Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > The Professor

The Professor is Nossett’s second novel after 2022’s The Resemblance (which I also rated five stars), the second to feature Marlitt Kaplan as the protagonist, and so, of course, it follows the same genre feel as its predecessor: a murder/crime thriller with dark academia themes set on and around the University of Georgia campus. Where The Resemblance has a plot centering around sexual assault, rape culture, and Greek life; The Professor focuses on the mental health of both professors and students, how little colleges and universities do to help either party deal with these matters, and how hard it is for professors to maintain a healthy work-life balance with their workloads and pressure to publish or perish in order to gain tenure so they don’t have to work for peanuts.

It’s also a bit about setting boundaries, knowing when to say you’re sorry, acknowledging your failings, accepting the things you can’t change, and rebuilding your life from the ashes.

I am going to note that this book can be read as a standalone, but it’s a whole lot more enjoyable and easier to relate to if you read The Resemblance first. Telling you why would require a lot of exposition, and that’s not what reviews are for. But you’ve been warned.

Lauren Nossett has honed her protagonist, Marlitt, into a fine blade, and she knows exactly how to wield her. You can tell that Nossett must spend a lot of time living inside Marlitt’s head, just thinking and hypothesizing as to how Marlitt would react to any given situation, because Marlitt’s inner narrative and dialogue just flows so seamlessly throughout the pages. There’s not a single hiccough. Nossett also thinks every single plot thread through, leaving nary a string loose. She doesn’t rely on logical fallacies to hold up her plot: you won’t find any red herrings here. We are shown the exposition via the lens of those who experience it and those scenes inform the characterizations of the major players in a way third-person POV never could. It was a very effective tool to humanize characters we otherwise wouldn’t have gotten close enough to so we could empathize with their pain. Putting us right there with them helped us identify with their plights and struggles, letting us inside their heads where not even Marlitt could go.

It’s another brilliant effort by Nossett and I’ll need it in my bookcase ASAP. I have a feeling the next one will end up there too. I can’t get enough.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. In this case, I’d like to extend my thanks directly to author Lauren Nossett, who was kind enough to personally ensure a NetGalley widget made it to my inbox. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without any offer or acceptance of compensation. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Crime Fiction/Crime Thriller/Dark Academia/Literary Fiction/Murder Thriller/Psychological Fiction/Suspense Thriller