🔅Vladimir by Julia May Jones @juliamaynot ! Thank you @blackbookbitch for my ARC 💙 

🔅Will be released in UK on 26 May 2022 

🔅Thoughts: This book surprised me! I was expecting a forbidden or taboo romance novel but it was not and ended up so much better.

“Vladimir” is narrated by a college professor, we never get her name which to me was symbolism for the loss of identity she is going through. Her husband of almost 30 years has come under scrutiny for affairs with his students - all of them consensual - but the students have now criticized him for preying on student whose grades he had control over.

I loved our narrator - I felt like I knew her. She describes her body without boundaries, calling her “breasts conical rather than globular”, she describes the lengths to which she goes to appear more attractive but then hates herself for it. Her inner monologue is honest and relatable - she describes her frustration with students who believe themselves free from the strict patriarchal system and who unsolicited spring their opinion about her marriage on her. Yet when she speaks to them she’s the epitome of “politically correct”. How to professionally tell your students to F off 😊. 


And any book about books will quickly become a favorite, here’s a quote from our narrator: “I loved that the complexities of my emotions were understood by authors writing hundreds of years ago.” Some books that are mentioned are “Girl, Interrupted”, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and many more! There’s references to authors, plays, movies and just all around cultural staples that have formed our society.

The narrator is said to be in her mid-50s and is experiencing a new awareness of the difference in her age with that of her students, especially concerning the issue they now all have with her husband. Seeing students congregated she muses “I understood not only the
bonding that comes out of complaining but also the incredible sense
of identity that comes with discovering why you think something is
wrong.” Her perception of youth was just….spot-on. I loved the narrator. So who is Vladimir? Where does he come in? 

He’s the new junior professor at the college whom our narrator lusts after. Her fantasies though are after thoughts in the complexity of her life and never become the main plot. I won’t spoil it but I think the climax of the relationship was perfect example of expectation vs reality. 

I’m glad I have the British copy of the book with the woman on the cover because the book is about her - not the guy.