesting. Yujae's disturbed personality and ability to corrupt others was disturbing but believable. His desperation for his mothers attention was a strange motivator, especially as he didn't even want his mothers love but was obsessed with occupying her attention to such a degree. The mothers willingness to cover up her sons psychopathic behaviour including several murders and extensive animal abuse was shocking, particularly considering that he murdered his father and attempted to murder his brother.
Her negligence is ultimately to blame for all of the suffering that occurs in this story.

[unabloggerdilibri · Rating 2 out of 5]

‼️ c’è veramente tanta violenza sugli animali (sui cani in particolare) se siete sensibili lo sconsiglio assolutamente!

e comunque non vi perdete niente di che, non è un thriller.

[Lilibet Bombshell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petty Lies is a novella written in four parts, three of which are in epistolary format from three different people and one a dialogue-free scene done in person with another character at the end. Before I go any further I���m going to issue a huge trigger warning, because I know it’s a hard limit for a lot of people: If you have the slightest issue with reading anything regarding the mistreatment of animals, then you won’t want to go near this book. Trust. I’m not even going to beat around the bush about it.

Mira knows Jiwon’s son is responsible for what happened to her family and insists he has a bad mother. Jiwon contends she had to choose between putting her time and energy into either her genius good son or her bad seed son and laments the choices it has led both she and Mira to make but insists it’s better for everyone involved. Yujae, for his part, lays the blame for everything at everyone’s feet but his own. A consummate malignant narcissist and burgeoning psychopath, the only thing Yujae wants to be responsible for is putting people and creatures in their place (rather, the place he has determined they belong). None of them are good people, all of them are liars, and all of them are criminals.

I’m pretty sure there’s some of this story that’s getting lost in cultural translation, especially as it pertains to familial structure, schooling, dating, social life, and culture, but I still found it entertaining and suspenseful. The horror side of things was lacking for me because it seemed like shock and disgust was what the order of the day was in that area and I’m just not that affected by that kind of horror. What it does a great job of is being a thriller. I really appreciated this as a psychological thriller. 4⭐️


Thanks to Mulholland Books for providing me with a finished copy of this book. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Epistolary/Horror/Novella/Own Voices/Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Thriller/Translation

[Alessandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rivoglio indietro i miei soldi!

[totesintobooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the rare times where i’d say do not trust the rating. the animal cruelty descriptions are important part of the storytelling because it shows how desensitised these assailants are and it’s also for readers to contemplate on these acts deeper and understand that the law do work against animals and their protection!!!

[Dima · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reads like a long epistolary novella, rather than a full scale novel. The protagonists are two teenage brothers, their mother, and a young woman in her twenties whose life is deeply affected by the family’s behavior. Each character offers a different perspective on pivotal and tragic events. At its core, this is the story of a disturbed young man with borderline tendencies and a penchant for cruelty. Graphic scenes of violence (including instances of animal cruelty) underscore his warped nature and the devastating impact he has on those around him.

What I especially liked about the story is its twisted plotline. The author’s chosen form allows conflicting perspectives to coexist and contradict one another, gradually revealing the “true” picture of events. I also appreciated the steady accumulation of lies and manipulations, which together reflect human nature in its basest form.

I found some of the other reviews rather strange. I understand that certain readers are particularly sensitive to animal cruelty, but it strikes me as inconsistent that depictions of human abuse and debasement are treated as somehow more acceptable. This book is much more than the single scene some may find disturbing, and its literary value should not be reduced to one plot element—which, in fact, serves a clear purpose in exposing a character’s psychology. It feels disingenuous to dismiss an entire book with a one-star review because of this.

I recommend it to fans of horror, true crime, and books that probe what drives and motivates violence.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Lavelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

(CW: graphic depictions of animal abuse)

how far will a mother go to protect her kids, and at what point does that protection turn into harm?

this was a very, very dark, albeit intriguing read. I can't recommend this lightly, but it did give me a lot to think about.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Petty Lies is an epistolary novel in which a woman worms her way into a wealthy household because she suspects the son mutilated her dog. The style and overall vibe reminded me of Kanae Minato’s Confessions and Penance: dark, epistolary, full of twists, and driven by vengeance. That said, I didn’t find it as engaging to read. I think I didn’t like the characters very much, so I didn’t care about the kid, the mother, the other mother, etc.

