My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell – 384 pages
ARC courtesy of William Morrow for an honest review
Book Blurb:
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?
My Review: 4.5 stars
My Dark Vanessa was hard for me to get into. Not because it was too slow, or I didn’t like the writing, but because the subject matter of the novel was dark and heavy. It’s a taboo subject making it a hard book to read, and I almost hate giving this novel such a good rating because of its disturbing nature, but if the book makes me feel so much, it gets what it deserves.
The story has parallel perspectives from the same character. One is that of a 15-year-old girl who falls in love with her teacher and the other of a 15-year-old who is groomed, abused & manipulated by a predatory teacher three times her age. Vanessa, the protagonist of the novel, lives under the impression that the relationship she had with Strane, her English teacher, was real and consensual. She wasn’t a victim of rape, nor was she coerced into having a relationship with him. They had a meaningful and magical affair; one she still yearns for. But at the age of 15-years-old, would she have the wisdom to realize she was a victim? Could she somehow have been complicit in their relationship, given her age and his position of power?
The novel takes place in alternating timelines of the past and present, which allows the author to thrust us into Vanessa’s life. I felt like I was living through what she was. The author did a fabulous job of not “telling” me how she felt about Strane; I was able feel her truth as she did. And that’s what made part of this novel so hard to read – because I understood how she thought she was in love, while understanding that she was 100% groomed and a victim.
You’ll finish this book and want to talk with someone about it ASAP, just to wrap your head around her situation. This book contains a lot of sensitive content, and wasn’t easy read at times, but the power of this novel and how it leaves you feeling incredibly unsettled makes it well worth the read.
Quotes I liked:
I carry his books with me, reading them whenever I can, every spare few minutes and through every meal.”
“I start to realize the point isn’t really whether I like the books or not; it’s more about him giving me different lenses to see myself through. The poems are clues to help me understand why he’s so interested, what it is exactly that he sees in me.”
“I never would have done it if you weren’t so willing,” he’d said. It sounds like delusion. What girl would want what he did to me? But it’s the truth, whether anyone believes it or not. Driven toward it, driven toward him, I was the kind of girl that isn’t supposed to exist: one eager to hurl herself into the path of a pedophile. But no, that word isn’t right, never has been. It’s a cop-out, a lie in the way it’s wrong to call me a victim and nothing more. He was never so simple; neither was I.”
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