I found this a very difficult book to read. It was very well written but the subject matter, a 15 year old student having a relationship with a 45 year old English teacher. The predatory nature of Strane was a very disturbing read as the reader could see what was happening but Vanessa seemed oblivious and thought she was in love. A powerful and gripping novel. Well done Ms Russell.

This astonishing debut is the chilling portrayal of calculated abuse of power by a teacher on a vulnerable 15-year old girl. Kate Elizabeth Russell hits exactly the right tone in her exploration of wilful manipulation masquerading as love. I found My Dark Vanessa, compulsive, disturbing and skilful. A brilliant catalyst for discussion, a must for all women book groups.

Vanessa Wye is now 32 years old, unable to move forward but equally cannot go back as she is still trapped in the memories of her first love. When she was 15 years old and her English literature teacher Jacob Strane is in his 40's - he grooms his way into her thoughts and processes until he is all she sees and hears. A small part of her is aware what they are doing is wrong but he manipulates her into thinking its her ideas, her wishes and her wants, he is happy to do what ever she wants.

Vanessa, during a therapy session with Ruby her counsellor, who is helping her get over the death of her father - finally admits bits and pieces of her past. As it all comes tumbling out that Strane phoned her then killed himself as he was being investigated.

As we switch seamlessly between high school in 2000 and current day we hear Vanessa's side, she didn't see a predator, she saw a man who she thought cared deeply for her

*A perfect thirty years between us.*

Firstly, this is one of the most uncomfortable novels that I’ve ever read.

The story follows the *“romance”* (I use the word carefully, but with intention) between 15 year old student Vanessa and her 45 year old English teacher, Jacob Strane.

The novel takes the storyline to new depths; while Vanessa is seemingly unaware of her own vulnerabilities, the reader is invited to be witness to Stranes’ planned seduction of the teenager.

The reader sees Strane as manipulative, careful and sly; but we also see him through Vanessa’s eyes - attentive, flattering and quickly at the centre of her world; courtesy of Russell’s excellent creation of her character, we understand Vanessa’s addiction to him, even if we are absolutely repulsed by him.

This novel takes a hard look at the psychological and emotional wounds of emotional abuse. The author’s profile of Strane as the perfect predator is skilful, and paired with how she writes Vanessa’s first love makes for a dark and twisted read. The reader is with Vanessa from her initial infatuation through to her final realisations of the power imbalance in the relationship and we see her reflect on the trauma of her memories at her own pace.

I highly recommend reading this, but approach it gently. It’s thought provoking, emotionally charged and an absolutely necessary piece of writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is drumming up a lot of controversy and it's well deserved.

We meet Vanessa at age 15, a new school, her love of reading, her obsession with Lolita, her desire for her teacher.

This book makes you ask some tough questions, was Vanesaa abused, or was it love? Was she manipulated or was she the instigator? No two people are going to read this book the same way, we are all going to come out of it feeling slightly different and it's going to make some great discussions.

This books comes with plenty of trigger warnings so watch out for those and research before you dive in. It's very readable but it took me a week to get through as Vanessa slipped under my skin and made me feel lost, confused and I needed to take plenty of reading breaks to digest.

Was it love or was it abuse? I think I'll forever be mulling this over, Vanessa isnt going to be a character that fades away. It's probably a complicated love that transformed into abuse which if you take away the age difference is common in a lot of relationships.

Was Vanessa munipliated or was she in instigator? Tough question, Vanessa held so much power. Maybe she was probably manipulated to instigate.

By the time you read this I'm sure my thoughts will have changed as in the 12 hours since finishing the book my feelings have changed many times, it's a complex case.

This is a book that lives in you. Its uncomfortable and unsettles your whole week and leaves you exhausted, all the things only a 5 star book can do.

Any dying to discuss with others who have read this!

My thanks to HarperCollins 4th Estate for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘My Dark Vanessa’ by Kate Elizabeth Russell in exchange for an honest review.

“I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that. Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?” - Vanessa to Ruby, her therapist.

This dark coming-of-age story deals with a difficult subject: a relationship between a 15-year-old high school student and her 45-year-old English teacher.

Vanessa Wye attends Browick, a boarding school in Maine. She’s a scholarship student who returns home on the weekends. In her sophomore year she takes American Lit, which is taught by the charismatic Jacob Strane. Her advisor says she should add an extracurricular activity to improve her college applications and suggests since Vanessa writes poetry that the Creative Writing Club would be ideal. It happens to be run by yes.. Jacob Strane! Almost immediately he begins to groom her.

