This is a sure fire hit for those enjoy a character study on an interesting a well rounded characters, with depths and nuances navigating a situation that has been highly publicised of late but from a completely fresh and new perspective.
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I enjoyed the study of gender here too which turned the tables on a story told so frequently and made it fresh and interesting and just new. Highly highly recommend.
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Thank you to Netgalley & Pan MacMillan for the ARC!

A subversive, provocative character study, easily one of the best books I’ll read this year.

The unnamed narrator is a 58-year-old English literature professor at a small, respected college, evaluating her life and career in the face of allegations of historic sexual misconduct made against her husband, who also happens to be the head of the department. Yet the fallout from the allegations takes a back seat, at least for a while, as she obsesses about Vladimir, ‘hot right now’ debut novelist and a new addition to the teaching staff.

Obsession is one of the key themes: with her ageing, undesirable body and youth and beauty she sees everywhere around her, with her own literary output and the urge to write again after decades on hiatus. She is very much a complex, morally ambiguous character. She doesn’t condemn her husband’s affairs with students – they had an open marriage and I found Jonas’s exploration of power dynamics in relationships particularly good. Aside from the obvious nod to Nabokov, Jonas gives us a lot to think about, not least the multitude of feminist viewpoints across different generations of women. I also loved her take on current trends in literary fiction. The writing is very sharp, incisive, I basically loved it all apart from the ending which felt slightly off.

Vladimir is a really impressive debut novel, Jonas certainly an author to watch. 4 and a half stars – highly recommended.

My thanks to Pan Macmillan, Picador and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Vladimir.

Wow, what an unexpected delight this was.
Going in to this I had seen a couple of reviews from people I trust, who absolutely hated this book. Some said they felt that the main protagonist is a rape apologist who doesn't have any issues with her husbands behaviour. I did not feel that at all.
I felt that she was a smart, if insecure, character who at times I found amusing.
This is a bold, provocative character study. If you don't like that sort of thing this isn't the book for you, as there are no thrills or suspense, just a story played out in front of you.
I found the story to be engaging and it really pulled me in and I found myself thinking about it when I wasn't reading it.
I did find the ending seemed rushed and a bit sudden, as if the author had used up everything she wanted to say in the build up and had just given up.
If you are looking for literary fiction about obsession that is bold and provocative, this is the one for you.
I would be interested in seeing what this author writes next

This is the type of book that lingers in one’s head after reading it for a long time, it’s of a dark nature really and the characters, well what can I say I didn’t really like any of them but it kinda made the story make more sense but a very good read I have to say x

"There's something exhausting about being constantly bombarded by everyone's best efforts."

I had to sit on this review for days and I still don't know what to say.

This book is... Disturbing. There is no other way to put it. It's dark, twisted and uncomfortable, and I absolutely hated every single character in the story. Which is the reason why I liked the book in the end.

The unnamed narrator is an English professor, having to deal with the scandal of her older husband being accused of sleeping with his students.
Thing is, she doesn't seem very put off but that. On the contrary, the two have an open relationship, she is well aware of her husband's antics, and after all he slept with students only before the college deemed it illegal. So. She can focus all her attention (*cough* obsession) over Vladimir Vladinsky, the new young and hot teacher in town.
Things escalate quickly and between kidnappings, Stephen King's moments in Misery fashion, disasters and really interesting points of discussion around abuse and power and so on, you find yourself closing the book completely flabbergasted.

I'm sure my review does not make any sense, either. And at this point I'm starting to think this is exactly what was supposed to happen.
I'd say, if you want to push your boundaries and see how you come out on the other side, give this book a read.

Loved this. V Nabokov-esque (I mean ... there's no way Vladimir isn't intentional right? A bit heavy handed, no?) in the best way. A gripping tale from start to finish where you never really know our protagonists next move. I love the unhinged women trope and this is a great example of it.

Vladimir By Julia MayJonas

I'm still processing what I've just read.
This book starts of slow paced and is mostly character driven. None of the characters are particularly likeable.

I can see how this will be one of those books that will be used for English Literature Studies.

But for me I just didn't enjoy it!

I felt the first 250 pages was just a lot of thoughts by the narrator. She mainly seemed to be insecure about her age, body, sexuality and indenial about the impact her husbands sexual scandal has had on the victims. She feels they should be excited at the prospect of having the sexual power for a man to desire them.

Overall not one I particularly enjoyed but finished to see how it ended.

I've already seen many reviews on this one and most seem to have enjoyed it! So please see reviews of others to get their insight of this book too!

An interesting dive into desire and power. Well written for the most part. I found it disappointing that the desires/fantasies of the narrator were never played out. Overall a nice easy read.

This was weird and just plain annoying.
The main character was unlikeable for many reasons. But to name a couple of things. She constantly mentioned her age, I'm sick of hearing about it. I get she is insecure about it but every five seconds seems a bit much.
The way she brushed off her husband abusing his power to get students to sleep with him just disgusted me.
She had a weird thing for talking about dicks. Which was just unnecessary to me.
The fact she basically kidnapped and drugged a man because she wanted sex while knowing he didn't want that. She deserves locking up with her husband for their behaviour.


