Gosh. This is a debut? What an accomplished one, as Kate Russell takes the reader on a very difficult journey focusing on what happens to Vanessa Wye. The story starts when Vanessa is 32 and a hotel concierge in Portland, Maine when the story breaks via Facebook of Taylor Birch and Jacob Strane and the goes backwards and forwards in time as Vanessa tells her story with Jacob. When she was 15 she goes to Browick boarding school where she meets Strane who is her 45 year old English teacher, as he was later on for Taylor at the same school.

To say that Strane teaches differently is an understatement and his style certainly wouldn’t met the approval of parents. He swears, he can be harsh, abusive even but then he can be encouraging. Vanessa is very smart but lazy and unmotivated but with the help of Strane she shows a real talent for poetry and literature. Strane grooms Vanessa in a variety of ways , including literature especially Lolita by Nabokov which recurs throughout the book. He is creepy and predatory and he is able to so so because Vanessa is a loner, a misfit and he draws her in hook, line and sinker. This is not an easy read but as she becomes his ‘dark Vanessa’ what unravels is unbelievably sad, at times sickening and at others deeply moving.

There is so much in this book to praise. It is gripping and very well written. I love the literature references which binds the two of them together. You despair at the control and manipulation that Strane experts over Vanessa as other revelations about him emerge. He frightens her to shut her up. The descriptions of their ‘relationship’ are very powerful as her body goes somewhere her mind doesn’t want to. There are some devastatingly insightful sentences about her and him and how he has to be old for her to feel young and beautiful. He ruins her and her life stalls as she is unable to have a normal relationship, which is so sad.

Overall, this book looks at Me Too slightly differently as Vanessa does not and will not, see that Strane abuses her as he does others claiming that he love her but that’s how she survives and it also shows how victims can become stuck in time. Highly recommended.

I received this copy from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review and I thank you, 4th Estate and William Collins for accepting my request for this amazing book.

My dark Vanessa is an intense, heartbreaking and important book. It tells the story of Vanessa, a young woman who was abused by her English teacher at fifteen years old and the aftermath of her rape and their relationship. The book is built in a peculiar way, swinging from 2001/2002, 2006 and 2017, between past and present, constructing the whole story. We get to know Vanessa as teenager, friendless and lonely in a boarding school, after losing her previous best friend and who finds herself attracted to and coerced by her new teacher, Jacob Strane into a sexual relationship.. Kate Elizabeth Russell wrote about this intense relationship between Vanessa and Strane that spanned years, decades, to the 2017, when a young woman accused Strane of abusing her, pushing and trying to get Vanessa involved. The involment of a journalist threaten to uncover the truth Vanessa is trying to deny and hide to herself.
The relationship between Vanessa and Strane is never romanticized and it's really complex, because Strane manipulated Vanessa for years, blaming, threating and harassing her, above all when he feared she could tell someone the truth about what happened. The book is astounding and delicate and it's clearly visible all the aftermath the abuse inflicted on Vanessa, who is in denial and almost until the end she refused to see herself as a victim of rape and to call the abuse rape. The allegations against Strane in 2017 pushed her to revisit her life and childhood, her relationships with her parents and friends, her loneliness, her depression, and seeing and talking with her terapist and to the young woman who accused Strane helped her see the abuse in a new way. During all her life, after the abuse, Vanessa is still attached to Strane, convincing herself to believe him, to consider all that as a love story, to having being loved and cherished. For years Vanessa talked and saw Strane, even after the boarding school, all the time him manipulating and using her, in a abusive and suffocating relationship. On point and hard to read her metaphors of being drowned and disconnected from her body, when he abused her.

"I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that."
"I know." she says.
"Because if it isn't a love story, then what is it?" [...] "It's my life." I say. "This has been my whole life"

It's heartbreaking and interesting reading about Vanessa's life and process to accept what happened to her and calling its true name, battling against her guilt and shame because she didn't tell about him, didn't stop him from hurting other girls. It's fascinating seeing how Vanessa and Taylor saw the abuse, the first denying it and fooling herself for years, listening to her rapist and refusing to denouncing him and the latter seeing right away the man for what is was and denouncing him to the school, two times. It was difficult for Vanessa, because all her life, for years, Strane became a part of herself, almost infecting her

"Ruby says it will take a while to truly changed, that I need to give myself a chance to see more of the world without him behind my eyes"

This book is really well written and I was heartbroken in so many parts, raging against Strane, wanting to shake Vanessa and so enraged when the school didn't believe her, didn't support Taylor, choosing not to pursue a true investigation, when in 2001 rumours about Strane and Vanessa circulated. It was incredibly frustrating reading about teachers and administration refusing to see the truth and to protect their students.
I will stop now my ranting, because I wanted to write and comment every pages, but I won't. I'll just say this book is a gem and it carries so many important message, like the relevance of therapy, of healing, of denouncing.
A solid 5 stars.

