INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“[An] exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“A lightning rod . . . brilliantly crafted.”—The Washington Post
A most anticipated book by The New York Times • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Marie Claire • Elle • Harper’s Bazaar • Bustle • Newsweek • New York Post • … anticipated book by The New York Times • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Marie Claire • Elle • Harper’s Bazaar • Bustle • Newsweek • New York Post • Esquire • Real Simple • The Sunday Times • The Guardian
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
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Gut wrenching
Loved this book. A story that tells how seduction by an older man affects a woman’s entire life.
This book touches on sexual abuse between a fifteen year old girl and her high school English teacher. The student was sexually abused by the teacher. I enjoyed reading this novel. It was easy to read and I was engaged in the story, though I felt uncomfortable during the parts that were uncomfortable to read. Hopefully, people will read this book and see the way things are for young women who’ve been sexually abused by their high school teacher. It’s nice and important to see through the eyes of someone who’s been through something that’s very serious and happens all the time where they are. Happy reading!
I think it deals with young first love/infatuation and how that can have a negative or destructive effect on future relationships, if one party is not emotionally mature.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell is a compulsive, uncomfortable and compelling read. It tells the story of Vanessa Wye, a woman who was groomed and sexually exploited by her English teacher when she was fifteen and remained in an on and off relationship with him for many years after the fact. Vanessa does not view what happened to her as abuse but as the #MeToo movement gains traction and other women come forward with stories of being abused by the same teacher, Vanessa is forced to reckon with the fact that the stories she has told herself over the years – that her teacher truly loved her, that she was special, that she was the one who had all the power in their relationship – are starting to seem more like delusion than reality. Russell had a difficult task with this book, she had to depict an obviously abusive and immoral relationship between a predatory pedophile and a child while simultaneously creating a psychologically credible narrator who fully believed that this was a great love story. It’s a brilliant inversion of the Lolita narrative and Russell is conspicuously in dialogue with Nabokov throughout the novel. The reader is simultaneously disgusted by Strane and his manipulations and grooming seem obvious to us while despairing over Vanessa’s inability to see the reality of her situation, either as a child or as an adult. This book really took me back to how vulnerable girls are at fifteen, still very much children waiting to figure out who they are but fully believing that they’re adults ready to take on the world. All it takes is one bad actor to start shaping you into someone you don’t recognise and suddenly a whole life can be derailed. This book is a harrowing reminder of how easily any of us might find our minds and our thoughts twisted in ways that we no longer recognise. Truly excellent reading.
A difficult read that sucks you in and pushes you to continue reading. I didn’t love the subject of the story but the author wrote it so beautifully. I definitely need a lighter read now to wash this story out of my mind!
This is not a book for the faint of heart. Its subject matter is disturbing, and its characters are deeply flawed. However, the author does a superb job of drawing the reader into the setting and into the action. A very thought-provoking read, to be sure, and one not easily forgotten.
This was a good book but was disturbing.
Couldn’t put this book down. Riveting and hard to believe.
Book Review: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (Fiction) (2020) 4 Stars ****
Dark. Disturbing. Psychologically manipulative. Emotionally confusing. Morally vague. If you’re into this stuff, you’ll love this book. Personally, I was turned off but I forced myself out of my comfort zone to become a voyeur into the life, internal self-congratulations and outright lies of a psychological mess. I never enjoy being in the head of a crazy person—especially a young woman for whom I should have compassion and sympathy. Other than outright killers and abusers, I can easily say Vanessa Wye is my least favorite character of any book I have ever read. This girl is no child; she’s a predator. I’m going to try not to spoil the story by being too detailed with my comments and examples, in case you choose to read it. Very well-written, but disturbing.
We meet fifteen-year-old Vanessa as a newly transferred student at a private high school in Maine and follow her delusional manipulations until she is well into her thirties. Vanessa is attracted to her much, much older English teacher and pedophile Jacob Strane. They begin a flirtation that results in unfulfilling sex. Strane, as Vanessa calls him, is unattractive, pot-bellied, unkempt, and a master manipulator. He is intent upon freezing her image as childish and child-like, while Vanessa wants to be viewed as a desirable, mature, powerful vamp. While Vanessa brings sexy, black lingerie to one of their trysts, Strane forces her to wear white baby doll pajamas decorated with strawberries. He wants Vanessa to call him Daddy.
The older Vanessa gets, the less Strane is interested. There are numerous accusations and rumors floating around the school, the neighborhood, and the media, but Vanessa refuses to believe Strane could be attracted to anyone else. When given the chance to report him or just walk away, Vanessa believes she is in control. She believes she is so irresistible that it is her fault that he cannot keep away but instead, is magnetized in her direction because they are soul mates. “I think we’re very similar, Nessa,” he tells her, appropriating a family nickname he learned at a parent-teacher conference. “I can tell from the way you write that you’re a dark romantic like me. You like dark things.”
Vanessa keeps him in her adult life, refusing to confirm allegations of teenage girls of unwanted sexual advances. Never pursuing an adult relationship with Vanessa, Strane stays away from her with flimsy excuses that she does not believe, but tells herself that he fears her power over him. After all, she is the Lolita in his life. Vanessa does not date and has never been intimate with any boy or man other than Strane. She is in a stuck place. He continues to run his game.
In later years, Vanessa finds herself attracted to one of her college professors but her attempts at seduction are repelled. Vanessa has opened a can of worms and a view into her dark heart, her lies, her evasions, and her warped psyche.
In time, her taunts and manipulations add to an already precarious situation that ends in tragedy. She is seen for who she wants to be—a siren leading the ships to the rocks.
Too dark for me. I didn’t finish it.
I still have a little bit left to read but it’s definitely hard to put down. I highly recommend reading it.
While the story itself was written well I had a hard time stomaching the subject matter. I only chose to read My Dark Vanessa after seeing so many people raving about it and honestly I wish I would not of read it.
This is the best book I’ve read this year!
This is not an easy book to read because of its subject matter but it is absorbing and one worth reading in order to discuss it. It is not escapist beach-reading at all.
This novel is a beautifully written, gut-wrenching story that takes a deep psychological dive that’s simultaneously hard to stomach and impossible to put down.
In the hands of another writer, I could see this story putting me off. But Kate Elizabeth Russell deftly handles this answer to Lolita and provided one of the best literary read of the year for me.
Very tough to get through at certain parts but well worth a view fora perspective you don’t often read about. I read it over a month ago and still think about it.
Deeply disturbing but realistic
original and provocative
Going inside the mind of a pedophile is disturbing. The mind set of the victim is sad.