The narrative of ‘My Dark Vanessa’ is split between 2017 as the #MeToo movement begins to gain momentum and 2000/2001 at Browick. In 2017, Vanessa, now 32, learns that Jacob Strane has been accused by a former student of sexual assault and is under investigation. He reaches out to Vanessa and it becomes clear that they have remained in touch, however sporadically. In addition, a reporter contacts Vanessa urging her to come forward to add her voice to the other accuser.

Russell slowly reveals how Strane had groomed Vanessa. It’s very uncomfortable reading as his predatory intentions are so clear to the reader yet Vanessa seems naively oblivious. She is caught up in what she believes is a great love story.

I felt almost physically ill when just before the 2000 Thanksgiving break Strane loans her a book saying “If I lend you this, you have to promise me not to let anyone know it was me who gave it to you.” A description of its iconic cover follows including its title: ‘Lolita’. Yuck!

‘Lolita’ is referenced often by Vanessa and a few years on her college professor questions how she knows the text so well. Her response “I told him it’s my book. That it belongs to me. I said, “You know how sometimes there’s something that’s just yours?”” It’s a very telling statement.

Russell doesn’t spare on the details of the increasingly sexual encounters between Vanessa and Strane, viewed through Vanessa’s rose-tinted glasses. Despite her making excuses about ‘age is just a number’, it’s statutory rape. While reading my inner Olivia Benson was bristling with outrage.

I elected to purchase its audiobook edition, narrated by Grace Grummer, to listen alongside reading the eARC. The audiobook edition included a bonus 30-minute conversation with Russell, Grummer, and the novel’s editor. During it Russell revealed that she had started writing this novel when she was a teenager after becoming aware how teenage girls are sexualised in our culture.

Before publication ‘My Dark Vanessa’ was subject to online controversy that resulted in Russell coming forward with a statement that it had been “inspired by my own experiences as a teenager” and that initially her publisher had “tried to protect my boundaries by including a reminder to readers that the novel is fiction.”

While I appreciated this ‘note to readers’, I wish that it hadn’t been necessary. The rawness of Vanessa’s account made it quite obvious to me that it had either been inspired by personal experience or Russell being close to someone who had been groomed and exploited. Yet apparently this is the world we currently live in. I salute her courage in coming forward.

She concludes with: “My greatest wish is that My Dark Vanessa will spark conversation about the complexity of coercion, trauma, and victimhood, because while these stories can feel all too familiar, victims are not a monolith and there is no universal experience of sexual violence.”

I found this a powerful and gripping novel. It’s not going to appeal to everyone though I feel that it is an important topic and that Russell has poured her soul into her narrative. An astonishing debut that I feel well deserved the praise that it has received from a number of established authors.

I would expect given its subject matter and the quality of the writing that it will prove a good choice for reading groups as it’s bound to provide plenty of material for discussion.

Highly recommended with the caveat that aspects may be triggering for some readers.

This is a very intense and powerful book that is very well written but certainly not for the faint hearted with the dark subject matter of child grooming.
This book will stay with me for a very long time!

A big dream becomes true when 15-year-old Vanessa Wye is accepted at Browick, an expensive boarding school with an excellent educational programme. Immediately she is hooked by her literature teacher, Jacob Strane, who opens the world of books to her. But this is not the only world he introduces her to. It all starts with some glances, some minutes he makes her linger after class, a careless and random touch until it is what it should not be: sexual abuse of a minor and a student. However, this is just one view, for Vanessa, it is her first love, the first time somebody pays attention to her, tells her she is pretty, appreciates her mind and opinion. Of course, a secret relationship like this will not go unnoticed and when Strane and Vanessa are confronted with the accusations, it is her who is expelled. More than 15 years later, she still wonders how all this could have gone so wrong, they were only in love, that’s all.

Kate Elizabeth Russel’s novel really is a hell of a read. Using the first person narrator perspective, you climb into Vanessa’s head and get her thinking without any filter. More than once I was stunned, abhorred, terrified or just could shake my head in disbelieve. This girl – even as a grown up woman – is totally captured in her construction of the world, her oftentimes limited capacities of assessing a situation and the naivety with which she confronts her treacherous teacher is one of the best and highly authentic characters I have read about in a while. Even though I could hardly be farther away in my own thinking, I can easily imagine that her state of mind can be found in many girls who are insecure and a bit detached from her classmates.

