This was a hard book to read given its content but I thought it was utterly gripping and so well written. I love books that stretch your brain and question your perceptions. I have been thinking about this book for days after I finished it, it was so impactful. Flipping between the present and the past, we see a love story between a student and her teacher, obsession, teenage infatuation or is it abuse and manipulation? An absolute must read ! I have already recommended this book to peers and friends. Thank you to Kate Russell, William Morrow an Netgalleu UK for an ARC in return for a fair and honest review.

The #MeToo movement has led to the fall of many high and mighty men (less high and mighty ones too) and belated justice for many wronged women. More importantly, however, this movement has highlighted that the issue of abuse on women goes deeper than just the immoral and illegal actions of individual men. Often, the abuse could not have been perpetrated without the complicity, the connivance or, at the very least, the lack of concern, of wider society.

The stories which we have seen in the media in the past years have also shown how complex the matter of “consent” can become. We have heard abusers defending themselves by saying that their victims “consented” to or even encouraged their advances. And, at a very superficial level, in some cases there could be some truth in this ‘defence’. But what exactly counts as “consent”? Where one of the parties is a minor, or in a vulnerable position, can it ever be present?

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel, is unafraid to face these thorny questions head on. Its protagonist and narrator is the “Vanessa” of the title. As a wide-eyed, fifteen-year-old outsider at college, she is flattered by the attention she receives from her English tutor, Jacob Strane, thirty years her senior. This attention, however, soon changes into something far creepier, developing into a sexual liaison which will mark and traumatize Vanessa well into adulthood. As Strane is accused by other ex-students in the wake of #MeToo, Vanessa has to face past horrors head on, and to admit to herself that what she considers the “love affair of her life” is, in reality, a sordid case of manipulation and abuse.

Russell’s novel is intelligent and nuanced. Whilst it is clear throughout that Strane is an abuser and Vanessa his victim, this is neither a black-and-white account nor a one-sided manifesto. And the novel is so much the better for this. It helps, for instance, that Vanessa is not a particularly likeable character and that her negative traits cannot all be blamed on Strane. This in no way lessens the gravity of the abuse she suffers – on the contrary, the novel shows how the weaknesses of a potential victim can be worked upon by an abuser. Russell also points to the factors which have allowed abusive practices to take place unchecked – from a reluctance of the authorities and family members to admit to inconvenient truths in the hope that they will just “go away”, to the subtle glorification of abusive relationships whether in “high” or popular culture (from literature to pop songs). At the same time, Russell hints at some ambivalence about #MeToo as a "movement", in the sense that she emphasizes that the history of each victim is different and there is no exclusively "valid" response to trauma. Trigger warning - some descriptions are explicit and revolting but, then again, the novels subject is not for the squeamish.

Is My Dark Vanessa the great book it is being touted to be? Admittedly, it is neither formally adventurous nor particularly striking in style and language. But it tells a timely and important story and does so effectively, leaving the reader with much food for thought.

This is a book I had to request after seeing it all over twitter and instagram.
I have not been disappointed. This is darker than I expected, I have really enjoyed reading this one. I’ve found it difficult to put down.

This is one of the best books I’ve read for a long time.

It takes a very serious and disturbing topic - child grooming - and turns it into a very readable book. The standard of writing is so high you keep reading even though the descriptions of the grooming are uncomfortable and unsettling. Told from Vanessa’s (the child) perspective - it isn’t grooming, it’s love ... isn’t it? Even as an adult Vanessa is still in denial that it was grooming rather than love.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It really is a compelling, quality read. Make sure you get a copy.

A tough but gripping read. Could put this book down, touches on a horrific subject with excellent tact.

Oh my goodness, what an incredible book. This is a really tough read and I think that's what made it so incredible - I initially gave it three stars because it made me so uncomfortable when I was reading, and it was only when I looked back and realised that was the point that I realised what a well-written book it is. Very deserving of all of the praise I've been hearing about it.

This is a deeply disturbing and visceral story about grooming and sexual abuse. Its power lies in the depth of understanding that the writer brings to her harrowing subject matter. Paedophile teacher, the vile and repulsive Jacob Strane preys on 15-year-old Vanessa Wye. He compliments her persistently, making her feel special, then his slow flirtations ramp up into full blown abuse.

