Our unnamed protagonist is a 58 year old College Professor in the US, teaching English Literature. Her husband, John, stands accused of inappropriate sexual relationships with several students, albeit in the times before the College explicitly banned such relationships.

The couple have always had an open marriage and we know this because this story is told by John’s wife throughout. It’s a fascinating and debate raising novel. The timing gleefully encompasses both the immense sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s and today’s #MeToo movement. Two occurrences which are in direct contradiction of each other.

Our narrator has a good conceit of herself. She prides herself on her ability to connect with her students and at the same time she feels scorn for those who have brought their accusations against her husband for his abuse of power, because, after all, was it not that very power that attracted them in the first place? Yet she finds that both her status and her own feminism are now challenged by the very students who used to hang on her every word.

Her relationship with her own daughter, Sid, a lawyer and a lesbian is less successful. Indeed, her family life is all but dead, as she and her husband barely converse and Sid and she clash over pretty much everything. Now she is not enjoying the knowledge that her students are looking on her and pitying her; feeling the need to offer their advice that she should not be standing by her cheating partner.

She is also increasingly drawn to a newly arrived married colleague, Vladimir Vladinski, whose debut novel is remarkable. She is a writer of small success and she sees in Vladimir a younger version of herself. Now she is getting older and her body less beautiful, she finds herself drawn in a provocative, sexual way to this man with a beautiful body and a beautiful mind. The fact that Vladimir is both a husband and a father and that his wife is fragile as a result of depression is dismissed in her mind, or at least serves only to make him more attractive.

Her sexual fantasies in relation to Vladimir grow and with her newly re-engaged longing, she finds again the desire to write, alongside the emergence of a plan for deliberate seduction.

Vladimir beautifully portrays the sexual politics of today in the rarified world of academia. Touching on cancel culture, confronting ageing and challenging the idea of the non-sexual post-menopausal woman, Julia Jonas creates a thoughtful contribution to the current debate on ideas and freedom of expression in literature.

The comparisons with Nabokov are interesting and there’s a lot to think about in this detailed and multi-layered character study. I greatly enjoyed the journey and my thoughts keep returning to some of the book’s themes – and that in itself makes it a winner for me.

What a read this is!
Our terrible, spikey female narrator is an English professor whose awful husband, also a professor at the same college, has been suspended amid allegations of sexual misconduct from former students.
It’s dark, unruly and messy with perplexing unlikeable characters - but it’s smart and wryly funny.
It delves into the complexities of power and gender, consent and coercion, victim and agency. And explores our vulnerabilities, obsessions and shame.
There is a surreal gear shift two-thirds of the way in - but go with it! This is a cunning, compelling read!
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own.

I’ve been excited to read this book ever since I first saw the extremely aesthetically pleasing cover and now I have, I can confirm it is every bit as incredible as I’d hoped! Our narrator is a phenomenal main character to follow. Her thought patterns and incisive social commentary is endlessly fascinating and deeply compelling. Vladimir is also written with a remarkable deftness and surety that is even more impressive considering this is a debut. It is a sharply intelligent book which manages to achieve moments of true poignancy intermixed with a caustic provocative humour that I just adored. Every single piercing page of Vladimir had me in awe and it has gone straight on my list of all time favourite books. Seductive, smart and stunningly assured.

Thank you to NetGalley, Julia May Jones and Picador for the arc of this much hyped up book !!

First things first; woah buddy this book is uncomfortable! A LOT of getting up and pacing around my room and screaming into my pillow in rage. I suspect the framing of the text has a lolita reference in it (the writer of Lolita was of course a Vladimir himself). It does not shy away from topics of assault, power dynamics and creepy men and women; I cannot overstate how triggering this book could be so please watch out.

The book is about the narrator; the professor wife of another professor who has been accused of (and is aware he is guilty of) relations with many of his students. She falls into an obsession with new professor Vladimir and the book is about her arguing and self pitying and being overly-obsessed with Vlad. The politics are murky and you are never sure what is true or false in the narration. The characters are interesting but I wanted to know more about the students and their relation to the author... I found them all totally interesting. I also found the ending to the book abrupt and would have liked a more balanced ending that the train screeching to a hault that I felt that I got.

The writing is hypnotic: Jones writes in such an encompassing way that at times I felt claustrophobic and stressed out the narrator is a lot: a book to read in two or more sittings rather than being me and an idiot and reading it in one chaotic one.

