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mathildemroy's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Physical abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Vomit, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, and Emotional abuse
sofipitch's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I'm going to have to agree with most other reviews in saying idk what to actually say about this book other than it being good. The prose is superb, it's an extremely character driven story. It does unreliable narration so well. It just drilled into a lot of things I like in books. Only downside would be that it is slow in places.
Edit 6 months later: Just watched the movie Kill Your Darlings (2013) and the way the two mains speak to each other is so much like those in this book I'd put money on it being a source of inspo
Edit 6 months later: Just watched the movie Kill Your Darlings (2013) and the way the two mains speak to each other is so much like those in this book I'd put money on it being a source of inspo
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Murder, Violence, and Death of parent
shegoteverythin's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.” Haven't stopped thinking about this book for weeks now. The absolute tragedies that are Paul Fleischer and Julian Fromme. I loved the writing in this and especially the depiction of Paul's progression as a character and how he as an unreliable narrator perceived Julian and their relationship.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide, Death, and Gaslighting
Minor: Sexual assault
lia5trawberry's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide and Death of parent
niteskyi's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Homophobia, Murder, Violence, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent
Minor: Sexual violence
miss_riley_mae's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
We aren’t talking about this book enough.
This book followed the formula of dark academia that I love. Lonely kids, too intelligent for their own good. And intelligent to the point of destruction. I found these characters and their relationship deeply fascinating. I couldn’t tell if they hated to love each other or vice versa. Yet they cling to each other with an unprecedented fierceness. And that fierceness reached past their relationship and destroyed lives around them.
The prose in this was beautiful and reinforced the difficult and unpredictable relationship between Julian and Paul. The story kept me engrossed. Even though the plot was predictable, it worked. It kept me engrossed the entire time.
This book followed the formula of dark academia that I love. Lonely kids, too intelligent for their own good. And intelligent to the point of destruction. I found these characters and their relationship deeply fascinating. I couldn’t tell if they hated to love each other or vice versa. Yet they cling to each other with an unprecedented fierceness. And that fierceness reached past their relationship and destroyed lives around them.
The prose in this was beautiful and reinforced the difficult and unpredictable relationship between Julian and Paul. The story kept me engrossed. Even though the plot was predictable, it worked. It kept me engrossed the entire time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent
saborders's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide, and Death of parent
wardenred's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Part of Paul would have been disappointed, even a little repelled, if Julian ever said outright that he loved him. It was more natural for Julian to be loved than to love. If Julian were to love him, it would feel like something he deigned to do. It meant more to be needed.
Books like this tend to be my guilty pleasure: stories about bad people doing bad things for bad reasons, about toxic relationships presented exactly as such. I don't know what it is exactly what drawns me to such stories. Perhaps it's the safe way to explore the darkness. Perhaps it's the same thing that makes it hard for some people to avert their eyes from bloody accidents.
Anyway, I was incredibly excited for this book because it promised from the start to be exactly that thing I'm after. And for a while, it had me hooked quite a bit. The prologue was intriguing. So were the budding stages of Paul and Julian's codependency. But the longer I read, the less immersion I'm sorry to say I felt. Paul and Julian both were just too pretentious and not complex enough for me; there was that illusion of complexity, but mostly, they were just made of flaws with no redeeming qualities. Like I said, I do sometimes love reading about awful characters with too many flaws, but what usually makes the experience meaningful to me is seeing glimpses of some could-have-beens here and there: moments that show me that the character could have been a better person if they didn't take this or that turn. Moments where I get to believe that maybe they can make a different, better choice, that show me they're capable of it, but still they choose to turn to the dark side. Moments that show me that they're human and hurting. This book... wasn't exactly empty of those moments, but whenever they happened, they fell flat for me.
I did appreciate a lot of things about this novel. The dark academia aesthetic, the way the tension was executed in some later parts, the depiction of both boys' families. The way it was Paul who turned out to be a bigger monster and not Julian, whereas usually it's the "new pretentious friend" in such book who turns out to be the worse bad guy, corrupting the "plain boy drifting through life." There were some really poignant depictions of anger and grief and the way they co-exist and feed on each other. There were plenty of clever turns of phrase. I suppose it's the characters' personalities mainly that didn't work for me, and unfortunately, that aspect, subjective as it may be, is what tends to make or break a book for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder
alienor's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
4.25
"It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly."
This novel is one of desperation and cruelty, of a slow but unwavering descent into darkness and it's going to haunt me for a very long time. It's both everything I love in dark academia and why it always takes me months before diving into another one again. It's a story of obsession, violence, self-doubt and grief, a character study first and foremost that doesn't try to be obscure with fake deep convos like so many dark academia wannabes - *cough* the atlas six *cough*. This genre might never fully escape its veneer of pretension, but there's a difference between intellect being one of the characters' facets, and sentences so obviously constructed to be quoted on social media but whose actual meaning is fleeting at best. These Violent Delights belongs to the former, and is a very well-written debut. Paul and Julian's story will stay with me, and isn't it what matters most in the end?
This novel is one of desperation and cruelty, of a slow but unwavering descent into darkness and it's going to haunt me for a very long time. It's both everything I love in dark academia and why it always takes me months before diving into another one again. It's a story of obsession, violence, self-doubt and grief, a character study first and foremost that doesn't try to be obscure with fake deep convos like so many dark academia wannabes - *cough* the atlas six *cough*. This genre might never fully escape its veneer of pretension, but there's a difference between intellect being one of the characters' facets, and sentences so obviously constructed to be quoted on social media but whose actual meaning is fleeting at best. These Violent Delights belongs to the former, and is a very well-written debut. Paul and Julian's story will stay with me, and isn't it what matters most in the end?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Murder, Suicide, Death of parent, and Violence
sophiejts's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent, Homophobia, and Suicide