Reviews with content warning for Violence - My Dark Vanessa

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

56 reviews

angrboda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

wow. this book has been on my “READ THIS BOOK NOW!!!” list for over a year.. finally decided to pick it up and oh my god. i finished in the span of only two days. it was impossible to put down. it was horrifying, thought provoking, and completely messed up. the honest pain i felt when reading it; i had to take breaks everytime it got too much. i definitely see myself in the main character, vanessa, gone through a similar experience she did. i think this story did an amazing job at portraying how accurate abuse is, how it’s so easy to manipulate and control young girls who eventually spend their entire lives not understanding that what happened was bad. this book is will stick with me for a long time.

as much as i loved the writing and the plot development, i wished for the downfall of stane SO badly. i despised him. i was manifesting some sort of revenge plot in the last portion, where vanessa finally exposed all he did, where stane finally admits defeat and is thrown in jail for life. the constant dismissal and disrespect vanessa had over the situations made me mad, i honestly disliked so many of her choices, but it’s so real. she’s so real. her mind is corrupted, she’s gone. she’s split off permanently and it’s so real. so real.

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moonamidheaven's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

beautiful and compelling writing, heartfelt, tender, overall a very important and insightful book to read on the topic of trauma and coming to terms with it.

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amreippl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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eittitehteerf's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense fast-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

the amount of times i wanted to flung this masterpiece of a book against the wall… well a lot. this book swallowed me whole,, it’s not letting me go, move on.

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heathergeorge's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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whittaker's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is so difficult and yet so captivating that it's hard to truly sum it up. Ultimately, it is hard to love Vanessa in the world of Me Too (and sometimes our own stories) but her story is so important. Her story is the perfect example of how trauma can manifest and whilst I understand the criticism that the story might be romanticising, I don't think it is. It's written from a victim's point of view and so we witness her try and romanticise it - and she references this so much. She is an unreliable narrator but it's the perfect example of how being groomed at a young age can warp your sense of reality - and when we read what Strane does, says, there is no doubt in our mind that he is a pedophile. We witness her go through this trauma and then as an adult come to terms with it - we can see the inconsistencies as she remembers things differently as an adult.

She states directly that when he first had sex (well, rape) with her, it was rape at the time - she said no, didn't want it, forced it - she even recalls times he ignored her "no"s or when she was clearly forced into it, even when he would do it when she was asleep. But when she's older she's forgotten this, states it was never rape, she was into it (ignoring statutory rape). It's so clear as a reader that this is the product of being groomed and raped - she's dissociating, has memory blocks and is also trying to convince herself that she wanted it, because if she didn't then she has to come to terms with what happens <\spoilers> Vanessa does things we don't like, but I think it's needed to explore this trauma - how it manifests, how a victim doesn't have to be a "good" victim. We see all the different ways she has been affected by this, and how disgusting it is that she was put through this, continuously held in this loop and failed by everyone.

I don't think this is a book to be read by everyone, and especially not by people who may miss nuance, or who may romanticise it - I'm sure if I was very young when I read this I might've missed the gaslighting and grooming. I also think with the graphic descriptions this book would be incredibly difficult for a grooming or rape victim to read. But that isn't to say that this book hasn't stuck with me, changed me somewhat.

Content Warnings