I thought My Dark Vanessa was excellent. It is about a difficult subject so it’s not a light read, but it’s extremely well done and I found it compelling and thought-provoking.

The book is narrated in the first person by Vanessa, now in her 30s, who at 15 was groomed and had a sexual relationship with a 45-year-old teacher, Jacob Strane. We see her life now as a lost, isolated soul in an unrewarding job who relies on drink and drugs to get through the evening and night, and in flashback through the beginning of Strane’s grooming, her response to it and the consequences later.

It sounds grim – and the subject matter certainly is – but it drew me in and held me spellbound for much of the time. I was half expecting a bandwagon-jumping #MeToo potboiler beating me over the head with obvious points, but I was completely wrong. This is a book with real intelligence, insight and both emotional and psychological depth. We see how Vanessa, who is socially isolated, a little awkward and unconfident, is utterly overwhelmed and thrilled by the attention and compliments of Strane, how for a long time she denies that there was anything untoward in their relationship and feels a strong loyalty toward him, even though his behaviour made my flesh creep. The complexity of her emotions is superbly portrayed as she argues, for example that “it wasn’t rape rape,” as are the emotional consequences, which are intelligently and compassionately depicted, while never evading the reality. Kate Elizabeth Russell avoids neat, simple conclusions and messages and manages to show how issues may appear simple to outsiders, whereas they are extremely complex to Vanessa.

It’s all done with great skill and excellent judgement; for example, Russell manages to make the sex explicit – as it needs to be – while never the remotest bit titillating, but quite the reverse. The prose is very readable, the whole thing is well structured and there is a welcome dash of hope which never resorts to easy sentimentality.

My Dark Vanessa is an important book which is also an engrossing read. I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

(My thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Dark, disturbing and startling, this is not for the faint hearted but should be read. It is highly relevant for these times. I saw a comparison to My absolute darling by Gabriel Tallent and both show in graphic detail how twisted adult corruption of a child is, how damaging and abusive.

“I’m going to ruin you “ that statement is enough for you to realise when you read this book that it’s going to be exceptional !!
It’s a very dark and disturbing novel just as the title suggests and not a read that in any way is going to be easy to read. This is a story of a 15 year old girl and the teacher that groomed her leading to an ongoing affair but in many ways this is so much more than just that. It’s a read that often made me very angry and also extremely sad as the main character of Vanessa struggles to come to terms with her feelings both as a young girl and later as a 32 year old woman and it makes for some pretty uncomfortable reading.
It’s an intense book, very graphic and moving as the author never holds back in her descriptions and as you are reading you find yourself pulled into a story that is impossible to put down. It’s totally shocking yet you just can’t stop reading it and the Kate Elizabeth Russell has done a magnificent job in making it very real making you question both your feelings and your judgment.
Powerful and compulsive I feel this will be a massive hit and it’s a book that really deserves all the accolades I am sure it will get, it deserves to be read because this is a story that is happening!!
My thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate for giving me the chance to read the ARC of this amazing book in exchange for my honest opinion.

There have been many books in the wake of #metoo that have tackled issues of rape, abuse, consent and complicity but this is one of the most subtle as it explores its topic with depth and empathy. It can feel a little prurient when these books follow the protagonists into the bedroom, especially, but here these scenes feel necessary and important for the way in which they focalise Vanessa's oscillating feelings from desire to disgust, from a kind of narcissistic sense of power to the need for bodily alienation and mental escape.

It's important that this is Vanessa's story and it's no coincidence that textual mentions of Lavinia's struggle for speech in [book:Titus Andronicus|3510915] is connected to [book:Lolita|7604]'s emerging, if compromised, agency within that book and Vanessa's mind. What is most effective is the way that we witness Vanessa's own ambiguities about her story, first submerged, and then gradually coming to light. She internalises Slane's perspective to such an extent that her own internal narrative is one of a love story where she is worshipped, not abused; where she is powerful, not a victim; where she is special - not one of a number of under-age girls targeted and groomed by a serial predator.