I’m not fully sure how I feel about this book yet. I only finished reading it a couple of days ago and I’m still processing. It asks a lot of questions of its readers about morality, loyalty, and our relationship with ourselves.
The central storyline is about a college professor accused of historically using the unbalanced student/teacher power dynamic to engage students in sexual relationships. His wife was aware of these relationships (they had an open marriage) however doesn’t buy that they were in any way dysfunctional or abusive. She (and I call her she as her name is never revealed) is our narrator, the book is written from her perspective and deals with how the unfolding events affect her.
There are absolutely no likeable characters in this book. I don’t mind this as a writer’s tool, I find it gives me a certain distance from them that allows me to better immerse myself in the story and seeing their response to situations, that is so different from how I would act, is fascinating. The main characters are two couples and the grown up child of one of the couples. Each of them are totally self-involved and have an inflated sense of self, dismissive of societal constructs/norms. The narrator is hugely critical of her physical self, in stark contrast to her feelings about her intellectual self.
Where I’m still unsure about my feelings focus around two things: the events towards the end of the book seemed to escalate too quickly to be plausible, it jarred me. Secondly, I don’t think I’ve fully absorbed all the symbolism and meaning yet - this is a clever book with many layers, but all of which I’ve had time to process. This plays into my rating - any book that can make me think this much was well worth my time and has to be marked as a high-rating offering.

The writing in this novel is incredible. Searing prose that doesn’t pull any punches and that draws you fully into the world (a rarified college in the US) the characters inhabit. It is a very sophisticated look at the blurred lines between consensual relationships and harassment where power is involved. It takes a turn about two thirds in which felt a little jarring, and both the tone and pace of the novel changed, and I am not sure whether that change worked or not. Regardless, this was/is an excellent novel and one I will think about for sometime yet.

The characters are mostly unlikeable people who do at best questionable and at worst morally reprehensible things. It shouldn’t be enjoyable but it’s so pretentious and messy, it’s like that person at work you really don’t care for but you still secretly want to hear about their wild and ridiculous life.

Another story of "dark academia" or is there a new subgenre - horny academia? (I hate myself for even typing that).
This book takes another look at the MeToo movement sweeping publishing (see other recent release "Nobody But Us" by Laure Van Rensberg), I have to say I much preferred this take... however it also went slightly batshit.
This time the deal is older married couple, both academics at the same US university. Our unnamed (F) narrator, early on in their marriage/the swinging sixties/seventies/eighties encouraged her husband to seek out other partners. It turned out that some of these women were his students, who are now looking back at their liaisons in a new light and wondering if they truly were fair, consensual etc.
As such he is suspended and pending a full investigation. But does our narrator care that much? Are they "in love" or a long-term marriage that has turned into more of a business partnership? A spark of desire for our narrator is ignited when a new teacher arrives on campus, the exotic Vladimir, along with his wife.
We are treated to our narrator's interior monologue on many facets of life as an older female - the post-menopausal descent into invisibility from the male gaze, after a lifetime spent doing her best to try and attract it. One of her highlights is an evening when she gets mistaken, in the dark, for one of her young students.
So, much to think about. Another weird parallel with Nobody But Us is the motif of a drugged male restrained, tied to a chair in an isolated cabin. Given how wildly the narrative goes off the rails towards the end I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this book, but certainly one to check out if you are interested in hearing the voice of an older woman represented.

With grateful thanks to publishers Pan Macmillan for an advanced UK pre-release copy of 'Vladimir' by Julia May Jones, in exchange for a free and fair review.

Trigger warning: sexual assault allegations

This novel is engaging from the outset.
Flirtatious and feisty, it portrays a married female English professor's journey with desire and exploring this with new colleague Vladimir Vladinski.
The novel definitely explores boundaries between personal and professional and how these boundaris can blur. The novel deals with the power dynamics of sexual behaviours particularly within a higher education setting where impressionable young students can become enamoured with knowledgable older tutors. It also explores sexual assault allegations against the protagonist's husband (also a professor at the campus) and how this affects their open marital arrangement. The novel seems particularly poignant and relevant after the recent Me Too movement and debates around cultural wars and 'wokeism'.

The first person perspective of the novel presented from a strong woman is welcome although one wonders about the power dynamics in her sexual relationships - does she succumbs to masculine desire or assert her feminine prowess? The novel wants to rail against patriarchal norms (rightly so) but is not condescending. Instead it is a delightfully entertaining with a clever wit.


