Seduction Theory was a fast-paced, twisty-turny character study that somewhat read like a short story. I enjoyed the format and delivery of the novel—the premise that the book was an MFA thesis based off an emotional affair that the narrator had with her supervisor. The story's focus starts off on the more conventional elements of the plot, exploring Simone's husband's affair with his secretary and the first third of the book gives the reader a solid characterization of all the main players. One of the nice touches that foreshadows the narrator's emotional affair/fixation with Simone is how the reader's knowledge of her character is (initially) only informed by the perspective of the other characters before you get any direct interaction with her as an active character. At first, it's used more as a tool for the characters trying to rationalize/justify their infidelity and the reader is left to puzzle out how much of the information is objectively true. But then, once you reach part two of the novel, where Robbie is introduced, the narrative fixation on Simone starts making a lot more sense. 

Personally, I feel like this is a book you read partially for the plot, but partially for the unique writing style: Half of the fun is comparing the different perspectives surrounding the same event, to see where your own sympathies might lie. People who enjoy elements of academia, creative egos, and explorations/ruminations about concepts of marriage, fidelity and monogamy will enjoy this book. 

Honestly, one of the biggest draws of this book was the use of Fragonard's 'The Swing' on the cover: While a Rococo painting depicting the playful salaciousness of French aristocrats doesn't directly describe the contents of the book, the overall 'vibe' matches the novel's tone. Kudos to the designer!

4/5⭐️ 1/5🌶️ 0.5/5😢

I surprisingly really enjoyed this one! Literally every character is a flawed hot mess and I personally couldn’t get enough. I loved how the narrator dug into both what and WHY the main couple did what they did throughout the story (even if we don’t really know what to believe, it was highly entertaining for me).

My one hang up was the POV changes in the first half of the book—I had to reread every paragraph to understand who the speaker was. I’m not sure if I just got used to it or it became clearer as the book continued but it didn’t bother me in the second half.

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭
→ Ivy League setting 🏫
→ academia power dynamics 📚
→ physical & emotional infidelity 💋
→ marriage drama 🎭
→ toxic/obsessive behavior 🙃
→ unique narration/structure 📖

Thank you to Little, Brown & Company and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

An addicting, literary page-turner - this one had me binging it in two days!

Ethan and Simone, two married professors, contend with infidelity in their relationship. The characters are as messy and toxic as they are (somehow still) endearing. This is an excellent example of how you do the unlikeable/unreliable narrator trope flawlessly, by creating depth and eliciting empathy for their raw humanness.

It’s also an excellent portrayal of how our emotions are often conflicting within ourselves. Progressive in its embracing of sexuality, without being overt or excessive.

At times tense and uncomfortable, there’s complex layers that show how no story has one side. Every person involved has their own version of events that we can never truly know, and maybe never fully understand.

The structure of how it’s told adds another layer to this subversive tale of infidelity. Robbie is telling the story as both a bystander and as someone involved in the professors’ complicated lives.

If you have done any post-graduate studies, you’ll find both the setting and the dissertation aspects nostalgic, as I did. I really enjoyed this take on academia.

It won’t be for everyone - it’s one of those quirky, voicey, unhinged style of books - but the right audience is going to love it. I highly recommend it!

My Rating: 4.5 ⭐

Thank you so much to the publisher for my copy!

Robbie is an MFA student submitting a thesis containing a loosely fictionalized account of the emotional affair she had with her advisor, Simone. Simone is well known on campus for being beautiful, intelligent, and capturing the attention of all of the graduate students and faculty. Simone's husband, Ethan, has written one book (a fictionalized account of Simone's process grieving her mother), and as her spouse and a writer, he has also been given a teaching position at Edwards University. The summer Simone and Ethan spend apart, Ethan spends coming closer and closer to having an affair with the department administrative assistant, Abigail, while Simone spends her time running and writing with Robbie. This was a tense and thrilling story about the power of attraction.

Robbie was the narrator of this story, although she wasn't necessarily the main character. Especially in the first part of the book, the story was mainly focused on Simone and really making the reader fall in love with her, just like everyone who comes into contact with her. Robbie also makes it clear that she is not a reliable narrator, rewriting scenes right in front of the reader to get the result she wants. The way that this was written was quite unique, and while I didn't necessarily like Robbie, I enjoyed hearing her perspective. All of the characters were really well developed and complex, if not exactly likable. This will be a great one for readers who enjoy books about complicated relationships, books about writing, and books set in a graduate school setting.

Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian was an entertaining read. I thought it was original the way the story is told. The pacing was a little hard for me to enjoy but I managed. Overall, it was an okay read but it did feel like it was trying to do too much.

I'm not normally a fan of marriage breakdown novels, especially ones that focus on infidelity, but the advance praise for Seduction Theory had me willing to look past that. Emily Adrian has written a nuanced, honest portrayal of the nature of relationships and the complexity of how the rest of our life gets in the way of meaningful connections.

Simone and Ethan are professors but Simone's star is at it's apex and Ethan's has long since waned. Feeling unfulfilled professionally, Ethan begins to stray from Simone. Simone, for her part, seems to go along with all of this, content to portray a sense of cool realism to those in their orbit. When one of Simone's advisees develops feelings for her, she decides to write her thesis about the breakdown of Simone and Ethan's marriage. Extremely messy, this book is for those who really like to dig into the complicate nature of humanity and like a touch of academia in their stories.

𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙨, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙚𝙮𝙚𝙨, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙧𝙪𝙣 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙨 (𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙚 𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮, 𝙞𝙛 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙚). 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙧𝙮. 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣? 𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧? 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚?

A novel about infidelity and how when it comes to desire a lot can be said for perspective and confusion. Simone and Ethan are married professors who both work in the creative writing department at Edward’s University. She is the hotshot and a ‘sex’ icon on campus, while his glory as a novelist has faded. He has become background noise. Maybe it is this ennui that has him lusting after his ordinary secretary, who isn’t really a secretary but calls herself that, Abigail. She is unattractive, yet he desires her, hard. Simone is smart, sexy and age appears to be refining her undeniable beauty rather than detracting from it. She is the shooting star he hitched himself too, the qualified professor, his ‘in’ being a spousal hire. Naturally he is still the outsider, it is Simone’s world, and he always does what she wants. It suits them both. All that perfection and yet, he is rushing toward an affair. If he strays too far from her, she will pull him back. She is his ‘life’s witness’, she has the cool head, keeps him on the straight and narrow. Still, he will betray her, more than physically. He may be taking Abigail a little too lightly, that is always foolish.

Are they the happy couple they project to others? Simone seems to have no problem with his friendship with another woman. Is she too trusting of her own sex, or does she overestimate the strength of her marriage? Then there is Roberta, Simone’s advisee, who desires her and maybe wants to be her. Roberta was ‘seduced into graduate school’ by the memoir Simone wrote. In a short time, they are very close, in a private book club, just the two of them. They are even running together but it is when Simone invites Roberta into her home that the boundaries begin to blur. Simone seems to be using her marriage to open intimacy with Roberta, inducing lust. Is she willing Roberta to take initiative? Does she want to invite her into bed? Is Simone a tease? Is she using Roberta and to what end? Or is Roberta fictionalizing their interaction? It all gets messy.

What are feelings but the inferior things other people have? Simone is above the usual push and pull other women deal with, until she isn’t. She seems like the icy queen of detachment. What I love about each character is how they adhere to their fiction, Simone and Ethan are smug, yes, even Ethan with his inferiority issues. Roberta too, she is cynical and critical but remember, she wanted to offer herself to her own God, Simone. Abigail is in competition, she doesn’t like Simone, but what would winning Ethan in the sack gain her? What a tangle. Every single character here is seducing themselves, that’s the greatest fiction of it all. There is manipulation too, intentional and not. Simone seems to need others envy. I enjoyed the novel, I wish it were longer, and the ending wasn’t what I was expecting. It was still a good story, but I was on the edge of four stars. I can’t say I loved any of the characters, but for me it is fitting because they are all sloppy which made the tale. That felt like the point, they just can’t get over themselves. But I could be wrong.

Publication Date: August 12, 2025 Available Now

Little, Brown and Company

I love the premise of this novel- it’s a grad student’s MFA thesis that quickly turns into an attempted takedown of her professor’s marriage. Robbie, our narrator, is infatuated with Simone, her married thesis advisor. While Simone’s husband betrays her and Simone herself toes the line of infidelity with Robbie, Robbie clandestinely begins documenting her version of their story, and that story makes up the body of this novel.

