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jessicaharper's review against another edition
2.0
this book was fucked and every single character, especially Vanessa, was insufferable. I was extremely uncomfortable for a majority of the book and that didn’t end with the ending. ugh I feel gross after reading this
raenoel's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. What an intense read. Compelling from the first page to the last and impossible to put down. I listened to this and would just like to say the narrator was phenomenal.
It’s obviously dark, hence the title, and such a well done twist on how grooming more regularly takes place. People lost in it and felt to believe they aren’t the victims because they were made to believe they wanted it to happen to them. How it more often takes years into adulthood to realize that what happened was not okay and was not actually something they had control over. This is such an important message to put out there and in my personal interviews with children in similar situations, this is how most of them feel but it’s not often represented this way. Such a tragic story that was so beautifully written it made my heart hurt. 1000 stars.
It’s obviously dark, hence the title, and such a well done twist on how grooming more regularly takes place. People lost in it and felt to believe they aren’t the victims because they were made to believe they wanted it to happen to them. How it more often takes years into adulthood to realize that what happened was not okay and was not actually something they had control over. This is such an important message to put out there and in my personal interviews with children in similar situations, this is how most of them feel but it’s not often represented this way. Such a tragic story that was so beautifully written it made my heart hurt. 1000 stars.
matmatmatty's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-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? Yes
4.5
A very difficult book to read, but I think very important.
Would recommend checking out CWs for this, but I think this is so beautifully written.
Made me very uncomfortable at times but that's the mark of good writing.
Would recommend checking out CWs for this, but I think this is so beautifully written.
Made me very uncomfortable at times but that's the mark of good writing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual content
Moderate: Suicide, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Drug use and Alcohol
olivialovescats2002's review against another edition
5.0
I am destroyed. I have cried so many times throughout this book, it felt as though the author reached into my chest and grabbed my heart and SQUEEZED. As though she was reading my past, and putting pen to paper. Please read at your own discretion, but seriously 5/5 stars for how emotionally gripping this was.
nmjacques's review against another edition
5.0
What a brave and powerful and delicate and complicated piece of writing! For anyone who has experienced a relationship with an imbalance of power — due to age, professional situation, personal dynamics, etc. — this book will make you question it in multiple ways. Is it possible to love someone and/or be loved by someone who is socially or legally or morally or intellectually inappropriate for you? Is it wrong that the power imbalance is part of the attraction? And who gets to decide whether the relationship is socially or legally or morally or intellectually inappropriate?
Russell navigates the confused waters of this ocean-sized issue with a seasoned mariner's steady hand on the wheel. This is a love story or an abuse story or both between a precocious student and her iniquitous instructor. "My Dark Vanessa" is a new "Lolita" from the perspective of Dolores, a parallel that Russell draws frequently and overtly (almost superfluously) throughout the novel. She never lets the reader forget that both characters understand the relationship is wrong and can never be made right, but she also subtly reminds us that "wrong" and "right" are societal constructs even the most intelligent, self-aware individuals can struggle to fit.
So what's "wrong" with Vanessa to allow for years of abuse, well into adulthood? The absence of a trauma in her backstory is a brilliant decision on Russell's part. We can never chalk up her disturbing decisions to a childhood abuse or poor parenting. That would minimize the character's complex emotions toward her lover. The same goes for Strane, whose mysterious life is entirely unknown to us outside of his time in the classroom or by the side of his student. Russell carefully omits hearsay, even from other victims. Strane's reasoning is ours to fathom.
Vanessa's decisions are made clear through articulate inner monologues. We know when she's hurt by Strane, as well as when she's strengthened and nourished by him. We don't want to admit to the latter, but the silver lining to Strane's dark cloud is there. He genuinely encourages her in her writing, her education, and her choice of lovers in a way no parent or role model ever has. The relationship is not one sided, and Vanessa allocates many words and tears to convincing the reader of the ways in which she feels compensated for the relationship's inherent violations.
Some readers may despise Vanessa as much as Strane for her inability to see the relationship as abuse. Other readers likely connect with her and hear their own voices in hers as she justifies her love. For any reader to take from this novel everything that it has to give, one must hear every voice without judgment. Difficult? Yes. At times enervating? Extremely. But the reader who is able to tread non-judgmental waters is rewarded with warm waves of empathy and long-lasting ripple effects in their own relationships.
