Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Meine dunkle Vanessa: Roman

Thoroughly enjoyed (if that’s the right word) this book and blitzed it in a day which speaks volumes! Undoubtedly very important subject matter, I love the nuance it creates and shows that survivors go through a plethora of emotions within themselves and that it isn’t one size fits all and that we change and grow and learn things about ourselves and those around us. I think it’s really important that Vanessa is a 3D character as it makes her much more realistic, and we can contrast her way of thinking to Taylor’s which creates sympathy for our protagonist, and hopefully makes any young girls reading this book aware of consent! I think my only issue is that in the early stages of the book, it does feel that their relationship is romanticised, especially the sex scenes. Now I understand the whole point is that Vanessa romanticises these moments, but I think it could be clearer how disturbing these moments are and them be less ‘romantic.’ It’s a tricky one! As I say, the book is full of nuance but I think this could have been a little better executed. But all in all, really important and written in a way that encapsulates so much of a huge but necessary topic.

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cr_valentine's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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madreadings's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“He was a grown man and you were fifteen.”
“Vanessa, you didn’t ask for that. You were just trying to go to school.”

Absolutely dark and sad reading, one that will stick with you far long after you put the book down. Vanessa still cannot fully accept the abuse she faced for years, still wrapped in the web that Strane had spun for her. Even as the novel flashes back to the present, Vanessa never sees what happened to her as “rape-rape.”

She is perhaps one of the most realistic victims I’ve read — one still refusing to see herself as one, unable to see anything that happened to her as beyond a love story. She even admits this, saying if it wasn’t a love story what else could it have been.

Stories like this are important when it was published and even more so as time goes on

Content Warnings