It's this ability to penetrate beneath the skin of the characters that makes this such a powerful and insightful book. It avoids simplicities of 'lying girls' and even makes Slane both monstrous and pathetic, a man enthralled by his own fantasies even as he knows they're wrong.

Especially potent is the second half of the book where we see the long-term effects on Vanessa of her past - not just in her troubled relationships with other men, but in her lack of self-respect and the chaos of her domestic life.

This isn't (and shouldn't be) an easy read but it's an important one full of empathy, insight and understanding.

Gosh, what to say about this. Well, firstly I'd recommend it, but without words such as "ooh you'll love this" because the subject matter is so sensitive, and I'd just come over as a bit weird. It's very topical, following on from the #metoo campaign, and it's going to cause a lot of discussion. The love between a teenage girl and her middle aged teacher - is that love? And if so, on whose part? If not on the teacher's, then is he a manipulator, a paedophile? And if that relationship carries on into her twenties, how would you describe it then? It's uncomfortable reading at times, most obviously the sex scenes, but it raises so many questions, some tricky to answer.

Hard to read. Challenging. But extremely well written. Read this and he prepared to consider your thoughts and feelings.
I gave this 4/5 on goodreads.

A difficult but compelling read, My Dark Vanessa tells the story of a relationship between a 15-year-old girl, Vanessa, and her 45 year-old teacher, Strane.

Strane slowly grooms Vanessa, leading her to a belief that they have found true love. 17 years later, against the backdrop of the #metoo movement, the adult Vanessa struggles to cope as allegations from other girls about Strane come to light.

The most horrifying aspect of this novel is how deeply Vanessa believes in the purity of her relationship with Strane. She is unable to even consider the possibility that it was anything other than love, because the implications of doing so would see her life falling to pieces. I was left frustrated at many points, willing Vanessa to see Strane for what he is, but mainly I felt sadness...My Dark Vanessa powerfully shows the impact of sexual abuse on a life and the reader can't help but wonder how things would have turned out for Vanessa if she had never encountered this man.

Kate Russell writes in an effortless, flowing manner and the book is difficult to put down, despite the challenging nature of the story.

My Dark Vanessa is timely, important and thought-provoking. I'm sure it will be one of *the* talked about books of 2020.

Dark as the name suggests this enthralling ‘love’ story will wrap you in. Very well written and visual I could easily see this being a film I would love to watch

Firstly I need to tell you this book is explicit and the subject matters of child grooming and sexual abuse aren’t sugar coated – it’s raw, brutal, disturbing and extremely uncomfortable reading from page one until the end.

My Dark Vanessa is not just dark it’s almost total blackout and readers of a delicate nature should avoid at all costs.

Vanessa is our narrator and doesn’t hold back in her thoughts, feelings and memories. Now aged 32 years old and barely coping with life, working in a hotel as a concierge and drifting from booze, drugs and meaningless sex she takes us back to her childhood when she attended a prestigious boarding school and at age 15 met and “fell in love” with her English teacher, 45 year old Jacob Strane.

Even through Vanessa’s words the reader is under no illusion that this is 100% predatory child grooming and it’s impossible not to feel sorry for Vanessa and disgust at Strane’s behaviour. One of Strane’s earlier comments to Vanessa is that he is going to ruin her and there is no doubt he does exactly what he said he would as we watch her life and future fall apart in the hands of this twisted paedophile.

“His hand slips out from under my skirt and he slides like liquid out of his chair and onto the floor. Kneeling before me, he lays his head on my lap and says, “I’m going to ruin you.”

Whilst all the above is shocking and uncomfortable to read, it’s Vanessa’s refusal to face the truth of who the real victim is especially when several other students come forward accusing Strane of molesting or assaulting them that makes the reader feel the most disturbed.

My Dark Vanessa is a powerful and deeply thought provoking debut novel which will leave a mark on you as a reader and as a human being. The writing is utterly spellbinding and beautiful and the author has written an exceptional story which will stay in my thoughts for a long time.

Publish date: 23rd January 2020

An excellent dissection of grooming and the irreversible damage these predators cause, this book makes for uncomfortable reading in places.