Told in two time frames, we live and breathe the warped situation with teenage Vanessa, while in other sections, ten years on, a momentum to bring Strane to justice is building amid the me-too movement. Vanessa though refuses to accept that Strane raped and abused her, instead choosing to hold onto the misguided notion that theirs was true love.

This is testament to just how far Strane had manipulated her. He made her feel good about herself, powerful, how then, she asks herself, could it have been abuse? She can barely recall the way she cried the first time he raped her. In her refusal to acknowledge what really happened, she apes the behaviour of adults in the past who were aware of Strane’s involvement with her, but did nothing about it. When she later meets a teacher called Henry Plough, Vanessa is again forced to confront the wrongness of her relationship with Strane.

Russell traverses this uncomfortable ground so well. At times the writer almost fools you into forgetting that this is no teenage romance - in the same way that Vanessa herself is being fooled by Strane - but always there is the conniving Strane lurking and persuading coercing. Strane is so excellently drawn that he had me feeling simultaneously repulsed and enraged. He is absolutely loathsome. There was one particular scene where I felt so churned-up and disgusted by what was happening that I began to wonder whether I could carry on reading.

But read on I did because I had to know what happened to the brilliant but brain-washed Vanessa. She is a victim and Strane is the perpetrator, but in the end it is clear just who is the weak one in this most warped of relationships.

Vanessa’s voice is so powerful that while you may want to turn away from what is happening to her, she pulls you in so much that the novel is impossible to put down. Indeed I spun through the pages so quickly that I finished the novel in a matter of days. And all the while my heart twisted ever more tightly.

This is an exemplary, faultless work with excellent world building and pace. It may be remarkable, but it is no easy read.

Vanessa, our main character, was only fifteen and a student when she met and was groomed by Jacob Strane, her English teacher. Strane was thirty at the time. Now, as an adult, Vanessa is shocked to learn that Strane faces allegations of historical sexual abuse brought forward by another student, Taylor Birch, on the back of the #MeToo movement. Vanessa wants no part in the case - what happened between she and Strane was different. He loved her. Didn't he? How could he be capable of hurting someone when he treated her so lovingly?

This is a really hard book to read, I found Vanessa's head a really dark place to be and that's probably why I struggled to maintain enthusiasm (it ended up taking me months to finish). The grooming was very difficult to read about, I really hated Strane and how his actions affected every single area of Vanessa's life whether she realised it or not.

Comparisons, naturally, will be drawn to Lolita (which I hated) - but where Humbert Humbert was almost a parody of himself, Strane is pure evil (I have written in my notes "a horrible, manipulative, gaslighting POS" which I fully stand by).

This is really a book about a woman coming to terms with the events that shaped her current reality, but it's one I found myself wondering if I really needed to read or not - I don't feel like I gained anything by finishing it. In saying that, the writing is smart, the social commentary is biting, and the story is ultimately one of hope. I just don't think it needed to be as long as it was, it could have lost 150 pages and still been a powerful novel.

I received a copy to review via Netgalley.

Vanessa Wye is an insecure, emotionally immature 15 year old girl from a working class family who feels out of place and alone at Browick, the prestigious New England boarding school she attends. Abandoned by the only friend she had managed to make there, she becomes an easy victim for predatory English teacher, Jacob Strane.

The way Strane grooms Vanessa, honing in on her insecurities and making her feel valued, clever and special (“Haven’t you always felt like an outsider?” he asks. “I’ll bet for as long as you can remember you were called mature for your age.”) is painful and sickening to observe, but very cleverly written and sharply observed. At that time (early 2000s) society hadn’t yet woken up to the level of abuse committed by men (and, much more rarely, women) in positions of power. However, when we meet Vanessa again she is 32 years old and she becomes unwittingly embroiled in a #metoo style campaign by a group of ex-Browick pupils who are determined to make Strane pay for his crimes.

Vanessa is a complex and somewhat disturbing character. She convinces herself that what she and Strain shared was a deep, passionate and misunderstood love and that the women who are making accusations against him are jealous, vengeful and misguided. Despite the fact that her life took a downward turn after she is forced to leave the school, with all her early intelligence and potential lost as she embarks on a chaotic and self-destructive existence, she refuses to blame the man who has cast such a malevolent shadow over her life.

