These Violent Delights: A Novel

I was very excited to learn of this novel by queer, Jewish new author Micah Nemerever. I am fascinated with stories about gays gone bad and intense same-gender relationships. The author has described These Violent Delights as a love story and oh, there's a dash of murder too. And as suggested by the title's source, it is indeed a tragic love story. I only had to read a few pages to know that this one would wreck me. Nemerever does an excellent job setting up how the protagonists meeting makes for a perfect storm. Beneath a mild-mannered exterior, Paul Fleischer is a powder keg of self-loathing and deep-seated rage. His family is close-knit but unsure how to get through to him. His grandfather and older sister in particular are believable as supporting characters. I really felt for their struggle as they realize how deeply troubled their grandson and brother really is, while still coping with the recent death of Paul's father by suicide. Paul befriends Julian Fromme during their freshman year at an unnamed Pittsburgh university. They soon develop an all-consuming emotional and physical relationship. Julian already has one foot out the door with his wannabe-WASP family, who aren't interested in hearing what their son actually wants or needs (most certainly not when his desires include Paul, a working-class boy who dares to keep kosher in front of Mr. Fromme's country club friends). Neither boy has any other close friends at school. This sense of alienation make Paul and…

A deeply disturbing, utterly gripping book. Its sources are clear - Raskolnikov, Leopold & Loeb, the tortured souls trying to find their place in a world they fail to understand. It's unyieldingly harrowing, but brilliantly composed. Paul comes from working-class Pittsburgh. In college, he falls desperately in love with Julian, from a rich family outside Washington, DC. Julian's mother comes from European wealth - but Jewish money, which makes them parvenus in their rarified circles. Still, money is money, and Julian's family plays by the WASP rules; they join the right clubs and throw the right parties. Their son being gay is utterly unimaginable to both families. Far worse, Paul's social anxiety is off the charts. He cannot afford to live on campus, and takes the bus to school. He is desperately out of his depths in class and in Class. His self-loathing is so profound that he cannot accept his lover's affection as anything other than a malignant strike at Julian's upper-crust parents. The two teenagers share a deeply tortured relationship, with each twisting the other in knots to prove their affection. Needless to say, their sexual encounters easily turn violent. Although discreetly portrayed, these intimate moments are nonetheless a vivid depiction of their profound troubles, with themselves and each other. Like Raskolnikov, they hit upon the Nietzschean solution - to kill another, less worthy person. Somehow, this will cement their abiding love for one another. To…

Writer lost track of the plot halfway through. He had a strong start then it started to just go to a bunch of filler. Was hard to get through the end

Well, this book absolutely gutted me. I think I'll be having a book hangover for awhile after reading Micah Nemerever's epic These Violent Delights . There's absolutely no way that I believe that this is Micah's debut novel, because the prose is so wickedly beautiful. It's being compared as The Secret History meets Call Me By Your Name, and I can definitely see that, but honestly, this book is better than both of them. These Violent Delights takes place in 1970s Pittsburgh and centers around two main characters, Paul Fleischer and Julian Fromme. Paul and Julian are two freshman students joining college and connect instantaneously during their first interaction in class. They are immediately drawn together, but they couldn't be more different. Paul is a shy, artistic, loner; while Julian is wealthy, charismatic, and cunning. The two immediately form a fast friendship, but little did they know that this friendship would grow more intense each day. As Paul and Julian's friendship grows, the bond quickly turns to love. Their love is so powerful, so beautiful (and steamy!), but also so dark. Their love grows eventually forms into obsession and violence. The two form an unhealthy, yet captivating romantic bond, that allows the two of them to become stronger in their own way. This bond cannot be broken and anyone who steps in their way will have to suffer the consequences. Whew, this book is heavy on my heart. Never has a book triggered me with so many emotions. At first, the…

To give this three stars... to give this four stars... I'm still not sure where I land on this book overall. It's impossible to avoid comparisons to other dark academia books and I kind of hate doing it because, like, I don't compare two fantasy books for both having magic systems and wizards, but I think that within the genre (of those I've read so far) this one is just okay enjoyment wise, but definitely a lot more theme-heavy and has a real point of view as opposed to a lot of other stories that lean into the tropes of ~dark academia~. I love a bit of murder, I love a bit of darkness, I love a psychological study of somebody borderline off the rails, but although the actual murder section of this book was really good, it lacked the page-turner OOH WHATS GONNA HAPPEN factor that things like A Lesson and Vengeance, The Atlas Six, and If We Were Liars really had going for them. That being said, I think that the characters of Paul and Julien were really well done even though I didn't like either character very much at all (then again, they're not good people so I don't think I was supposed to). The author mentions in his author's note at the end that Paul and Julien are supposed to represent the obsession and toxicity that can occur in what he refers to as 'identity-consuming romantic friendships' and I think that aspect of the story was executed perfectly. I put this book down for a really long time because Julien, one of the central protagonists, was really getting on my…