A thoughtful and composed novel about the grey areas of consent. Obviously drawing from Lolita as the title suggests, the narrator - a fifty-something college professor embroiled in her husband’s campus sex scandal - is neither victim nor villain. The questions around campus life and consent might be the things that define the novel to the era but far more compelling are her musings on what it takes to be a writer; how we define success in the arts; what it is to desire and be desired in middle age. The twist in the book was wholly unexpected and stopped this being a simplistic narrative of the wronged woman again. Ultimately this is a book about how any desire, literary, sexual or anything, cannot be neatly contained within society’s parameters. It’s a great book for anyone who wants to read about a self-assured but realistic older woman narrative.

eARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

What a dark, delicious novel. It made me think about so many things; the secrets we keep, the agency we have as women, and how we're more morally grey than we really give ourselves credit for. I really enjoyed the rich, complex, slightly problematic inner life of the narrator, a 58-year-old college professor dragged through her husband's #MeToo public crisis, all whilst exploring her budding desire for a younger literary colleague (the eponymous Vladimir).

It would be too easy to say the narrator is a "woman in crisis", in fact, the most interesting part of the book is how accepting she is about her husband's transgressions. She is simultaneously incredibly in control (in the way she plans, plots, analyses and schemes), and completely out of it (her burning desire for Vladimir). Vladimir is also married to a young ingénue, Cynthia, and they have a young child in tow. Cynthia acts as a fascinating foil to the narrator I really enjoyed too, in a way that is simultaneously competitive and lustful.

Just when I thought the plot was going to go... well... in a 'car crash you can't help but keep watching' way, it pulls it back to a more subtle, thoughtful ending. A page-turner in every respect.