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challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“No,” she says, “you didn’t fail me. Or, if you did, then I did, too. I knew he’d hurt other girls and it still took me years to do anything about it.” She looks up at me then, her eyes two blue pools. “What could we have done? We were just girls.”
I know what she means—not that we were helpless by choice, but that the world forced us to be. Who would have believed us, who would have cared?
Beautiful and terrible. This book healed something in me that I wasn’t expecting. Yes, it was incredibly triggering, dark, and harrowing. Seriously, if you have experienced abuse or are at all sensitive to abuse, PLEASE be careful picking this up. It is grim. There is no joy, and Vanessa experiences nothing but pain throughout the entirety of the book.
That being said, the themes that Kate Elizabeth Russell tackles are masterfully done. This novel is compared to Lolita for obvious reasons (and Lolita plays a huge part in the story as well), but the author adds a layer of complexity that brings it to relevancy in the modern era.
Vanessa (our stand-in Dolores) is very deliberately aged up to 15. She is young and naïve, but beginning to understand the adult world, adult desires, and grappling with emotions and feelings that many girls know too well. I appreciated Vanessa’s character so much. Typically, when you read stories about abuse from the POV of those who experience it, they tend to be pictured very specifically; bright-eyed and innocent, they unknowingly wander into the wolf’s den and are snatched up and devoured. There’s almost a sense of tip-toeing around darker characterizations and inner worlds, a fear of adding complications to the “perfect victim”. Vanessa, however, is realistic and complicated. She’s reeling with teenaged melancholy, trying to make sense of big feelings that nobody understands. She feels invisible, like she doesn’t matter and nobody notices her. So, when she’s presented with the opportunity to push the boundaries of what is right, and finds a supply of attention and adoration, she pushes it. She is naïve as any teenager is, but there is part of her that thinks she likes the danger and the attention.
Of course, she is innocent, just as innocent as 12-year-old Dolores or any other young person who experiences abuse. In no way am I implying that she deserved anything that happened to her, or implying that she was “asking for it”. Nor do I believe that she had “a darkness” within her that caused her to seek these things out (something that Jacob Strane uses to groom her and convince her that something is wrong with her). She is a young girl experiencing big feelings in a world where young girls with big feelings are at best swept under the rug, and at worst ridiculed and humiliated. She’s too young to understand the depth of what is happening to her and the lasting consequences the experiences will have, but she’s not young enough that she doesn’t at least slightly understand her own desires and autonomy. Her relationship with Jacob Strane is, in a twisted way, her way to feel some sort of control and empowerment in a time where she has none. This is the sort of complexity that My Dark Vanessa seeks to explore.
Along the same lines, Jacob Strane is a better-written antagonist than is usually shown in these sorts of stories. I can’t say he is necessarily complex, since we don’t get his POV and he isn’t the focus of the story, but I appreciated the way the author chose to write him. In the book, he isn’t unbelievably handsome, incredibly intelligent or wealthy, or irresistibly charismatic. In fact, he’s an off-putting weirdo with anger issues and Vanessa herself admits that he is ugly, that he disgusts her. He doesn’t even know how to cook anything besides toast and eggs. In the scenes where he manipulates and gaslights Vanessa, he is clearly pathetic, an insecure worm that needs constant reassurance from a teenager that he isn’t a bad person. He isn’t a supervillain mastermind who is able to manipulate anyone on a whim and turn the whole world against you. He’s simply an average man that exists in a system that enables him to take advantage of his position and power with no consequences. The scenes of manipulation and gaslighting are so chillingly well-done, although sometimes I felt like the author held the reader’s hand a bit too much, I understand why with such a sensitive subject.
In that, the author also dips her toe into critiquing the systems in place that protect abusers like Jacob Strane. The school is complicit, with so many adults turning the other way, or making a cute joke out of Jacob Strane and Vanessa’s clearly inappropriate relationship. It also asks the question, when young girls are isolated by design, at once sexualized and infantilized, minimized and disbelieved, at what point are we all complicit in the abuse they face? The contemporary inclusion of modern movements such as #MeToo and social media storms expound upon these questions even more. What makes someone a victim? What happens when the victim isn’t perfect, when the victim isn’t a rule-abiding, modest little girl with braces and pigtails? What if the victim doesn’t believe they are a victim? Or a survivor? How much responsibility should be placed on the shoulders of victims to speak out, and how helpful is it really for predatory journalists and activists to get involved? This book will challenge you if you haven’t already deconstructed your preconceived idea of victimhood.
