These Violent Delights

I'm conflicted about this one. On the one hand, there were a lot of really redeeming qualities about the book and I feel like Nemerever took some big risks with his characters and their emotional vulnerability. That being said, the pacing of the book was a bit off for me and a lot of the decision-making that went on didn't quite click logically with me (although that might have been purposeful). Overall, Nemerever certainly made a VERY scary queer thriller that definitely fit in with my goal to read spooky books in October.

Things I liked: the concept (gay serial killers.... Sign me up!), symbolism/metaphor was really clever— Nemerever did a great job of showing us the importance that metaphors like chess, ethics, butterflies, etc. played to the plot, without being TOO heavy-handed with it— he even alluded to Crime and Punishment, which I thought was cool! Setting was interesting (working class, rural-ish Pittsburgh college campus vibe).

Things I didn't like: pacing (the first half of the book was admittedly quite slow), the tone of These Violent Delights was very pretentious. Like, I get that the main characters are supposed to be “gifted” students and all, but their tone (and the author's narration) felt super patronizing and dry at times. Also, like I mentioned above, I didn't really find that the logic/motivation of the characters really made sense to me. I get that Paul and Julian were both struggling with mental health, but that also doesn't justify some of their more violent decision-making? Perhaps I'm not the best person to speak on these issues, but I found that I couldn't quite grasp the WHY of any of the choices made by the characters.

CW: extreme violence, anxiety/depression, toxic relationships

Lastly, a big thank you to @harperbooks for the gifted copy :D