Vladimir: 'Favourite Book of the Year' Vogue

Having read a few excerpts from the fiction of Bret Easton Ellis, and viewing several YouTube book dicussions, this novel's name kept cropping up. Each time I heard it, I couldn't get the name of somebody rather contentious out of my head. When Amazon offered the eBook on a deal, I decided to go for it. I romped through the first half, fascinated by the life of a US PhD tutor in English, two novels under her belt, and still interacting with her lit students. At least one reviewer preferred this novel over BEE's Shards (which I have yet to read). There was also a warning that the contents are controversial. I like my fiction edgy, yet am aware that writers have to be so careful these days, so with writing, it's kind of like walking on a highwire, trying to get the balance right without ruining the whole show.I almost awarded the book five stars, it just missed the full marks because I detected some padding in the middle with the recipes and wine guzzling. Moving the feast aside, I did so want to know what the protagonist was going to do with you-know-who, and what the outcome would be. I didn't really care too much about the husband, and by the second half of the book, I just wished he would leave the room and never come back.

The opening scene -with Vladimir bound and restrained by the protagonist was exciting, well written and intriguing. Unfortunately, the story ran out of steam along the way, with repeated and excessive descriptions of, well, anything really, a lot of extraneous detail and mixed messages.The core setting and premise were excellent. The setting - a New England college campus awash with cultural politics - and the premise - a professor in her late 50s, mourning her youth while trying to reconcile her diminishing sexual appeal with her rampant sexual appetite (evidenced by the fact she masturbates a lot). It is this conundrum that stokes her desire for Vladimir, a handsome young colleague whom she lusts after to the point of obsession. I won't bore you with all the details, but eventually she sort of kidnaps and drugs him, chaining him to a chair and then going to bed on her own. The plot - in as much as there is one - becomes faintly ridiculous here. She wants him, she doesn't want him, she wants him......etc It's difficult to write more without spoilers, but suffice to say, unlike their eventual coupling, the denouement was not at all satisfying.At this point campus cultural politics rears its head again. Basically, the professor's husband is being forced to resign because of historic affairs with students. His wife's view is that since everything was consensual there is no case to answer (they had an open marriage and she had her affairs too). I liked her internal monologue about how, in the MeToo era, women are encouraged to recast their experiences through the lens of victimhood. She makes a clear distinction between, on the one hand, coercion, sexual abuse and rape, and on the other, relationships freely entered into and enjoyed. In this regard she feels her husband is being treated very unfairly - tried for previous crimes within the current fevered milieu - and that she, by association, is tainted. Indeed, her female students gang up on her, demanding to know why she isn't divorcing him. It makes her seem weak, they claim. Privately it is them who are weak, she believes, for failing to understand how the world works, how relationships work, and for seeing sex between unequal partners as inherently and inevitably abusive. Being of a different generation, she has a much more straightforward view, namely, men are drawn to beautiful women and women are drawn to powerful men. I felt the author made this case well, so when, at the very end of the book, it was upended and the professor is forced to see that her husband was a predator after all (at least I think that was the message - it was all a bit confusing by that point) it jarred somewhat. As did the glaring double standard. The older, higher status female professor was not called to account in any way (again, a bit confusing, but I think that's right) for the kidnapping, chaining, drugging and sex with her younger colleague. Is that message that women can do what they want but men better watch out? I was confused.In summary, this is a complicated book - a bit of a curates egg. Interesting and boring, insightful and cliched, clear and confusing. For that reason it would make a good book club choice as there is much to discuss.

Views on the “me too” movement are very polarised. This novel is an intelligent take on the issue which doesn’t cop out by taking a middle way but looks at the issue from a number of potentially valid perspectives. It’s also about ageing, narcissism and managing the final embers of a successful career. It also bizarrely lurches into psychological thriller territory. It’s a very enjoyable read and incredibly thought provoking.

I enjoyed the premise of this novel and bought into it for about 75%. I felt the novel needed better editing - the text was verbose. And then the final chapters, each no more than a paragraph in length flew by, as though the author was just trying to get to the end

The unnamed protagonist is deeply flawed but she is sharp and opinionated and darkly comical. This book has lots to say about being a woman and raises questions about feminine sexual agency. There were sections that were so profound that I had to go back and read them again. The prose is seamless. The narrator assumes a certain intelligence in the reader which, somehow, carries you into the narrative and makes you complicit.

I really loved this fever dream of a book until I got to the aftermath of the climax. What a shame! The author was able to get me so invested in everything that was happening - I was on the edge of my seat - only to finish with such a letdown of an ending. I don't want to spoil anything for you if you want to read it anyway, so i'll just say, once you've gone past the climax, don't bother reading on.

My partner & I both loved this book. The sentences are beautiful and thoughtful. The characters are interesting and unpredictable. Highly recommend!

I had high hopes for this given all the praise, but I struggled to like anyone in it which is essential for me as a reader. This is just my own view and I know others feel differently so it may be for you.There's a bonkers moment in it that literally made me go wtf, and then the ending felt like it was written in 10 mins. I also struggled to see the appeal of the title character who sounds just as vain and conceited as the rest of the sh*ggers in the plot. Even the adult daughter can't keep it together.It's a hard pass from me.