Russell navigates the confused waters of this ocean-sized issue with a seasoned mariner's steady hand on the wheel. This is a love story or an abuse story or both between a precocious student and her iniquitous instructor. "My Dark Vanessa" is a new "Lolita" from the perspective of Dolores, a parallel that Russell draws frequently and overtly (almost superfluously) throughout the novel. She never lets the reader forget that both characters understand the relationship is wrong and can never be made right, but she also subtly reminds us that "wrong" and "right" are societal constructs even the most intelligent, self-aware individuals can struggle to fit.
So what's "wrong" with Vanessa to allow for years of abuse, well into adulthood? The absence of a trauma in her backstory is a brilliant decision on Russell's part. We can never chalk up her disturbing decisions to a childhood abuse or poor parenting. That would minimize the character's complex emotions toward her lover. The same goes for Strane, whose mysterious life is entirely unknown to us outside of his time in the classroom or by the side of his student. Russell carefully omits hearsay, even from other victims. Strane's reasoning is ours to fathom.
Vanessa's decisions are made clear through articulate inner monologues. We know when she's hurt by Strane, as well as when she's strengthened and nourished by him. We don't want to admit to the latter, but the silver lining to Strane's dark cloud is there. He genuinely encourages her in her writing, her education, and her choice of lovers in a way no parent or role model ever has. The relationship is not one sided, and Vanessa allocates many words and tears to convincing the reader of the ways in which she feels compensated for the relationship's inherent violations.
Some readers may despise Vanessa as much as Strane for her inability to see the relationship as abuse. Other readers likely connect with her and hear their own voices in hers as she justifies her love. For any reader to take from this novel everything that it has to give, one must hear every voice without judgment. Difficult? Yes. At times enervating? Extremely. But the reader who is able to tread non-judgmental waters is rewarded with warm waves of empathy and long-lasting ripple effects in their own relationships.
maria123's review against another edition
5.0
*audiobook
“Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really, though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence.”
“I need it to be a love story”
After year of My Dark Vanessa being on my tbr I finally read it! Wow this book was amazing!
I recently had a conversation about how the #Metoo movement created such a cultural shift in not only the way we talk about rape culture but many of the more innocuous or seemingly less obvious forms of violence. Growing up in a world now post #Metoo it’s hard to really imagine anything different but My Dark Vanessa examines what it was like for women before (not saying things are better now but people are more likely to talk about it these things/the public’s perception and knowledge are a lot better-also how people discuss rape culture is completely different). This was a really hard read, not just because Vanessa was constantly being not protected by the adults around her, parents, teachers, the school, “friends” etc but Vanessa herself if not a perfect victim. She doesn’t see herself as a victim of sexual abuse, she is so brainwashed that any suggestion that anything that happened wasn’t consentual is unfathomable (also as we later learn she feels like she can admit it bc then it changes her whole perception of her selfhood and entire childhood). Vanessa as a character was so frustrating to read but you have to read her with compassion and empathy. She is deeply traumatized and is having her whole world completely unraveled. Being in the mind of a survivor was so hard, her logic was flawed but I can see why she felt the way she felt and it broke my heart that an adult could damage someone so thoroughly.
We as the reader never get the justice Vanessa deserves but unfortunately that is what usually happens in these cases. All that we can hope is that Vanessa is able to learn to cope in a healthy way and rebuild a sense of self she was never able to cultivate.
“Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really, though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence.”
“I need it to be a love story”
After year of My Dark Vanessa being on my tbr I finally read it! Wow this book was amazing!
I recently had a conversation about how the #Metoo movement created such a cultural shift in not only the way we talk about rape culture but many of the more innocuous or seemingly less obvious forms of violence. Growing up in a world now post #Metoo it’s hard to really imagine anything different but My Dark Vanessa examines what it was like for women before (not saying things are better now but people are more likely to talk about it these things/the public’s perception and knowledge are a lot better-also how people discuss rape culture is completely different). This was a really hard read, not just because Vanessa was constantly being not protected by the adults around her, parents, teachers, the school, “friends” etc but Vanessa herself if not a perfect victim. She doesn’t see herself as a victim of sexual abuse, she is so brainwashed that any suggestion that anything that happened wasn’t consentual is unfathomable (also as we later learn she feels like she can admit it bc then it changes her whole perception of her selfhood and entire childhood). Vanessa as a character was so frustrating to read but you have to read her with compassion and empathy. She is deeply traumatized and is having her whole world completely unraveled. Being in the mind of a survivor was so hard, her logic was flawed but I can see why she felt the way she felt and it broke my heart that an adult could damage someone so thoroughly.