Robbie, our narrator, is necessarily distant from the reader due to the structure of the novel, and her reliability as a narrator is certainly questionable, considering the way she’s fictionalizing the lives of the other characters for her own benefit. Every character in this novel is messy and unlikeable, which isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but it would be nice to have someone to root for.

I was desperate for something more intriguing than good old fashioned infidelity to happen. While the book does address the complexity of adulthood and marriage in a unique way, I think the whole premise of the novel was its downfall. It was meant to be an MFA thesis at its core and it really did just read like a bitter student’s revenge story. Realistically, how would this pass muster at a thesis defense?

Overall, I enjoyed my reading experience and appreciated the unique structure of this novel, though I don’t think it was entirely successful. Regardless, the messy academia vibes and the meta-fictional elements make it worth checking out if that’s up your alley!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown, and Company for the early digital copy of this book!

he narrator of this novel, a graduate student in English literature, is creeping around the edges of the marriage between two college professors. The star in the couple is Simone, a beautiful full professor who is constantly sought out and is a campus icon. Ethan is her husband, an adjunct, who wrote a breakout novel based on Simone’s history and then — crickets. He’s still an adjunct. Simone becomes close to Robbie, our narrator, who wants more. Ethan creeps toward infidelity. It’s a character study that invokes questions of power, consent, fidelity and human nature

Without question, I have a weakness for so-called "campus novels." They provide such a delicious contained setting with a built-in community that's often very layered. Emily Adrian's SEDUCTION THEORY takes the campus novel further, structuring it as graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green's MFA thesis. This gave the novel an inventive structure that was very meta.

The central couple, Simone a renowned scholar and writer who heads the creative writing department and her husband Ethan a one-time novelist and now lecturer in Simone's department, is considered very desirable. And also unequal with Ethan's professional failures. It makes sense when he cheats, especially given that he feels superior to woman with whom he cheats. Simone, on the other hand, does not appear to take opportunity she's given with her student Robbie. Or does she? And is what Simone does ultimately worse?

SEDUCTION THEORY is a fantastic example of an unreliable narrator and I look forward to using this in my fiction classes.

Delighted to include this title in the August edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

Seduction Theory is a smart, engaging novel that dives into the messy, complicated parts of life—family dynamics, creative ambition, and the ways people influence each other, for better or worse. Emily Adrian writes with a sharp eye and a lot of heart, capturing those in-between moments where everything shifts. It’s the kind of book that sneaks up on you emotionally, with characters that feel real and a story that sticks with you after you’re done.

This book blew me away! I went in pretty blind and was completely taken aback by the inventiveness, incredible writing, and insane plot. Written as a creative writing thesis, it is the ultimate unreliable narrator situation. The author, a student in a fictional fancy liberal arts college, gets caught up in the marriage between two professors and her ultimate revenge? Writing about it for the rest of the department to see via workshops and thesis defending.

I ripped through this novel, and couldn't wait to get back to it. Adrian has written something wholly unique and it was such a delightful surprise. You go into the book not knowing who the main character is, what point of view it's from, and what exactly is going on. Watching it expertly unfold was so much fun. And all this done with incredible writing and expert characterizations. I love books that ask questions, and invite you to make your own decisions about what is truthful or not. Musings on relationships, divorce, infidelity, and power can feel well-trodden nowadays, but Adrian keeps it fresh and new in this slam dunk of a novel.

I tried a few chapters but the writing felt chaotic and like a big stream of consciousness, not for me.

Emily Adrian's 'Seduction Theory' is a sly, sharp campus novel disguised as an MFA thesis - and it's brilliant in its deception. Presented as the fictional capstone project of graduate student Roberta "Robbie" Green, the book offers a layered, metafictional account of the implosion of her mentors' marriage. Simone is a revered memoirist and academic; Ethan, her less-celebrated husband, is a novelist whose one successful book mined Simone's personal grief. Together, they are the literary couple everyone at their university envies - until they're not.

What begins as an analysis of their unraveling becomes something much murkier. Robbie inserts herself into their lives under the guise of observation, but her fixation with Simone's elegance, contradictions, and authority shifts into obsession. And through it all, Robbie is writing - crafting a thesis that doesn't just document the wreckage but reshapes it, revising scenes, replaying moments, and questioning every version of the truth.

