These Violent Delights

Books | Fiction / Psychological

3.9

(383)

Micah Nemerever

A Literary Hub Best Book of Year • A Crime Reads Best Debut of the Year • A Newsweek 25 Best Fall Books • A Philadelphia Inquirer 10 Big Books for the Fall • An O Magazine.com LGBTQ Books That Are Changing the Literary Landscape • An Electric Lit Most Anticipated Debut • A Paperback Paris Best New LGBTQ+ Books To Read This Year Selection • A Passport Best Book of the MonthThe Secret History meets Lie with Me in Micah Nemerever's compulsively readable debut novel—a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm.Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal—an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship, because with Julian life is more invigorating than Paul could ever have imagined. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel, and Paul becomes increasingly afraid that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him.As their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go in order to stay together, their obsession ultimately hurtling them toward an act of irrevocable violence.Unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is an exquisitely plotted excavation of the depths of human desire and the darkness it can bring forth in us.

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Author

Micah Nemerever

Pages

480

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

2020-09-15

ISBN

0062963651 9780062963659

Community ReviewsSee all

"I might come back to it, but DNF. I found the narrator both unlikable and unreliable. I got through more than half of this book and realized that nothing has really happened."

Emily Calleja

"it was slow for a while. but once it picked up i literally could not put it down. it’s nice to see lgbt relationships depict toxic scenarios, because most books treat lgbt romances like perfect happy-ending stories, but they’re just the same as straight relationships. representation matters in all situations. "

ellie :)

"I was invested in the relationship between the two main characters in the first half. But I felt like the story was being weighed down by only being in one perspective. Lots of things in the book just happen but don't have the impact that they should. Also, I felt like the book was too long. In the later half of the book, it got repetitive and boring. I guess dark academia isn't for me, because a lot of problems that I had with this book are (at least from what people have said) common."

Beanie Bean

"This would be super interesting if it was fantasy… imagine this but wizards… would be super fun to read a toxic mlm romance with dark wizards"

Juliette Silveira

"You will NOT regret reading this! "

Desiree Erzar

"Changed my mind!!! The Mortal Instruments is my absolute favorite series. 👏🏻"

Jesse Nuzzi

"Great psychological thriller, amazing love story"

Ava Coffel

"I don't think you understand. I'm obsessed. But the tone in the latter half of the book is way better than the former. Paul is kind of insufferable and the two characters read into one another's motives to the degree that it annoyed me as a reader. But they had me hooked in the last half. Sequel? Sequel?"

tinyhouse bigreads

"A book that seats you so uncomfortably close to the narrator that you can’t put it down. Perfect for people in search of more explicitly queer thrillers/dark academia. One step gayer than If We Were Villains and one step darker, too. I loved it. "

C M

Carlee M

"3.75 A solid 3 until the end, which bumped it up. Very slow, very character-driven and very beautifully-written, but downright confusing a lot of the time. Very pretentious, but like in a fun way. Nobody actually TALKS the way the characters do, but hey, there’s an atmosphere to the story and it fits."