I am currently developing a section of the school library that will present a diverse and eclectic range of contemporary crime and thriller novels. This genre has been so popular in terms of what is being borrowed, but I feel like the young people are sticking to 'what they know' in terms of titles or writers that they've already heard of or have seen their parents reading. My mission is to include more novels like this one and improve the range and diversity of fiction that they can choose from in order to expand their reading horizons. I absolutely loved this book. It kept me gripped from the very first page and without giving away any spoilers, was a dark, intense and satisfying journey. I think that the young people will love its distinctive voice as well as be gripped by the story and intrigued to follow it to its tense conclusion. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for intelligent, credible writing with a strong hook that won't let you go. Treat yourself to These Violent Delights!

This is such an important story to be told. Most fiction that deals with these themes, ends in an unrealistic happy ending where everyone gets what they deserve. This is not one of those. It shows the reality of everyone involved and the aftermath of trying to make things right.

This novel is important and so relevant with everything going on with #metoo. It focuses on caught a number of women who were abused as teenagers by the same man. The story felt extremely realistic, the book itself was addictive and full of information. I enjoyed reading this!

This was an incredibly moving read, made only more prevalent due to today's "Me too" movement. The topics brought to light in the novel (sexual abuse, depression, victim-blaming, mental illness) are so important to discuss; they are taboo because we have been taught in our society to keep our emotional struggles internalized. The author thoroughly did her research, and I hope that novels like this can help push these topics into the spotlight so we can work to prevent them in the future.

On a completely different note, I've been reading too many thrillers lately because I kept expecting Ben to turn into some sadistic killer. Luckily, he didn't - that would have taken away from the message of the novel - but his dialogue made me cringe.

I lost interest in this novel as I`ve read many negative reviews. I`m sorry.

Good book, although almost too clinical in many of the passages.

The Windemere School for Girls finds itself at the center of controversy following the publication of an explosive piece accusing a popular teacher, Dr. Gregory Copeland, of inappropriate behavior with a student. The former student, Caryn Rodgers, claims Windemere neglected to take appropriate action, effectively enabling Copeland to abuse other students; something Windemere denies. With the help of reporter Jane March, the investigation into Copeland and the school's actions turns up more accusers, each one determined to have the truth come out, at last, about their former teacher.

We hear stories about such things on the news all the time, but—as Namkung points out in her statement at the end of the book—it's estimated that at least 80% of child sexual abuse cases are never reported to the authorities, and 90% of these crimes are committed by someone the child knows and trusts. That's a horrifying statistic, and These Violent Delights drives home that point in this fictional tale of three former students who were abused by a trusted, respected teacher.

This book isn't always easy to read, and not just because of the focus on what the former students went through. It was almost worse, sometimes, seeing how Jane's male colleagues immediately doubted Caryn's story—'Why did she wait so long to report it?' 'Maybe she's just looking for attention.' 'An accusation like this can ruin someone's life.'—it was infuriating to read. It's exactly the sort of thing that happens to accusers in real life, though, unfortunately.

The ending came with a revelation that left me shocked and more than a little disturbed. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it, to be honest., but I'm betting it's something I'll never forget.

These Violent Delights is a very good book; its subject matter is distressing, but it's meant to be. While this won't be a book everyone feels comfortable reading, I feel it makes an important statement about the very real problem we have of teachers who prey on their students, and the lack of a federal registry listing teachers who have been fired and/or disciplined for sexual misconduct with a student, which I was completely unaware of before reading this book. I don't anyone can read this book without feeling outraged that we, as a nation, haven't taken steps to better protect our children from sexual predators in schools. (Yes, this is a novel, but a great deal of truth is often found in fiction. Such is the case here.)

I definitely recommend this book, and I'll be eagerly waiting for Namkung's next book!

I could not get into this book. It just didnt do anything for me. It was very slow.Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review

Thanks to GM & NetGalley for the ARC. I was hooked from the beginning this was such a well written book sadly based on true everyday events. The story was well told and characters were fully developed, and I came to know and love the characters. Beautiful cover as well. I would definitely recommend this book to my reading friends and family.

Super timely story and written in an engaging and suspenseful way.

At first, I was drawn to this book by the cover. It is beautiful! The story was powerful and almost seemed real at times. Namkung writes so well and the message she created will stay with me for a long time!

Didn't finish this one as it was extremely dull. It was 90% dialogue. The characters were just there to tell the story (no personality whatsoever). You were thrown into the story from page one which didn't help at all.
Even when the characters were talking about rape culture, it seemed like the author took some bits from popular books on the topic & put them into the dialogues. Ugh, the writing was not good at all.
It's a shame because I was really hoping to find a new favorite.

I finished a book in a day!!! These Violent Delights by Victoria N was a good, suspenseful, crime thriller.

NetGalley gave me permission to read this so it’s thanks to them that I was able to. It is already available to buy.

I read it in one day, for the Contemporary-a-thon, as the read a dark/taboo contemporary challenge because it’s a story about sexual assault. It certainly had me on the edge of my seat. Also, this is going towards my Popsugar 2018 Reading Challenge as my mental health book choice.