Although it’s a smaller part of the story, I found Vanessa’s experience as an adult reconciling her memories of the relationship to be so well done. Again, in stories like this, there tends to be one narrative that follows the same plot beats. The victim fights, gets justice, goes to therapy, heals, maybe finds a new healthy relationship and lives happily ever after. The one thing I would have liked to see just a bit more of was an exploration of Vanessa’s relationship with her mother. The scenes we got between them were so dynamic and nuanced, and I think the author would have done a great job pushing it a bit further. I still found their relationship to be realistic and accurate. Not only is Vanessa dealing with the lifelong repercussions of the abuse, how can the relationship between mother and daughter move forward when she so obviously failed Vanessa? It’s such an interesting bit of the story.
And finally, I connected so much to the ending. It reminded me a lot of I’m Glad My Mom Died,
Overall, I found My Dark Vanessa to be a realistic, if horrifying, depiction of the realities of girlhood and survivorship, and a poignant critique on systems that allow abuse of power to be so pervasive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Stalking, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Physical abuse
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Suicide, Death of parent
Please be very careful and take care of yourself if you are sensitive. The author does not hold back on any of the graphic scenes.
Also, there are multiple graphic depictions of dissociation and depersonalization, so if you are sensitive to that please be careful.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
Strong character development:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Gaslighting
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Gaslighting
dark
emotional
sad
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well written for sure. But my rating system is for how I enjoyed the book and that is between "it was OK" (2) and "didn't like it" (1). This was VERY hard to read and I can't help thinking that a victim who is so far deluded into thinking she's not a victim is just legitimizing the arguments of people who think like Vanessa. ‘She gave consent, she knew what she wanted, men are just being vilified for no reason, how terrible for these poor guys’. To me that’s clearly not the author's point, but if someone does think that way and they read this book, I doubt they're going to have a change of heart.
An acquaintance in public health recently said something along the lines of “if you believe there’s false information out there and you don’t want to propagate it further, don’t repeat it, even to refute it. Don’t give it oxygen.” And having been in the middle of reading My Dark Vanessa when I heard this I thought “yes, this! Russell is giving so much oxygen to the plight of the abuser and the supposed fault of the victim.”
An acquaintance in public health recently said something along the lines of “if you believe there’s false information out there and you don’t want to propagate it further, don’t repeat it, even to refute it. Don’t give it oxygen.” And having been in the middle of reading My Dark Vanessa when I heard this I thought “yes, this! Russell is giving so much oxygen to the plight of the abuser and the supposed fault of the victim.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Gaslighting
Minor: Vomit
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Medical content, Death of parent, Alcohol, Sexual harassment
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Alcohol
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia
Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Alcohol
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
before anything else i have to praise the author kate elizabeth russell for her outstanding talent. i also want to praise the narrator of the audiobook version, grace gummer. every voice was distinct and clear in subtle but obvious ways. i loved the way gummer changed her tone, from grey and melancholy in the opening chapter in the novels present, to the bright and optimistic chiming of the hopeful past.
the one thing i really loved about this book is the tone. while the voice acting was emotive and powerful, i dont think gummer could have done it without such fantastic text to work from. at some points i was nearly crawling out of my skin with the suspense, my stomach churning with nausea. the time and setting also felt incredibly real. my absolute favorite usage of this was during 2001 when we as readers know 9/11 is going to happen. during that year the protagonists life is completely falling apart and i held my breath, waiting to see what russell does with the ticking time bomb she placed before us. ive read a few books where 9/11 looms large in the distance (my year of rest and relaxation being the big one i can recall), almost as a climax. yet when 9/11 does happen, we only get a short paragraph and a diary entry. even the largest terrorist attack on US soil registers so low on her radar that she cant help but drown in her own personal despair.
horror and so-called disturbing novels love to toss sexual violence, especially against children or other vulnerable people, into the mix in an attempt to shock you. its shocking because abuse is shocking. there is no moment in my dark vanessa where the reader can become acclimated to the violence because this sort of grooming and child sexual abuse are not one-time events. grooming by definition is a process and can continue long after any sort of sexual violence occurs. short of closing the book entirely, the reader doesnt have the ability to look away from the abuse. the protagonist, vanessa wye, spends her entire life dealing with the consequences. she is groomed for decades, long after she becomes a consenting adult.