The novel also explores what it is to be successful both personally and professionally in addition to the challenges of mental health and female 'hysteria'. In that, it asks questions about desires and expectations; challenging social norms, and also why we behave as we do to the people we choose to build a life with and how the third person in a marriage can be society's perception and judgement of what goes on between the couple.
Vladimir is a slow burn but it is current and relevant.

The opening pages of this book pulled me in and I was excited to read on. Unfortunately, I found it dropped off quite quickly and I found it felt fragmented or muddled. I would be interested to read more from the author as it was written well and was an interesting concept. I just felt the second half of the book didn’t intrigue me as much as the first.

I found this an absolutely brilliant novel of genuine depth which offers an original take on the campus novel, written with the propulsive energy of a psychological thriller.

The unnamed narrator is a writer and English professor at a small college in upstate New York; she is married to John, chair of the English faculty, who has been suspended after allegations of sexual misconduct from a number of former students. The narrator is more irritated that these students have sought to define themselves as victims than by John's actions, which she has known about all along because of their open marriage. Nonetheless, these allegations also make her position on campus more difficult. At the same, the narrator becomes increasingly obsessed by Vladimir, a successful novelist who has just arrived on campus with his wife Cynthia and their young daughter.

Perhaps the greatest strength of this novel is Julia May Jonas's assured use of narrative voice. The narrator is highly engaging: shrewd and spiky but also insightful and self-aware. She identifies the fact that not only John's students but also John are determined to define themselves as victims, but she refuses to see herself as a victim. Instead, she takes action to get what she wants - albeit in fairly unexpected ways at times (one particularly alarming moment is foreshadowed in the very opening of the novel.) Jonas's plotting is also excellent - the novel is economical and tightly-structured but is full of surprises. It also offers a perceptive and nuanced exploration of sexual politics in our post-#MeToo era without ever becoming didactic or reductive.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC of this wonderful novel to read!

This book caught my eye because it features academia and I love reading fictional books where academia is given a centre stage. It was a very interesting read. However, it wasn’t my favourite since I wanted more action than this book provided.

Book follows an unnamed narrator, who is in her 50s and is a Literature professor at a small university on the outskirts of NYC. Her husband, who is also a professor at the same university, is under investigation for sexual relationships with his former students. At the same time, a young, good looking and popular professor/published writer Vladimir joins the department with his wife Cynthia, and our unnamed narrator starts ‘obsessing’ with him. The story deeply explores the narrator’s character, her struggles with writing a new book, her age, her emotions, her weight and of course her role as a female in society and academia. She starts comparing herself to Cynthia and tries to find ways to impress Vladimir with her wisdom and knowledge of literature.

The story itself is quite slow, there’s not much action till the very end actually and even then, the ending was a bit disappointing as there weren’t any big reveals or shocks about any of the characters. However, the lack of action was substituted with beautiful and flawless writing. Jonas is so talented in that regard, the way she describes scenes, and events and gives deep to the characters is fabulous. I think the main reason I continued with this book was the writing as it grips you from the very first page and before you know it you are 100 pages in.

Another thing that I noticed, was that in the blurb it sounded like the narrator is obsessed with Vladimir and honestly, I expected that given the title of the book. However, throughout the book it didn’t feel like she was obsessed with him at all, it was more like she liked the thought of him and she had this perfect version created in her head of him. This leads me to my other point about Vladimir…we don’t really get to know him as a character. He was mainly portrayed to the reader as to how our narrator saw him. There was a little glimpse of him at the very end of the book when he is alone with the narrator and talks about himself, but overall, the book doesn’t explore his character deep enough in my opinion.

I really liked that this book explored power relationships in academia and gender roles, both quite controversial topics in the past and in the current environment. It was so interesting to see what the narrator thought about her husband’s relationships with female students.

Overall: I think I had a bit too high hopes for this book. I really wanted it to be more like Nabokov’s Lolita, as well as to have more action and more twists and shocks in terms of all characters but mainly Vladimir and the narrator’s husband. Although I didn’t like the lack of action in this book, I liked the writing of this book, it was truly flawless and there are so many exceptional quotes in this book that will definitely stay with me for a while.

I do recommend this book to anyone who likes books that explore characters in depth and who don’t mind the lack of actions and twists in their reading.

Huge thank you to Picador and NetGalley for an eARC to read and review.

I thought this was a brilliant book. Each of the characters was complex and nuanced and was neither easy to love nor hate. I particularly liked the lead character, whose name we did not learn.