I’ve seen some reviews giving this book a bad rating because of the animal abuse, which is fair. I think there’s a cultural aspect there worth mentioning, because after living in Korea for a few years, I don’t think pets or dogs are regarded in the same way in general (i.e., as family members). What bothered me more, though, were the comments on and depiction of autism. The kid is portrayed as “fucked up,” and this seems to be linked to his possibly being on the spectrum. There are lines like “abnormal people don’t feel guilt” and other similarly brilliant comments (and, really, calling someone who is allegedly on the spectrum “abnormal” is… a choice).

Anyway, the book made me mad, and it was too similar to Kanae Minato’s books for me to be wowed by anything. The elements added to shock the reader didn’t really have much of an effect on me either because at the end of it, I felt the book was just trying to make the reader mad (animal abuse, violence against women, misogynistic shit, ableism…).

[Dave Musson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just did not connect with this one. The violence against dogs was horrible to read and didn’t add anything to the story, while the characters just seemed too much like fictional characters! The twists were not that impressive either.

Thanks for the publisher and to NetGalley for a review copy.

[Julia Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first few pages made me not want to read any further. Do we really need that many examples of how a person could murder an animal? No thanks.

[Luca Gelmini · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Piccoli Inganni Crudeli” di Bak Sulmi è un thriller psicologico che cattura fin dalle prime pagine. La protagonista, Mira, segnata da un trauma familiare che l’ha lasciata sola, cerca di ricostruire la propria vita accettando di fare da insegnante privato a Yujae, un ragazzo difficile e introverso. È così che entra in contatto con la sua famiglia: un nucleo all’apparenza rispettabile, guidato da una madre protettiva e ambiziosa, e da un fratello maggiore brillante, Yuchan, destinato a un futuro accademico.

Fin da subito però emerge che le cose non sono mai come sembrano: dietro le facciate perfette si celano tensioni, rancori e segreti pronti a emergere. Bak Sulmi gioca abilmente con le ambiguità dei personaggi, spostando continuamente la percezione del lettore su chi sia realmente vittima e chi carnefice. Il risultato è un’atmosfera carica di inquietudine, che scava nei temi di dignità, ambizione, vendetta e differenze sociali.

La scrittura è scorrevole, diretta e incisiva, capace di rendere la tensione palpabile. L’unico vero difetto è la brevità: il libro si legge in poche ore e lascia la voglia di rimanere ancora in quel mondo oscuro e stratificato.

Un piccolo romanzo che sorprende per intensità, con personaggi sfaccettati e colpi di scena sottili, che avrebbe meritato qualche pagina in più per diventare indimenticabile.

[Nina (Momo)]

I picked this up at an airport book store because grabbing a paperback to entertain one's self while in transit is a time-honored human tradition. Flights are one of the few places nowadays that we are really cut off from the general hubbub of life-post-internet, life-post-smartphone, life-post-5G. During my flight, my airline proudly announced that they would soon have in-flight wifi coverage for all domestic flights, and I realized that very soon -- if not already -- this last little respite will be gone. I suppose there's still long-distance cruises, but I bet they'll have steady wifi soon too. Maybe they already do. I've never been on a cruise.

All this to say, I picked up this book because I was chasing an anachronistic experience, nostalgia not just for an airport book, but for when books were our go-to diversion. When people wrote fretting, concern-trolling screeds about how reading was ruining the youth. When the transit hub was a train station and not an airport. (I suppose it still can be, in countries blessedly lucky enough not to have the extreme car fetish that the US inflicted on itself.)

Unfair as this may be to the author and the translator, the book itself was sort of secondary to the experience. Well, not secondary, no -- the book was definitely central in the "buying and reading a book in transit" experience, but it wasn't central in the way it would be to a regular "picking up a book to read for pleasure" experience. I wanted a book that would be fast, transporting, and perhaps a little bad. Perhaps even very bad, so long as it wasn't so awful that I resented spending money on it. That was another key factor: it had to be cheap enough to feel casual. And it had to be a paperback. I essentially wanted something pulp, something to light up my brain a bit and then make me a bit embarrassed to have read it. Something I could shrug and say, "it was an airport read."