I was gripped by Vanessa’s story, it makes for very uncomfortable and disturbing reading at times but brought a totally new perspective to my understanding of abuse and obsession and a relief that powerful abusers like Strane are finally getting the retribution and public vilification they deserve. Topical, poignant and very hard hitting, this novel will give book groups and individual readers alike a lot to think about.

This was a deeply unsettling read. Following our main character as she reevaluates her love affair with her teacher. A relationship that she deemed to be perfectly acceptable and normal she is now beginning to see in a different light as complaints of inappropriate behaviour against the teacher begin to come to light.

I did enjoy this read however I can see how people may find it deeply triggering.
It feels wrong to say I enjoyed this read considering the subject matter and watching the grooming happen sentence by sentence was very disturbing. Seeing it through the eyes of the main character then and now just goes to show how deep-rooted abuse can live.

It was a very 'enjoyable' read.

One of the deepest novels I’ve read this year. A powerfully chilling book, it weaves every type of abuse imaginable into one story. Women will resonate with Vanessa and hopefully find the courage to tell their own stories so they no longer feel alone, undermined, and barely existing in self-doubt. But it is also a book for men.

Vanessa (15) is a lonely girl longing to be loved and typical of girls her own age, a loner. Dumped by her best friend, she is dangerously vulnerable to the predatory Strane; a master manipulator and narcissist. Central to the plot is her loyalty and the chipping away of her own identity which, if left alone, would have developed at its own speed. You can’t help thinking what life might have been like for Vanessa if Strane hadn’t polluted it, and in this way the novel examines Strane’s ruthlessness and exploitation of her youth. She is puzzlingly obsessed with a man so much older than herself and with few physical attributes a girl of her age would naturally find attractive. But there is a meeting of the minds, an academic magnetism that draws her to Strane; the catalyst being the book Lolita, given to Vanessa by Strane. In Lolita, Humbert is obsessed with ‘nymphets’ aged from 9 - 14, and as Lo unwittingly stretches her legs across Humbert's excited lap, so too does Vanessa in Strane’s study. This is how she defines love.

As the relationship progresses, Vanessa is blind to Strane’s disturbed personality — irritatingly so — because she is oblivious to his motive. Strane’s greed causes indescribable pain and tragedy to Vanessa alone, where she is expelled from a school she loves in order to protect his name. The frustration a reader may feel is Vanessa’s powerlessness and emotional immaturity, and most importantly the lack of statutory rape laws to protect her. The issue here is that Vanessa doesn’t feel she’s been raped because she’s in love, and Strane, in his own twisted way, loves her. She is inescapably bound to him and cannot form attachments with boys of her own age. Neither Taylor nor a reporter, desperately trying to build a case about Strane, can get through to Vanessa. Even Vanessa’s counsellor has met her match.

The relationship continues outside the school for a brief period until she is too ‘old’ to satisfy Strane’s fantasies. We see her robbed of her innocence too early to understand its complexities and the damage incurred by Strane’s selfishness. Vanessa is already on a downward trajectory, although I kept hoping for retribution as a result of Strane’s sudden diffidence.

I found the last third of the book a little lacklustre compared to the opening chapters which are an emotional roller-coaster. Gripping and horrifying, it’s hard to put down because you ache for Vanessa and you hope she will see the light. Parts of it were so emotional for me I had to put it down for a while to process what I’d just read.

Beautifully written and riveting from start to finish, the after-effects will be with the reader for months to come.

At 15 Vanessa is excited to receive a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. A year later and she is without friends and struggling, her love is English Literature and her charismatic teacher Mr Strane. He is 45. Seventeen years later and Vanessa is obsessed with the fact that Strane is being named as an abuser by another student from the school. Vanessa knows she wasn't abused, her relationship with Strane was love.
This is an incredibly strong novel about a very difficult subject. The story uses themes from literature to frame thoughts, the motif of Lolita is both obvious and also slightly scary. Vanessa's victimised thought-processes are all too real. I can't say this book made easy reading but it is very prescient and very powerful

Vanessa Wye was 15 when her relationship with her English teacher first began. So what that he was her teacher, they were in love. That counts for something, right? The answer for Vanessa is yes, their love counts for everything. At least it used to. Now she is questioning everything.