Outside of my issues with her the book itself just dragged.

I really enjoyed Vladimir. I have no experience of academia or small-town upstate New York but it all rings true. I really liked the tone; it manages to address some really thorny topics – campus politics, gender roles, consent – but it’s funny too. Julia May Jonas has created such full characters that I really became invested in them. Our main protagonist is unnamed but she’s interesting and complex with a working, family and inner life – and prepared to laugh at herself: after spending time choosing what to wear in order to project an air of casual vitality, she’s so ‘enraged at my vapidity, I forced myself to sit down and read several articles in the latest issue of the NYRB.’
I absolutely did not anticipate what might happen as the end of the story approached (I missed the pointer in the prologue). I won’t say any more for fear of spoiling it for you. A vaguely reasonable plan turns into a life-changing set of events. It’s always a good sign when I swear out loud at what a character in a book is doing. I was happily reading a novel of relationships and ageing and wasn’t looking for major plot development or big events but boy I got them in spades.

What an intense read! Really interesting debate it opens regarding the political context of sexuality and feminism, all with an intense and and complex cast of characters.

This was such an intense read but in the best way. It was well written with a intiricate and complex plot and a multilayered characters. It was such an interesting storyline and was full of such vivid descriptions that at times I felt like the narrator was talking solely to me relaying their story and at other times like I could just jump into the pages and live the storyline along side them.
claustrophobic, intense and amazing.

When I saw that an upcoming book had the title Vladimir​ and that the blurb on the back was 'When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me,' I was hooked. I was sure it would give me the Nabokov-esque experience I've wanted desperately to relive since I first read Lolita in 2020. I was both weary and ecstatic when I was approved for the eArc on NetGalley. After all, I have yet to read a book with this type of subject matter that lives up to the critique that Lolita accomplished. And maybe it's the title of the book, but I was absolutely certain that this book would deal a lot more with age difference and power imbalanced relationships. What I got was wholly different from what I expected and, surprisingly to me, I kind of loved it? I've spent the last 12 hours since I finished the book trying to gather my thoughts about what it is about this story that works and what doesn't. Now, don't get me wrong - this book is absolutely about inappropriate relationships, but it is much more about a woman figuring out how to deal with her husband's affairs with younger women. It was an incredibly - I think - nuanced book on a terribly complex topic. More than anything, I was blown away at the journey the protagonist went through and how much I desperately wanted to know what would come next. Jonas managed to write an engaging story with a cast of extremely unlikable characters that still somehow got some of my sympathy. As a person who primarily connects with characters in literature, and someone who seeks out character-driven arcs it is with the highest compliment that I say that Jonas' characters is what kept me reading. A stunning debut from an author I cannot wait to read more from. I'm excited to tell you all that Vladimir gets its UK release on the 26th of May 2022.

This debut novel is told by an exceptionally complex narrator, and reading the book really feels like living inside someone’s head - quite an intense experience. The unnamed narrator is married to an English professor in a small USA college who has been accused of misconduct with several students in the past. The narrator, also a professor, then develops an intense crush on a new colleague whilst at the same time hugely intrigued by his wife. This is a really interesting and involving read - highly recommended.

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Jonas' writing is superb - a gripping, interesting character study of a professor whose husband (also a professor) has been accused of taking advantage of and sleeping with his students. What makes this story different to others with a similar storyline is that the professor knows about her husbands affairs - and while not actively encouraging affairs with students, she did at least encourage him to look outside the marriage so that she could do the same.
The other storyline weaved in amongst the result of the affairs is the unnamed narrator's obsession with the titular Vladimir. I wasn't completely convinced of this obsession, and I would have preferred this story to veer in the darker direction that was suggested. I felt the ending was a bit of a let down.
Overall, gripping and readable, but it was let down by the ending.

A fascinating and well-written skewering of academia, sexual politics, and white liberalism - I could have easily read a book double this length from Jonas. One to watch!

In “Vladimir” we meet our narrator, a middle-aged English professor, as her husband (and colleague) is under investigation for inappropriate relationships with students at their college. As she struggles with her relationship with her husband, her students, her daughter, and her self-confidence, she becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir – the newly hired professor in her English department.

What follows is an account of her interactions with these characters, none of whom are very likeable. Their actions were fairly inconsistent and the relationships between the characters all seemed rather shallow. While I can see while others would enjoy this, it didn’t quite ring true for me.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Many of us, in any case, know by now that the narrative is filtered though the labyrinthine mind-ride of a 58-year old, eccentric English Literature professor. Whose husband John (she, conversely, remains unnamed – by choice, it seems, as the author herself claims), also professor and chair at the same American college, is accused of being a ‘lecherous pervert’, having acted upon his desire to engage in sexual relations with his students.

That would seem to be the plot of the narration, were it not for the fact that the narrator demands to impose her voice at every turn-of-the-page: more often than not, this highly troubling circumstance – which at the surface does not bother her, not really and truly, but it affects her own position within the department – is cast into oblivion. This is where Vladimir comes in: an obsession – made palpable, exhilarating, yet self-draining all in one (so much exciting Nabokov in this!) – for this forty-year old newly appointed lecturer slash experimental novelist, whose comparative youth and comparative prudishness seem to be the antidote for her inly harboured despair.

