A HUGE thank you to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this as well as Simon & Schuster Audio and LibroFM for the ALC.

This book will absolutely not be for everyone, but I will not apologize for loving it.

Julia May Jones took something as mundane as academia and turned it into exploration on the morality of multiple transgressions within fiction.

I had been very intrigued when Avid Reader Press first shared the synopsis and I'm thrilled that this debut delivered. If you're looking for a book set in academia that is dark and intriguing but isn't a murder kind of dark - this is it. I personally consumed this one by listening to the audiobook while reading my e-copy and I highly recommend this format.

The narrator is a 58 year old unnamed female tenured female english profess or who is trying to move around academia after her husband is accused of sexual misconduct by former students. While they are dealing with the fallout of that, the narrator also develops somewhat of an obsession with a young new, tenure track professor named Vladimir. The story develops from there, moving from one questionable action to another with the introduction of more characters (students, other professors and family) that easily help the plot blossom and move forward.

Vladimir was both liberating and unsettling and for once, I didn't mind the unreliable narrator. In fact, I was so intrigued by her and her actions because they were so provocative. I found myself ignoring all other responsibilities to keep discovering if there is any morality in allowing questionable behavior.

Now I have to mention the cover because apparently that's what everyone is making a big stink about. Many find the cover questionable and misleading, but I personally find it very fitting due to multiple scenes within this debut.

I have so many thoughts, but in the end I think that Vladimiris a book that I'll savor for a long time. I could easily see myself getting a physical copy to reread and annotate.