Told across two timelines, her school days in 2000 and the growing Me Too movement of 2017, My Dark Vanessa is an uncomfortable read, as it should be. Yet Kate Elizabeth Russell’s writing also makes it a compelling read. I can see why it is triggering for many people, particularly survivors of sexual assault, especially because Russell doesn’t shy away from depicting scenes of sexual abuse and rape.

When a former student publicly states that she was sexually assaulted by Jacob Strane, Vanessa doesn’t know how to react. Strane insists the allegations are not true and Vanessa wants to believe him because the man she loved couldn’t possibly be a sexual predator.

Switching between the past and Vanessa’s present, we watch Strane groom Vanessa and see the hold he continues to have over her life 17 years later. As Vanessa rethinks their entire relationship her understanding of what really happened shifts, multiple times, as she grapples with the realisation that while she doesn’t see herself as a victim or survivor they may in fact be accurate descriptors for her. This evolution is really well handled by Russell and is as complicated and messy as you’d expect.

This was a difficult book to read. A 15byearold was seduced by her teacher. She was then abused and mistreated. set in America there are political references which didn't interest me and didn't add to the story. I have read books like this before which even though a difficult subject, was treated much more sympathetically,

This book is impossible to put down. A story of grooming and abuse told by a narrator whose whole selfhood is wedded to the fact that her relationship with a much older teacher at school was a love affair. It manages to be both a compulsively readable first person narrative and a commentary on sexual politics. Highly recommended.

My Dark Vanessa is the book everyone's already been talking about for months, and it's not hard to see why when you read it. Centred around Vanessa, who is picked and groomed by her school teacher when she's fifteen, we follow her life after and see how the relationship in her formative years defines her life.

This is literary and beautifully written, with clear allusions to different poets and writers throughout. It's well tied together, perfectly crafted, but, oh, it's hard to read in places. This is a descent into the mind of someone who has been used and crafted by an abusive relationship as a teenager, and so every interaction she has is muddied and twisted into something dark.

This felt like an important read - it explores the idea of victimhood, love and agency. How do you conquer something when you feel like you welcomed it? How do you get over abuse without becoming a victim?

I feel like this is going to spark some excellent discussions and would make a brilliant book club read. It was definitely hard going as a reader, because of the subject matter, and because you're sitting in Vanessa's mind, knowing exactly how and why she's doing things, and you're desperately sad for her, hoping she'll break the cycle and escape the past. This isn't an uplifting book, but it's an important one. The writing was skillful.

An uncomfortable read as we discover the mechanics of grooming.

A woman in her thirties reflects on a past 'affair' when she is contacted by someone involved in an historic sex abuse case. She has always considered it an affair with an older man, who also happened to be her teacher. The book mainly focuses on how the relationship developed with sections of how her life is in the present.

The theme ultimately is about power. The teacher is thirty years older than his student and manipulates the child - young woman - into doing what he wants while pretending that she is in control. He cannot help himself and will never do anything against her will. 'Are you sure you are ok with this' is the type of thing he frequently says. He makes her believe that she is different to other teenage girls, mature, special but also dark like him. What they are doing is illegal and she will be as much to blame as him, she has the power to destroy his career and his life. Just her.

She enjoys the power over him. Flattered that someone finds this introverted and lonely girl different, talented and attractive is what she finds the most appealing thing. Never at any point does she think of him as attractive in return. She notes his grey hairs, his protruding belly and the thick body hair and no other pleasant features. In her mind he worships her and that is exhilarating and the most sensuous experience she has known in her short life. Eventually guilt, shame, victimhood and accountability are considered.

The subtle details in this account of grooming make this a gripping if slightly sickening read. There is sex and some of it is gratuitous made even more so by the fact that it is abusive, albeit unacknowledged as such. The story would benefit from being a little shorter as the parts following her move from the school (thus the end of the grooming and relationship) are a little aimless and lack the tension of the earlier story. The character's habit of chewing inside her cheek is overused to the point where is becomes trite and a tad irritating.