There is much to absolutely love about this novel: the wry, irreverent, and self-ironising tone, the complex treatment of (self-)awareness and (self-)righteousness that arises from a sharp, clear-eyed deconstruction of lust, power, sexual politics, and academia. But most of all, I would say, it is the levels of vulnerability the novel allows for, through the absence-presence of Vladimir, and through the narrator’s erratic, immersive, contradictory narration. Its consideration of moral questions, in this respect, result prismatic and non-conclusive, rather than simplistic. This is no cautionary tale, as some are wanting to suggest, but rather a messy – because it cannot be otherwise – immersion into the intricacies of human desire and the ache of the self to be someone, in an ever-annihilating world.

Vladimir, it cannot be denied, is heavily engaged with the political context of the (post-)sexual revolution, and frames the hot debate around the various waves of feminism accordingly. The following is the narrator’s main tirade, that points to a deep desire for the female to be what she needs to be:

Now, however, young women have apparently lost all agency in romantic entanglements. Now my husband was abusing his power, never mind that power is the reason they desired him in the first place. Whatever the current state of my marriage may be, I still can’t think about it all without my blood boiling. My anger is not so much directed toward the accusations as it is toward the lack of self-regard these women have—the lack of their own confidence. I wish they could see themselves not as little leaves swirled around by the wind of a world that does not belong to them, but as powerful, sexual women interested in engaging in a little bit of danger, a little bit of taboo, a little bit of fun. With the general, highly objectionable move toward a populist insistence of morality in art, I find this post hoc prudery offensive, as a fellow female. I am depressed that they feel so guilty about their encounters with my husband that they have decided he was taking advantage of them. I want to throw them all a Slut Walk and let them know that when they’re sad, it’s probably not because of the sex they had, and more because they spend too much time on the internet, wondering what people think of them.

(let’s take a moment to admit that it is indeed funny, too.)

However (and wanting to move on to more serious matters), this bold and brutal viewpoint is immeasurably nuanced throughout the narrative. The vision certainly persists, but at its highest level, it carries out the true purpose of its project: questioning and overturning assumptions, thus submitting itself, too, to scrutiny.

Brilliant self-reflexivity on Jonas’s part here, assisted to be sure by her expertise in the theatrical, which is here reinvented in intelligent means and ways. It is all-too-clear to me that Jonas spent much time with her musings on writing. No coincidence in having all characters be failed, aspiring, experimental, or bestselling writers themselves. I personally found this very striking, and it does marvellously tally with the character-formation of academics who work in the humanities whilst dabbling in writing themselves, and trying to also survive in the process. There is this profound, ‘orgasmic’ yearning for writing to happen, that extends the theme of obsession epitomised by Vladimir. Between the slippery quality of insight, and the chaotic magma that their life is made of, writing is what these characters turn to. Writing itself, possibly, constituting that transitional space in which they are able to unpack the conditionings of the world they inhabit as well as their own self-fabricated illusions, such that their own individuality can be allowed to occupy centre stage.

Bearing all this in mind, I found that the end evocation of the Jane Eyre ending did not quite work for a knowing novel that is far more complex and layered than I could here begin to convey. There must have been some conflicts of interest, in any case: the cover, for one thing, is absolutely detestable and misleading. (I was fortunate enough to be granted access to the beautiful and powerful cover-version that will be published on the 22nd of May.)

That being said, ‘let me go mad in my own’ is all the narrator asks for. And we will leave her to it. Because this is one Top Novel of the year.

A note to Julia May Jonas: we stand here, waiting – fairly impatiently, probably, but please do take all the time you need – to be compelled, captivated, drawn in by your next (when? how? what?) narrative.

4.5 stars.

Thanks go to Net Galley and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this brilliant book. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

Vladimir was a wild ride that had me hooked from page one. Following an older woman's obsession with a new staff member at the college, she works at. Vladimir, like the title suggests, takes full focus for this book. From lustful fantasies and seduction, breakdowns of relationships, and a complex mother and daughter relationship, this book is full of everything you don't want to read about but you can't stop reading.

I really don't know what to say about this book. I'm glad I read it, but I think only because i have very specific interests in female sexuality and in power imbalances in relationships. I really liked the way it was written, and felt I had a good understanding of the characters for the majority of the book. However I felt that the author often spent too long on bits that didn't need that level of contemplation, and too little on parts that needed way more. I do not understand the lead's decision in the cabin, and feel it makes her a dramatically different character than she is otherwise represented. The line towards the end about her being seen as a kink was incredibly interesting and I would have loved to have read more about that. The way the plot wrapped up in the cabin and for Sid was bizarre and felt very unrealistic. I'm going to give this a 3, but I am really unsure about this.
Also for the attention of the publisher - the line 'Bewildered, he told her to go to back to AA' was in my copy, and 'go to back' is incorrect.