This novel certainly is not for the highly sensitive. Child abuse and sexual harassment have been topics I have been faced with in my job and in my opinion, “My Dark Vanessa” is a superb example of how a molester gets closer to his victim and which techniques of manipulation he can use to make a girl or woman comply with his wishes. Blaming the victim for what has happened is one of the most loathsome strategies but quite typical and more than once I cringed while reading. Several times, Vanessa senses that something is not right, she feels maybe not abused but her wishes and needs are not respected but she does not possess the mental force or the words to express her position. Even when she is older, it takes some time for her to say it out loud what all that happened has to be called. Possibly her own understanding helped her to cope with the situation better than others, nevertheless, at 32, she is a total mess and far from mentally stable.

A wonderful novel in many respects. Not an easy topic to write about, but an exceptional development of the characters and by using flashbacks also an excellent way of presenting two interpretations of the same incident, the younger and the older Vanessa are not the same anymore. “My Dark Vanessa” was highly praised as one of the most remarkable and important debuts of 2020 – I could hardly agree more with this.

A disconcerting novel of our times In this authors first novel. It links to the “Me Too” . Vanessa relates the intricacies of her relationship with Strane 40 years her senior but at the start of their ‘affair’ her teacher. They met when she was 15 and he lured her into his trap so that she felt that she was special and in love with him.?He is manipulative and she desperate to belong. Her true angst and journey to realisation starts years later as she is in a dead end job and another girl, Taylor, exposes Strane as a paedophile.
This is not an easy read with some harrowing passages and I feel it was a bit lengthy with some repititious thought meanderings.

"To be groomed is to be loved, tended to, handled like a precious delicate thing"

Very few books have the courage to tackle such a difficult subject with such honesty and that is what makes this book beautiful. My Dark Vanessa follows a 15 year old student who has an affair with her 45 year old English teacher. Russell manages to communicate so effectively how alluring being groomed is and how abuse is often romanticised by survivors in the aftermath. This book is so important. Not an easy read but a worthwhile one. Fantastic debut from Kate Russell; thoroughly recommend.

I was desperate to like this book. Absolutely desperate. The story sounded interesting, surrounded in darkness and drama but honestly it felt like a story from a real life magazine that was drawn out into a novel.

The editing hasn't been done for the download and there was no breaks to show when the story changed from the past to future so that made it harder to read.

The ending bored me so much I skipped the last 10 pages and just went for the last paragraph.

I wouldn't recommend this book.

Vanessa was 15 years old when she became involved with her 45 year old teacher. Now in her thirties, she finds the teacher accused of abuse by other past students and must come to terms with what happened to her as a teenager.

This book is incredibly hard to read and utterly devastating. It brilliantly captures the world of a teenage girl, romanticising everything in her life, and also the doubt, uncertainty, questions and self-blame that so often comes with abuse. The novel very well-written, with tight prose and intimate descriptions. It is also riddled with literary allusions to Nabokov, cleverly adding layers to the story. Russell shows us exactly how Strane, the teacher, grooms and manipulates Vanessa, how he cultivates doubt, disbelief and dependency. The writing is incredibly effective and will make your skin crawl and your stomach wrench. As well as laying bare the horrors of the abuse, Russell exposes some of the implications of the MeToo movement with astute nuance - particularly how the movement allowed women who didn't speak up to be blamed for not preventing abuse.

The pacing does lag in the second half of the novel as it becomes more and more difficult to read the abuse. However, Russell does wonderfully illustrate Vanessa's shifting perspective, the way her voice and thoughts develop and her rollercoaster of realisation, suppressing the evidence that the relationship is abusive because it is too painful, but finally coming to a full understanding. At times the detailed descriptions of the physical abuse can feel almost gratuitous, even eroticising it. Obviously the purpose of this is to present it from Vanessa's romanticised perspective but it is potentially excessive.

I certainly wouldn't say I enjoyed reading this book, but I do think it was a necessary and important story to tell, and it is a very clever and well written exploration of the issue.

My Dark Vanessa is the debut novel from Kate Elizabeth Russell which looks at the relationship of a pupil and her English teacher at a boarding school, what at first appears to be a case of a teacher with a favourite pupil takes a dark turn as Strane starts to push Vanessa's boundaries and essentially starts grooming her.  Having recently fallen out with her best friend Vanessa welcomes the extra attention and English becomes her best subject, giving Strane plenty of excuses to lend her books and offer to critique writing away from the eyes of other pupils and staff.