perhaps the most difficult part of the book to talk about are the characters. gummers narration and russells writing really brought them to life for me, with each one receiving a distinct voice and mannerism to their speech. jacob strane is absolutely despicable, a revolting near-caricature who does everything a teacher shouldnt. in fact, he was such an obvious villain that i felt constantly like i should be rolling my eyes at how cliche and trite strane is. yet, the novel resisted all outside interpretation. we see the world in a tight and claustrophobic first person, and through vanessas eyes we are unable to loathe or recognize strane as the obvious pedophile he is. its perhaps russells greatest triumph as a writer because it would be easy for someone acting in bad faith to dismiss vanessa entirely if we didnt see what she saw.
in fact, i have a hard time explaining vanessa because i dont want to call her a victim or survivor. its a label she spends much of the book resisting, and i want to respect that agency. on the other hand, she was undoubtedly victimized. what agency she thinks she is clinging to was long ripped away from by a man three times her age. vanessa says she was willing, that she was also responsible for what happened to her. she takes the blame, allows her life to collapse. its her agency, you see. she has agency. power. its the narrative we tell ourselves as a society, that teenage girls hold greater power than they do, that they tempt older men into corrupting and victimizing them. they can only be victims if they allow it. how can the reader blame vanessa for refusing the victim label?
as a necessary aside, here in brazil, the age of consent is 14, unless the childs parents intervene through the legal system. in my head, if a 14 year old could truly consent to sex with an adult, why would there even be a clause written into the law that specifies a parent can stop the relationship, presumably against the childs wishes? you are a victim only if your PARENTS, and then the COURTS, believe it is so. the child has no agency either way. this is a violent contradiction written into the laws of a country where almost 2/3s of sexual abuse cases are of children under 14, where elective abortion is illegal and punishable by up to a year in prison, where congress attempts to pass laws punishing victims pursuing LEGAL abortions, where judges routinely bar abortions even in instances where the law permits it, where healthcare workers leak information when a child requires an abortion, where churches will regularly bus out their congregations to hospitals to stop the abortions performed on ten year old children in order to 'save a life'. i needed to write this because these people will blame the child at every step of the way, that she seduced a man who was unable to stop himself because that 14 year old was a whore. she asked for it. what was he to do? he is innocent. the girl could never be innocent. humbert humbert lives snugly in the hearts of 'pro lifers.'
vanessa often comes across as both painfully naive and deliberately heartless in a way that makes my hands sweat. she is such a REAL person. we know a vanessa. maybe we might be her. she sees herself as a willing participant and we are told through her eyes that she romantacizes the abuse she experienced to others despite never actually seeing her do it in the text. these contradictions seep into every aspect of the story. she had sex at 15, but she was crying, her body resisting. it was sex in her later justifications, but the description was of a rape. the contradictions continue as vanessa struggles with the me too movement and other girls coming forward about the abuse strane put them through. when she is confronted by another survivor who discusses her own abuse, vanessa in response says 'thats it?' and i felt all the air evaporate from the lungs. we know a vanessa. we might even be her.
another theme woven throughout the book is the powerful isolation of abuse. strane constantly tells her she will be branded forever, a red letter of shame, for the crime of being victimized. whats horrific is that he is right. to this day people will mock people like monica lewinski or rose mcgowen or britney spears for the abuse they suffered at the hands of men seeking to flex their power over them. lolita is a reoccurring leitmotif, a romantic story of a pedophile raping a girl (written by a man who was perhaps not as unsympathetic to child abuse as one might think), and vanessa never seems to fully and consciously deconstruct what any of it might mean.
its hard to believe this is a debut novel. my dark vanessa has given me so much to think about, none of them easy. this is not an easy novel, but abuse is not easy. untangling what it all means is painful and violent and disorientating. often its bigger than ourselves and requires institutional and societal intervention. as the novel reminds us, we were just girls, our power taken and never returned even upon adulthood. but one day we can live apart from our abusers. we can be more. we must be more in order to continue.
the one thing i really loved about this book is the tone. while the voice acting was emotive and powerful, i dont think gummer could have done it without such fantastic text to work from. at some points i was nearly crawling out of my skin with the suspense, my stomach churning with nausea. the time and setting also felt incredibly real. my absolute favorite usage of this was during 2001 when we as readers know 9/11 is going to happen. during that year the protagonists life is completely falling apart and i held my breath, waiting to see what russell does with the ticking time bomb she placed before us. ive read a few books where 9/11 looms large in the distance (my year of rest and relaxation being the big one i can recall), almost as a climax. yet when 9/11 does happen, we only get a short paragraph and a diary entry. even the largest terrorist attack on US soil registers so low on her radar that she cant help but drown in her own personal despair.