Adrian plays with form and perspective in thrilling ways. The novel loops and rewinds, challenging readers to consider what storytelling does - how it distorts, flatters, steals. Robbie is a deliciously unreliable narrator: incisive, insecure, and always aware of her role as both observer and architect. The academic setting crackles with quiet satire, but the emotional stakes are real. This isn't just a novel about infidelity or mentorship - it's about power, authorship, and the seductive act of narrating other people's lives.

Recommend for fans of 'Trust' by Hernan Diaz or 'The Chair, My Education' by Susan Choi.

This is one of those novels that’s deeply engaging in the moment but leaves you with a lingering sense of almost. There’s a cleverness to the way the story is told, a kind of sly narrative construction that teases and withholds just enough to keep you hooked, especially in the early chapters. You’re constantly circling the questions: who’s telling this story, and why do they seem to know everything?

That intrigue carries the book for a long time. The narration dips in and out of characters’ heads, blurring the line between what’s real and what’s imagined, and that ambiguity is the engine of its propulsion. But when the narrative begins to tighten and the scaffolding comes into view, that slipperiness starts to feel less thrilling and more like a liability. The final section pulls back just when you want it to push further.

Character wise, I had trouble investing in the central relationship. Simone and Ethan are clearly written to provoke debate, and they do, but not always in productive ways. I never quite bought into their dynamic, never felt the spark the novel insisted was there. Ethan in particular felt flat to me, and Simone’s devotion to him made her less compelling by association. Their marriage, its mythos and mechanics, felt more like a narrative convenience than an organic relationship. And yes, I get that the novel is playing with ideas of authorship and narrative control, but I still needed to believe in the people at the centre of it.

That said, the architecture of the novel is undeniably thoughtful. The framing, the callbacks, the mirrored scenes, they’re all carefully placed. There’s a well designed elegance to how the story folds in on itself. But it doesn’t quite land with the force I wished it had.

Thank you Little, Brown and Company for an eARC!

Ok I really wanted to like this book but it really felt overdone. The characters were great, very well written however they were all awful people. Husband cheats on spouse & of course it’s with the secretary (assistant) but then the one cheated on allows marriage details to spew from her mouth to a student? Terrible story. Just horrible storyline & really what was the plot? Thank you NetGalley for this ARC

“She was the most alert person he’d ever met, a student of each moment of her life.”

Can we just take a moment for the beauty of that writing? And another moment for the beauty of that cover?

So much of this book made me feel like what I can only imagine a cocktail party in New Haven or a gallery opening in Tribeca might feel like. Fast-paced and elevated, filled with beautiful phrases and use of language, Adrian’s writing was lovely.

This book was fascinating and kept me reading; it was very much a character-driven book, which made me glad I read it through both audio and digital platforms. The characters were each multi-faceted and interesting; I honestly was left wanting to know so much more about all of them.

Perhaps the storyline that left me wanting most was that of Abigail and her neurodivergent son, as I just simply wanted to hear more from them.

There was a lot of humor in these pages, which just points back to the strength of Adrian’s writing. I also really enjoyed the points in the story where Robbie gives us different versions of what could have happened, as I think this shows us how wholly unreliable her narration is as a whole.

Overall, I liked it but just wanted more from it. I will definitely check out future books from the author, and the narration was strong, as well.

I have recently really gotten into immersive reading, both listening to and reading a book. Is immersive reading something you enjoy?

A compulsively readable twist on the academia or campus novel in the form of MFA candidate Roberta “Robbie” Green’s thesis (devourable in one sitting), Seduction Theory captivates from its fetching iconic Fragonard cover art onward, as it probes ideas about fidelity, cheating, accomplishment and self-worth in academia and publishing, and ambition. Robbie’s unreliable narration, punctuated with incisive descriptions often had me laughing out loud (“the way he ordered a coffee, you knew his father had never loved him”) and pausing to annotate, while wondering how much was fact or fiction within the world of the novel. I also admit that I was quite surprised by the ending.

I enjoyed how this played with form and the unique narration/ style. I haven’t read anything else by this author but I’m now curious about her backlist!