(23)My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Saturday, March 21, 2020


In the year 2000, when Vanessa Wye was fifteen years old she fell in love and entered a sexual relationship with an older man. Her forty-two-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane. Seventeen years later, in the thick of the #MeToo movement, Vanessa is approached by another one of Strane's students.  Someone accusing him of sexual abuse.  She wants Vanessa to come forward with her story.  The thing is, Vanessa doesn't think that she was abused.  She doesn't think that she was a victim in the situation. She thought she was in love.  But between Taylor and the reporter trying to convince them to do a story, Vanessa reflects back on her time with Strane.  Was their relationship what she thought it was or what everybody is trying to convince her it was.

My Dark Vanessa is a really dark novel where you are just hoping that there will be some redemption and resolution at some point.  For you and I, adults, it is clear to see where Strane had been grooming her from the beginning.  You want to take 2017 Vanessa aside and say, listen honey...I tried to be empathetic, she had been abused, for Pete's sake.  And she was so clearly effed up as an adult. The good news was that she was in therapy and I could see the progress from the beginning of the book to the end. But I still felt that Vanessa had a long way to go. CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS


Bottom Line - I read My Dark Vanessa because I had heard a lot of buzz about the book.  You need to know right from the start that this is a dark book about really difficult topics. There is no happy ending and it will leave you emotionally drained, but I don't regret reading it. Neither will you.

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