Was this that book? Hard to say. It was a quick read. It was relatively cheap. It was a paperback. It was twisty and punchy enough to be engaging. The violence against animals was a bit more than I wanted from an airport read, though. In fact, it was a lot more. The reflections on motherhood didn't feel fully married to the ideas about cruelty to animals, and (unfair as this may be on my part!) I didn't want to reflect on these themes too much while I was reading. I mostly wanted a diversion. Still, I was interested until the end, and it gave me something to talk about on the car ride home from the airport.

So, would I recommend this book? If you like crime fiction or stories with serial killers, it might be good for you. (There isn't a serial killer in this book, but the cruelty to animals seems like the kind of thing you might get in that sort of crime fiction, so maybe you'd have more of a stomach for it.) It is very short, but I don't know if it was an ideal airport read.

And yet, maybe my vague disappointment after reading it is just right. It was very fun to search for it at the little airport bookshop, to select it out from all the others, and then to hold it, turning these pages and not having to worry about it running out of battery. Next time I have a flight, I'd like to buy another.

[Karen Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read by any means, dealing as it does with graphic descriptions of animal cruelty, but an intriguing exploration of character.
The story hinges on a mother of two sons. Each section takes us deeper into the web of their lives, examining what we have learnt about each of them and how they interact with others. Central to the novel is a young woman, Mira, hired as a tutor to one of the boys but determined to exact her own form of revenge for the incident that resulted in the deaths of her mother and brother.
From the outset it is clear that the younger son is deeply troubled. There’s a suggestion that he kills his father once the possibility of him needing psychological help is raised. The mother cannot begin to countenance such evil, so buries her head in the sand as further evidence of her son’s disturbing behaviour comes to light. It gets worse.
Shocking subject, and yet there was something fascinating about these characters. For me, the mother was the most intriguing character and i felt like, on occasion, elements of the decision-making process were unexplained. Thanks to NetGalley for hiving me the opportunity to read and review this.

[Cecilia Colombani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beh… il titolo la dice lunga! Una storia crudelissima e abbastanza disturbante per la violenza (su umani e animali). Ho apprezzato la struttura epistolare ed alcune riflessioni ma in generale l’ho trovato un romanzo piuttosto acerbo che avrebbe potuto essere sviluppato meglio. Anche l’etichetta thriller non so quanto sia indicata; è semplicemente una storia intrisa di male neanche troppo originale.

[Shweta · Rating 1 out of 5]

TW: animal cruelty

Books like these ought to come with trigger serious warnings. This one, fashioned after Kanae Minato's excellent Confessions, is not even one percent of the thriller that the former is. Intensely graphic and vivid animal cruelty, here, is seems like its used for shock value rather than adding anything to the plot.

Despite its short length and choppy prose, I skimmed through the book because of how nauseating it was.

Not recommended. Ever.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petty Lies is suspenseful and twisty, with tension that builds like Parasite.

The book includes graphic animal cruelty, which is triggering-so be warned-but I was able to skip those parts without losing the story. The ending is a big twist, and I'm really glad I stuck with it. Definitely intense, and not for everyone, but worth it if you can navigate the difficult content.

[Natalie Hayes · Rating 1 out of 5]

If someone is going to write in graphic detail about killing animals for the entire 150 pages of a book, I would strongly suggest they write the story and characters with a bit more substance. This was boring and repetitive and just fell really flat for me. I picked this up because of the comparison to The Vegetarian and was bummed it turned out the way it did.

[Jame_EReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first thing that came to my mind is “be careful what you asked for!” It is a short book with so many triggers. Seriously I was constantly sighing “OMG”. This book felt like it was written by a twisted author, but I think Sulmi Bak is an absolute masterpiece by blending Asian/Korean’s darkness with societal issues. I was definitely intrigued with the story of the convoluted brothers and the asinine mother. It does feel like watching a Korean psychopath movie with crazy ending.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

INEVITABILMENTE LIMITATO

Che è addicting, è addicting. È anche perverso e ingannevole... ma, ahimè, non sconvolgente quanto mi aspettassi. D'altro canto, non sono nemmeno 200 pagine, il che costituisce un inevitabile limite al numero di personaggi e di eventi. Deludente.

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a lot of animal abuse and cruelty in this book, far more than actually necessary and quite graphic. It really took away from the story and made me hate the characters. First and last read with this author.

[Heather Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this rashomon story but I wish there was a "does the dog die?" for books because a lot of them certainly do in this.