This provocative debut novel from Julia May Jonas introduces us to a nameless narrator, an English professor in her late fifties whose husband is under investigation at their university for relationships he had with former students. Our narrator becomes obsessed and infatuated with the university’s new professor, Vladimir, a married and celebrated novelist, and becomes fixated on seducing him in somewhat of a retaliation against her husband for his transgressions.

This book, while having an interesting subject matter that isn’t something I would typically be drawn to read, was incredibly well written and full of allusions. The novel has heavy nods to Nabokov’s Lolita and raises some thought provoking questions as to unbalanced power dynamics in relationships, morality and art, and indulgence in desires without considering consequences. The ending was very unexpected. Overall I enjoyed this, although it was at times uncomfortable and all of the characters are difficult to like.