These Violent Delights

Can obsession and love truly coexist? Does complicity divide or mend a relationship?

When choosing a ‘dark academia’ style novel you should be prepared…your morals are about to be questioned. Powerful literature is a threat to a reader’s innocence. That’s my favorite part.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever consumed my mind and soul completely. I was left with a book hangover and a flood of internal questions. Micah, après toi, le déluge.

The story follows Paul, a sensitive, painfully insecure artist. He meets Julian at university; the attraction and chemistry instantly draw them to each other. Julian is wealthy, charming, and the intellectual equal to Paul. Both share a passionate ideological opposition to the conventional societal norms. The compulsive, intimate, yet violently beautiful bond between Paul and Julian crafts into a magnetic all-consuming relationship. The mere thought of being apart creates agony in their intertwined souls. The pressure of the outside world and their additive devotion to one another is an inevitable war they must fight.

The brilliance this story holds is striking in every aspect. There are fragments of the characters’ minds that I will never fully understand; Though I’ve never felt more understood by the unsettling depth manifested. Nemerever managed to expose cataclysmic thoughts I never dared contemplate, much less allow myself license to legitimize. This story left me in a mental fog; confusing my every thought regarding human desire.

Obsession is a state of agony and somehow at the same time beautiful…its destruction can be monstrous. Like a tsunami the emotions are upon you, leaving you to fight for your survival in the flood.

This novel reminded me how vehemently words can burrow into the mind. Jumping off the page, biting down until you cry mercy and allow the inevitable outcome. The well written book can suffocate or inspire the thoughts of the reader…most commonly both.