There is no doubt that this book is of its time in as much as the investigation of historic abuse and how we, as a global society, consider these situations. But, unlike Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which is consistently referenced, this book will not become a classic in that way. Valuable nonetheless, it is worth reading for the discussion it provokes.

I have previously (twice - about a month ago) written a thought-through review for My Dark Vanessa, only for it to evaporate into the ether. This one, then, will be shorter.

This is an intelligent novel exploring the concept of a student-teacher relationship. It would be easy, as many novels have done, to create a lily-white young victim and a monstrous predator. And to an extent, that is what Vanessa and Mr Strane are, even though neither sees the relationship quite that way.

There are multiple time lines, one with Vanessa at school as her relationship with Mr Strane takes off. Then she is at college, and now, several years later, she approaches middle age as some of Mr Starne's former students feel he deserves to be exposed.

The thing here is that Vanessa was certainly a consenting partner - and there are suggestions she might even have initiated the relationship. And it seems that Vanessa was starting a pattern, having a relationship with another tutor who, ironically, seems to be a friend of Mr Strane. Vanessa does not see herself as a victim and is appalled at the idea of joining some kind of class action against her former (and perhaps continuing) lover.

Strane, on the other hand, is a very disturbing creation. He plays power games. He asks Vanessa to role play a father-daughter scenario. He is always Mr Strane; there is never even the slightest hint of equality. And he maintains contact, and maintains this domineering contact even as Vanessa is an adult. As the journalists circle, looking for blood, Vanessa and Mr Strane send each other text messages.

My Dark Vanessa is a creepy and unsettling read that makes one question some aspects of the Me Too movement and, most of all, question how we should respond to a victim who refuses to see herself as such.

My Dark Vanessa can not at all be described as an enjoyable read, but it is a thought provoking and compelling one. It tells the story of Vanessa and her relationship with her teacher when she was fifteen years old. Rather than playing the victim she truly believes what they had was special. But when other confessions from other girls start to come forward Vanessa realises she might not have been as special or unique as she thought. It’s an interesting viewpoint to give on a very hot topic at the moment in the height of #MeToo. Vanessa’s narrative makes for a hard read as she defends and pines after her abuser. The plot brings up important discussion points on the ideas of rape and the views of society – as well as highlights the failing of the school systems at that point in time. The teacher Strane is a well-developed character – we hear all of his manipulation and justifications through her and as a reader we beg her to see sense and leave him.

The book itself changes perspective between flashbacks of the past when Vanessa is fifteen and the present where she is in her thirties and still trying to move on. My only criticism here was in the Kindle edition I read it was a little hard to tell the time jumps as they seemed to occur randomly within chapters which made it a little jolting. Perhaps a heading with the date for each jump or a simple ‘Now’ and ‘Then’ would have helped this out a little. In general, the book also seemed a little too long, although the story was engaging, we could have done with a little less of some sections - particularly towards the end. I felt the ending was a little disappointing – a missed opportunity but perhaps that is what makes the book feel realistic – there is no neat fairy-tale ending to tie it all together.

Although emotionally hard to read in places the book is engaging and flowed easily. You are easily drawn to see Vanessa’s point of view and you feel her pain throughout. Some parts of the book are triggering and uncomfortable but that’s to be expected with this subject matter.

Overall, My Dark Vanessa is a dark, uncomfortable, powerful and compelling read – just make sure to read the blurb before deciding if it’s for you. Thank you to NetGalley & 4th Estate for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s difficult to review this book as I felt uncomfortable reading some parts of it but had to keep on reading to find out whether Vanessa would come to any resolution about what happened to her. It’s such a complicated, many-layered novel, a little long perhaps but brilliantly written. It’s gripping despite the often harrowing subject matter. This book probably isn’t for everyone and at times I questioned why I was reading it but decided it was because the writing was so good and I cared deeply about what happened to Vanessa. I so wanted her to be okay. It’s a powerful and absorbing read and it makes you think. The narrative works very well all from Vanessa’s perspective and at times I thought, ‘How can she think that?’ but of course she was just 15 and what happened to her coloured the rest of her life. A difficult, impressive read.