The stealthy progress of small boundaries being crossed, there were times when it made me feel physically sick. However as well as being topical it’s horribly plausible and as a treatise on hidden damage superb.

A timely story, very well executed. The development of the relationship between abuser and abused is well drawn and the reader is given a unique perspective on a sadly familiar story.
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A disturbingly sad story that feels all too real. You feel for the main character and sympathise with her ruined life.

I didn't really intend on reading this book: there is so much hype already, despite it's release date being January 2020, since it addresses the 'Me Too' movement, and any comparison to Lolita will always put me off. However, My Dark Vanessa is nothing like I expected. The narrative switches between Vanessa's life in her thirties as other young women coke forward claiming that the English teacher Vanessa had had "an affair" with and a teenager had assaulted them, and her life as a teenager in a secret "relationship". Vanessa has always considered Strane the great love story of her life, one she repeatedly tells as an anecdote of her wild youth, and one that sets her apart from other women. However Vanessa defends her experience, The reader is in left in no doubt that she was singled out as a vulnerable child and groomed and gaslighted so that she believed that their sexual relationship was romantic, consensual, and something that she had actively pursued. I raced through this book with my heart in my throat, and while I can't say I loved it, it was a thrilling reading experience and a lot more thoughtful and nuanced than the sensationalist and shocking premise would lead you to believe. I definitely recommend reading it, but do so as soon as it comes out as the early reviews are correct: this is the book everyone will be talking about in 2020.

I enjoyed this more than expected. I thought it would be light and fluffy but there was some depth to the story. In a world where the USA chose a monarchy instead of a democracy, she explores the impact of being royalty on the personal lives of the royal family. The eldest daughter has the responsibly and strain of living up to expectations imposed on her. Will she be able to follow her heart or fulfill her duty? The second child is wild, rejecting her constraints. And the third royal appears naive and oblivious to the real world of competition and scheming.

I found it a little slow to start but it did start to pick up. It's clearly a romance but it has some novel angles which keep it fresh and interesting. And it felt real enough that perhaps inspiration was taken from real life royals. Im thinking Britain and Monaco. Overall it is well interwoven and very readable. Like a compulsive soap opera I was hooked to see the fates of these likeable characters.

This book kept it’s foot on the peddle, I could not stop reading once I started. The narrator is self aware enough to recognise the pitfalls of her emotions but does not excuse the behaviour that is central to the book. A great story which pushes your boundaries

What a book. Sexually charged dynamite - draws us to question the accountability of bystanders, as well as our sense of reality and the stories we believe. Never conclusive, this novel brings the attention to the Me Too movement - and the spectrum of women who speak out, women not speaking out, and the impact on all their lives. Provocatively well-written.

My Dark Vanessa is a novel about a relationship between a fifteen year old girl and her English teacher, looking at what happens when she has to confront what occurred between them in the wake of various sexual abuse allegations against powerful men coming to light. Vanessa is fifteen and lonely at her new boarding school. Her English teacher seems to understand her, though. When they end up in a relationship, she believes that it is love, and he desperately tells her that. But now she's thirty two and the teacher, Jacob Strane, is being accused of sexual abuse by another ex-student, she has to think about everything that has happened between them, through layers of trauma and what he managed to convince her was true.

This is no easy book to read. It has been described as a kind of reworking or subversion of Lolita, and Nabokov's novel is a central theme throughout as Strane uses it as a way of grooming Vanessa to see herself as the one with the power, and it is important that people are aware of this similarity and of the content of My Dark Vanessa before picking it up. It is, intentionally, deeply uncomfortable, as the novel is from Vanessa's point of view so the reader gets to see the ways in which she is manipulated and how this cannot be undone years later. Russell does well to get across the trauma and abuse that Vanessa suffers through the prose style, making scenes between her and Strane disturbing even whilst Vanessa is claiming it is love and it is what she wants.

It was difficult to read the novel without keeping an eye towards how it might end and how it would present Vanessa's story as a whole. Overall, it delves into the complexity of what Vanessa suffers, including the hard facts of facing up to a movement standing up to sexual abuse when someone was groomed to believe it wasn't abuse. In some ways, it feels like it highlights how certain elements of art— like Lolita, but also other references made in the novel—can be wilfully misread or interpreted to justify abuse and to manipulate people. It isn't a novel that ends with a big, unambiguous statement, and there is a lot to take in and think about rather than easy answers given.