Interestingly, she was aware of and in support of her husband's extra-marital affairs with students at his college where he is a professor. I liked how we viewed things from her generation and what her thoughts were around the younger generation.

The onnnnly thing was the ending felt a little rushed, that was a big topic to wrap up and we only very briefly saw things through the eyes of the female students/victims and even then it was still also through the main characters yes too.

Overall, I thought it was a brilliant and complicated book, capturing and making us question many big topics: age, feminism, sexuality, the me-too movement, power dynamics, marriage, etc.

I enjoyed the writing style of this book. I like books about academia. I struggled to put this book down. However, the title doesn't really suit the book as it's not really just about Vladimir! It reminded me a little of My Dark Vanessa and Three Women. The ending was also a little disappointing but left me with lots of questions. As a debut, it is very good.

God I love books about writers.

However, not sure how I felt about this book! I wanted it to be Boy Parts meets Tampa meets My Dark Vanessa, but it didn't really fit the blurb or prologue. You get the opportunity to zip tie a man and then just kiss his head and let him go?? I wanted something fucked up and brutal.

Vladimir is a wonderful study of complex characters, and their even more complex interactions. The development in the relationships between the characters was predictable, but not at all in a bad way - there are still many twists and turns throughout the story that catch you off guard and make you hot with uncertainty. Julia May Jonas' writes with gorgeous observance and I found myself constantly highlighting sentences on my kindle.
'Vladimir' also deep-dives into gender politics, dissecting the relationships between men and women in both romantic and professional settings. The portrayal of family dynamics is also very organic - particularly the narrators disjointed marriage, as well as the strained relationship with her daughter.
I absolutely loved Vladimir and expect it will soon be welcomed alongside the other cult classics of the 'unhinged woman' genre.

This book is quite surprising. From the opening pages, throughout the story, you have an idea of what will happen but the story twists and turns in many unexpected directions. The story is told from the perspective of the wife (does she have a name) in a middle-aged couple of professors who teach at a university. The husband is accused of sexually exploiting students, in an earlier era, when it was still OK for students and teachers to have relationships. The wife knew about it at the time, as they had an open relationship. Vladimir and Cynthia, a younger and attractive couple, start teaching at the college, and the wife develops a crush on Vladimir, which may or not be reciprocated. The book is set over a few months, and is very much about the relationships between the couples, and their colleagues and families. There are some funny parts, but also a lot of anger in the book, and the final confrontation takes the book in a completely different direction. Interesting and very well-written.

A compelling and deliciously dark character study. Set on a Liberal Arts college campus, three members of the English department navigate allegations of sexual impropriety, infatuation, middle aged desire and professional envy. Julia May Jones depicts a rarefied world which is archly intellectual and witty. An original, unusual and hugely enjoyable voice.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan/Picador, and the author Julia May Jonas.
This was a really interesting and engaging story, a fascinating character study with flawed characters who felt realistic and convincing. Definitely an interesting read and an exploration of gender politics, sex, and obsession.
The ending felt a little rushed but I think the author means to leave you with more questions than answers.

Well, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas was certainly an interesting read. I had heard mixed things about it but was intrigued by its premise so wanted to read it. Our unnamed narrator is a professor at a small New York university, is in her 50s (she is quite fixated on her age) and has been teaching for over 30 years. Two events happen to throw her life off axis and these are what the book explores.

The first event is that her husband, John (also a professor at the university) is accused of indecent conduct with some of his students. She knows that he has affairs – it’s not a secret between them, she has her own too, but she’s thrown into confusion about these allegations.

The second thing is the arrival on campus of author and junior professor of literature, Vladimir Vladinski. He and his wife, Cynthia become somewhat friends with her and John. Although what would more accurately describe it is a fixation.

Our narrator fantasises and obsesses about Vladimir. Younger than her (in his early 40s) it causes her to reflect a lot on her older body and eventually take some drastic steps…

Things come to a climax when our narrator and Vladimir take a trip to her family cabin in the woods and this is where the story lost me a bit, to be honest.

I get that it was an exploration of obsession, power and gender roles but it just felt forced and random to me. Controversial statements or moments seemed to be added in to give an edge to the story but didn’t quite have enough dimension to feel right?

As our lead characters are literary professors, there’s lots of exploring of story structure and themes which I liked. But in terms of the story, I found events in the cabin mad and then the ending twee compared to what came before it; it just didn’t balance for me. Saying that, I did keep reading as I wanted to see the conclusion and then ponder on it.