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A review by incipientdreamer
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
4.25 stars
Damn them violent delights do have violent ends. Willy boy was spitting facts. Ok so I really enjoyed this book. It's a perfect thriller with the right amount of suspense and pacing. I was hooked just from reading the Prologue! Extremely chilling and twisted, These Violent Delights does not shy away from the monstrosity that is teenage obsessive love. Paul and Julian had nothing on Joe and Love from You and I'm not even exaggerating. These two were hella sick. Imagine Joe and Love but as college students and lots more pretentious.
The writing is far beyond what you would normally expect from a debut novelist. It captures the theme and atmosphere of their obsession so beautifully. The entire book has this claustrophobic and suffocating vibe to it, which not only helps the pacing but also makes the reader feel like they are stuck in this toxic relationship with Paul and Julian. Apart from some acquaintances and family members that mainly serve as background and plot devices, the two MCs are the only characters that we really get to know or even read about. You can feel the spiraling obsession along with Paul and it's so well done, I have no words. Not too much on the nose, or insta-love, or loads of telling. Just perfect. Honestly, most romances fail to build up a relationship this well, but Nemerever was able to do it smoothly for THE toxic couple of the year!
The social psychology nerd in me was physically vibrating with excitement when the Milgram experiment was mentioned. Cue a gif of an anime character pushing up glasses. I remember when I took a course in Psychology at college and I remember our entire class refusing to believe the result. I do want to clarify one thing. there were 2 experiments carried out: one with 43 undergrads from Yale who weren't paid to participate, and the second with 50 men from a variety of works of life. So Julian's point about the haute bourgeois having no sense of consequences for their actions only holds partially true. In both studies, the participants were all men. Draw whatever conclusion from that as you will...
There's also a lot of foreshadowing that I love in thrillers and especially dark academia books because of the focus on literature. You can't write a decent dark academia thriller if you don't add thematic parallels and narrative resonance. That's the entire charm of the genre! (apart from the aesthetic ofc lol) I loved how it really did mirror Shakespearan plays plus the theme of the doomed lovers from Romeo and Juliet. The dramatic irony running throughout the novel is nicely tied up in a really poetic ending, once again bringing back the concept of the doomed lovers. Though once again, the endless debate exists: were they doomed because of the overreaching arms of Fate (who they were as people), or because of the choices they made?
Damn them violent delights do have violent ends. Willy boy was spitting facts. Ok so I really enjoyed this book. It's a perfect thriller with the right amount of suspense and pacing. I was hooked just from reading the Prologue! Extremely chilling and twisted, These Violent Delights does not shy away from the monstrosity that is teenage obsessive love. Paul and Julian had nothing on Joe and Love from You and I'm not even exaggerating. These two were hella sick. Imagine Joe and Love but as college students and lots more pretentious.
The writing is far beyond what you would normally expect from a debut novelist. It captures the theme and atmosphere of their obsession so beautifully. The entire book has this claustrophobic and suffocating vibe to it, which not only helps the pacing but also makes the reader feel like they are stuck in this toxic relationship with Paul and Julian. Apart from some acquaintances and family members that mainly serve as background and plot devices, the two MCs are the only characters that we really get to know or even read about. You can feel the spiraling obsession along with Paul and it's so well done, I have no words. Not too much on the nose, or insta-love, or loads of telling. Just perfect. Honestly, most romances fail to build up a relationship this well, but Nemerever was able to do it smoothly for THE toxic couple of the year!
The social psychology nerd in me was physically vibrating with excitement when the Milgram experiment was mentioned. Cue a gif of an anime character pushing up glasses. I remember when I took a course in Psychology at college and I remember our entire class refusing to believe the result. I do want to clarify one thing. there were 2 experiments carried out: one with 43 undergrads from Yale who weren't paid to participate, and the second with 50 men from a variety of works of life. So Julian's point about the haute bourgeois having no sense of consequences for their actions only holds partially true. In both studies, the participants were all men. Draw whatever conclusion from that as you will...
There's also a lot of foreshadowing that I love in thrillers and especially dark academia books because of the focus on literature. You can't write a decent dark academia thriller if you don't add thematic parallels and narrative resonance. That's the entire charm of the genre! (apart from the aesthetic ofc lol) I loved how it really did mirror Shakespearan plays plus the theme of the doomed lovers from Romeo and Juliet. The dramatic irony running throughout the novel is nicely tied up in a really poetic ending, once again bringing back the concept of the doomed lovers. Though once again, the endless debate exists: were they doomed because of the overreaching arms of Fate (who they were as people), or because of the choices they made?