horror and so-called disturbing novels love to toss sexual violence, especially against children or other vulnerable people, into the mix in an attempt to shock you. its shocking because abuse is shocking. there is no moment in my dark vanessa where the reader can become acclimated to the violence because this sort of grooming and child sexual abuse are not one-time events. grooming by definition is a process and can continue long after any sort of sexual violence occurs. short of closing the book entirely, the reader doesnt have the ability to look away from the abuse. the protagonist, vanessa wye, spends her entire life dealing with the consequences. she is groomed for decades, long after she becomes a consenting adult.
perhaps the most difficult part of the book to talk about are the characters. gummers narration and russells writing really brought them to life for me, with each one receiving a distinct voice and mannerism to their speech. jacob strane is absolutely despicable, a revolting near-caricature who does everything a teacher shouldnt. in fact, he was such an obvious villain that i felt constantly like i should be rolling my eyes at how cliche and trite strane is. yet, the novel resisted all outside interpretation. we see the world in a tight and claustrophobic first person, and through vanessas eyes we are unable to loathe or recognize strane as the obvious pedophile he is. its perhaps russells greatest triumph as a writer because it would be easy for someone acting in bad faith to dismiss vanessa entirely if we didnt see what she saw.
in fact, i have a hard time explaining vanessa because i dont want to call her a victim or survivor. its a label she spends much of the book resisting, and i want to respect that agency. on the other hand, she was undoubtedly victimized. what agency she thinks she is clinging to was long ripped away from by a man three times her age. vanessa says she was willing, that she was also responsible for what happened to her. she takes the blame, allows her life to collapse. its her agency, you see. she has agency. power. its the narrative we tell ourselves as a society, that teenage girls hold greater power than they do, that they tempt older men into corrupting and victimizing them. they can only be victims if they allow it. how can the reader blame vanessa for refusing the victim label?
as a necessary aside, here in brazil, the age of consent is 14, unless the childs parents intervene through the legal system. in my head, if a 14 year old could truly consent to sex with an adult, why would there even be a clause written into the law that specifies a parent can stop the relationship, presumably against the childs wishes? you are a victim only if your PARENTS, and then the COURTS, believe it is so. the child has no agency either way. this is a violent contradiction written into the laws of a country where almost 2/3s of sexual abuse cases are of children under 14, where elective abortion is illegal and punishable by up to a year in prison, where congress attempts to pass laws punishing victims pursuing LEGAL abortions, where judges routinely bar abortions even in instances where the law permits it, where healthcare workers leak information when a child requires an abortion, where churches will regularly bus out their congregations to hospitals to stop the abortions performed on ten year old children in order to 'save a life'. i needed to write this because these people will blame the child at every step of the way, that she seduced a man who was unable to stop himself because that 14 year old was a whore. she asked for it. what was he to do? he is innocent. the girl could never be innocent. humbert humbert lives snugly in the hearts of 'pro lifers.'
vanessa often comes across as both painfully naive and deliberately heartless in a way that makes my hands sweat. she is such a REAL person. we know a vanessa. maybe we might be her. she sees herself as a willing participant and we are told through her eyes that she romantacizes the abuse she experienced to others despite never actually seeing her do it in the text. these contradictions seep into every aspect of the story. she had sex at 15, but she was crying, her body resisting. it was sex in her later justifications, but the description was of a rape. the contradictions continue as vanessa struggles with the me too movement and other girls coming forward about the abuse strane put them through. when she is confronted by another survivor who discusses her own abuse, vanessa in response says 'thats it?' and i felt all the air evaporate from the lungs. we know a vanessa. we might even be her.
another theme woven throughout the book is the powerful isolation of abuse. strane constantly tells her she will be branded forever, a red letter of shame, for the crime of being victimized. whats horrific is that he is right. to this day people will mock people like monica lewinski or rose mcgowen or britney spears for the abuse they suffered at the hands of men seeking to flex their power over them. lolita is a reoccurring leitmotif, a romantic story of a pedophile raping a girl (written by a man who was perhaps not as unsympathetic to child abuse as one might think), and vanessa never seems to fully and consciously deconstruct what any of it might mean.
its hard to believe this is a debut novel. my dark vanessa has given me so much to think about, none of them easy. this is not an easy novel, but abuse is not easy. untangling what it all means is painful and violent and disorientating. often its bigger than ourselves and requires institutional and societal intervention. as the novel reminds us, we were just girls, our power taken and never returned even upon adulthood. but one day we can live apart from our abusers. we can be more. we must be more in order to continue.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Stalking
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use