Vanessa narrates from 2000 when she's fifteen and returning for her second year at Browick boarding school and from 2017 when she's 32 and working in a hotel and still in touch with Jacob Strane; their relationship is extremely complicated as Vanessa still struggles to see why everyone aware of their situation sees her as a victim and encourages her to speak out as others have begun to do.

I became very quickly engrossed in this and couldn't put it down despite it sometimes being difficult to read just because of the subject matter and this book did feel a bit like this book took over my life outside work for two days.  It didn't take long to feel emotionally involved, its a book that had me trying to shout at Vanessa through the page, just wanting the story to take a different turn and for the teenager to just walk away.

Towards the end, I did think this really lost its way which is what for me personally pulled this book down to 3 stars. We follow young Vanessa from the age of fifteen through to the end of college and personally I didn't think it needed those extra few years of her life.  Despite that I'd still highly recommend people read this and I think it'll be everywhere for the months following its release; there are probably quite a few people who may prefer to avoid this book because of the subject matter, I think it's fair to warn people that the rape scenes are quite graphic in parts but I did think it was well written and those parts were handled well, they added impact and to the depth of Vanessa and Strane's complicated relationship rather just being there to take up page space.

This is a dark and compelling read that will make you think and keep hooked. An amazing read with a great theme that will make you wonder and raise a lot of questions.
The author is a talented storyteller and you cannot help being involved in the plot following the evolution of the plot and the changes in the characters.
I don't know if I liked Vanessa or not, she's a complex characters who must face something huge and terrible.
I know I loved this book in all its parts: storytelling, character development and plot.
It was an excellent read, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A dark yet captivating read! 15 year old Vanessa becomes entangled in a relationship with her 42 year old English teacher, Mr Strane. She is intelligent but naive, he is charismatic but creepy. Years later, allegations against Mr Strane surface from another student, that send Vanessa spiralling. This victim wants Vanessa to come forward too, but she views their relationship in a skewed way - was it abuse when she loved him? Alternating between the past and present, I couldn't put this book down. Some parts were horrifying; Vanessa is clearly being groomed but she can't see past the man who kneels at her feet and apparently worships her brain as well as her being. This might be a tough read for some but I'd say stick with it. This is an impressive debut that perfectly the captured the bloom of first love and the horror of such manipulation.

Dark Vanessa- Boy I didn’t know how dark this story was going to be. But I should have know from the title.
Bright, ambitious Vanessa a fifteen year old in that space between teenager and adulthood becomes entangled with her professor Jacob Strane.
Strane who she meets at The Browick School in Norumbega is a predatory forty five year old man.
The story moves between her teenage self and as a thirty two year old working in a dead end job and attending counselling and who still is under the influence of her old professor.
Strane uses a number of authors in his class for seducing her to enlighten Vanessa and introduces the book Lolita to her.
As Vanessa believes she is the only one that Strane loves, the story unfolds to reveal that another young woman is is pressing charges against Strane and wants to talk to Vanessa about their shared abuser.
This book is so real and is very difficult to read. The author has wrote this with such rawness you believe that it’s about her. But she actually reveals that it isn’t.
I was frustrated, sad, nauseated and deeply upset when I read this.
I was disappointed in the end as I felt that it just another day of sadness for the character - there was no future for her.
The writing was engaging and moving and hats off to this new novelist.
The reduced stars are simply for the jolting around throughout the story between past and present which I felt created the lack of flow and the fact that
I can say I enjoyed the book but I can see others loving it. Be prepared for a novel that rips your insides out if you choose to read it.
Thank you for the advanced copy.

Dark and utterly compelling, this story describes in detail the complexity of a relationship where all the power is one sided. The narrator is deeply troubled, and pulls the reader into an unsettling state as she takes us through the twists of her past and present, hinting at possible futures.
Although definitely a book to come with a trigger warning for survivors of sexual abuse, nothing here is gratuitous or misplaced. The writing is flawless, the characters (too) real.

A very thought provoking book. We written. Making you think about grooming and how the teenage mind perceives it. Very appropriate book in this current climate of historical abuse cases.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the Arc in return for an honest review.
#mydarkvanessa #kateelizabethrussell #netgalley.

This a dark but also gripping. I did struggle with the details of abuse and grooming and the fact I have daughters, but it also opened my eyes and ears to what is more than likely to happen.
Would not recommend to those who have been through anything similar.
Thank you to Netgalley, Elizabeth Russell and 4th Estate for this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion

A very good portrait of how one thing can lead to another. Not always an easy or comfortable book to read, as it cuts deep, but perhaps that’s why it’s an important one to make time for.