I thought the author did a good job at capturing what it’s like to go through abuse. Everybody suffers differently. We got 4 completely different perspectives all working to bring down one man, here.

These Violent Delights does have student teacher relationships as well as elements of sexual assault so I don’t recommend this for anyone Below age 18.

Spoilers Below...

It’s about mental health in that we follow 4 girls who experience sexual assault at the hands of one perpetrator. We see their mental health go up and down, with the victories and losses of the novel.

The four women we follow are: Jane, Caryn, Eva and Sasha. Three of them went to Windemere, Girls School. Caryn, Eva and Saha are the three characters that were abused by Dr Copeland both mentally and physically.

Caryn works as a journalist at a paper, along with Jane. She believes it’s time that the truth about Dr Copeland’s crimes came out. He abused her most recently. Jane supports this.

“Will the police get involved? Will Dr Copeland finally be fired? Will Windemere down play what they already know? Will I get slut shamed by random internet commenters who hate women and themselves so much that they have to take it out on me? Probably and then some”

describes just how Caryn feels about the article being published. She’s worried and scared, as I think anyone in real life would be. She’s going to do it, though because she feels it’s right that what Dr Copeland has done comes out.

From here, the characters go on a journey to get Dr Copeland taken out of his role as a teacher and put him in jail. Each woman experiences things differently. For example, Caryn is the least affected of the women I’d say, because Dr Copeland didn’t go as far with her, perhaps. Eva is mentally affected in that she has twin daughters and a husband. She wants to protect her twins so what happened to her doesn’t happen to them.

“They’ll always have each other to talk to, even if they don’t want to talk to us about something. I don’t think they would hide such a huge thing from one another”

is what Jesse, Eva’s husband says about their daughters.

Lastly, Sasha is the most affected in my opinion because of the last event of the book. She writes a letter to Dr Copeland, where she explains how traumatised she was by the events that happened to her at his hand.

What did I like about These Violent Delights?

I liked how the book didn’t shy away from being realistic. There were some serious/traumatic moments but it wouldn’t have been right to edit them out, I don’t think.

I liked how each woman stood up for herself and others. They all worked together to get Dr Copeland sent down.

I liked how the novel focused on the women. It didn’t stray to other characters. It was centred on those 4 women, throughout.

I liked how there was a secondary romance plot. It seemed to lift the story, a little. I appreciated not just having the doom and gloom of the assault case, although that was the book’s main focus, obviously.

What didn’t I like about These Violent Delights?

I didn’t like the ending. It might have been realistic but it seemed rather morbid.

I didn’t like how we never saw from Dr Copeland’s perspective. I think it would have been interesting to see what he was thinking as he mentally “abused” the girls.

I’m giving The Violent Delights 3 Stars because it doesn’t feel right giving a book about abuse 4/5 Stars and the ending wasn’t what I wanted.

“The fact that we worry more about the damage to a potential abuser’s or rapist’s reputation than we do about a child or teenage victim has dire consequences for all of us and our society.“

As someone who has suffered at the hands of a serial sexual abuser, this novel spoke to me on so many levels. It made me feel things I have not felt in years. Fears became real again and thoughts of what could I have done differently? So needless to say, there are triggers here for anyone who has encountered such things.

I believe the author perfectly described the viewpoints of victims and the effects of the world around them with their unwarranted opinions of your sexual abuse. I do not think you will find a novel out there that you will be able to relate to as much as this one.

It is a real, modern day story set it LA with fully relatable characters. It is fiction but for so many women it is real life. If you yourself have never been a victim of sexual abuse I believe it is an eye opener and would be a beneficial read to all.

3.5 stars. This books’ message is extremely important especially in today’s society where adults (and teens themselves) can hypersexualize young adults. This book was well-researched and thorough. It feels strange saying this, but in terms of a novel, it didn’t feel like there was any rising action. Ben’s storyline also felt like a useless plot device and his dialogue was stale and cheesy. Overall, an important read.

This slightly uneven read is still a page turning adventure. It's hard to say if I liked it but it was very interesting all the same.

This book started in such a promising way. The content is highly relevant to many historical sex abuse stories that can be found amongst our headlines today. In this sense it was a real though provoking read. But the way in which the story was executed was really disappointing for me. The characters didn't have enough depth to become appealing and with the story being told from several characters, there wasn't an emotional attachment to any of them for me. A lot of the script was told using newspaper articles and letters and these were quite dry and often repeated themselves.
That said, there were some really important points raised about how female victims of these crimes are treated by the public, on social media and how very difficult it is to deal with these issues, however far in the past they may be. Overall it was well researched and I am sure, true to many real life events of a similar nature.

I really wanted to like this book– and for the most part, I did. With the potential to be a barnstorming novel discussing everything from the obstruction of justice to outright abuse, These Violent Delights definitely packs a punch from the first page.

Fabulous book. Thoroughly loved. Highly recommend!