We as the reader never get the justice Vanessa deserves but unfortunately that is what usually happens in these cases. All that we can hope is that Vanessa is able to learn to cope in a healthy way and rebuild a sense of self she was never able to cultivate.
diamantin4's review against another edition
4.0
This isn’t an easy book to read, so if trigger warnings deter you from a book: stay away from this one.
The story itself to be was captivating, I went through a similar situation (being groomed by a teacher in 8th grade) and to this day -a sophomore in college- I still debate myself on whether I consented or if it really was wrong. You can take this review as biased then.
I connected deeply to Vanessa and maybe that why it didn’t bothered me as much that the side characters where poorly developed. Although it did feel shallow and one dimensional at times. Especially the mom, she was truly hurt by not knowing what happened to her child and to see the perpetrator get away with it. The last scene of Vanessa and her mom did leave wanting more, because their relationship was never fixed.
Although the ending was hopeful (in my perception) the insistence of others to call this book and Vanessa as incomprehensible, is part of the problem. We expect abused children to just grow of it and live happy. We insist that trauma makes you stronger. Sometimes trauma makes you weak, sometimes it turns you ugly.
Everyone talks about #MentalHealth when it’s “do yoga and drink water” but no one understands when people lack hygiene, work ethic, or substance abuse. They blame it once again on the person instead of understanding .
This book isn’t a comfortable read. I doubt that was its intention. I was angry a lot, mostly because I saw the real world in it: the way men get away with heinous shit they commit, the way everyone ignores the signs of abuse, how teaching environments facilitate the space to predators, and how complicated it is for a person to deal with childhood and sexual trauma.
My God, I hated Strane. I hated him so much because because I saw my teacher on him. How men lie to young girls, how everyone claims that women mature faster, how they insist that they confused a teen for a grown woman, the way abusers manipulate their victims, made them believe they wanted it, they made it happen. It was so infuriating how he’d gaslight Vanessa and convince himself that she was consenting AS A CHILD. As someone who felt abandoned, telling her that everyone would turn her back on her is she spoke, that she’d be living with the consequences, that his life was a tragedy because he loved her. It makes me so mad because so many men, so many of us (population in general) BELIEVE that. Believe there are exceptions. There is so much to say but I will shut up now.
Everyone has different experiences with trauma, and one could never possibly say that one experience represents everyone. I consider Vanessa a well done in depth analysis and process of her trauma. Although if you believe that’s not how it works, that’s ok too.
The prose itself was alright, every now and then it was poetic and beautiful, which I enjoyed. However I have to admit that there was an unnecessary stretch around halfway through the book. The scenes kept repeating, al though I understood that Vanessa kept going back to him bc that’s what she’s used to: I enjoyed much more the scenes when she was mad at him, yell at him, tell him the truth about himself. I think that anger could have made the book more interesting.
My complaints were n this book would be:
1. Not a fan of the cover
2. Side characters weren’t developed
3. Unnecessary repetitive scenes
4. Most importantly:
Completely destroyed my emotional stability
I would be a bit cautious on who to recommend this book, although I consider it and important debate on our culture (r4pe culture, p3dopheli4, trauma, childhood abuse, SA) it is troubling.
The story itself to be was captivating, I went through a similar situation (being groomed by a teacher in 8th grade) and to this day -a sophomore in college- I still debate myself on whether I consented or if it really was wrong. You can take this review as biased then.
I connected deeply to Vanessa and maybe that why it didn’t bothered me as much that the side characters where poorly developed. Although it did feel shallow and one dimensional at times. Especially the mom, she was truly hurt by not knowing what happened to her child and to see the perpetrator get away with it. The last scene of Vanessa and her mom did leave wanting more, because their relationship was never fixed.
Although the ending was hopeful (in my perception) the insistence of others to call this book and Vanessa as incomprehensible, is part of the problem. We expect abused children to just grow of it and live happy. We insist that trauma makes you stronger. Sometimes trauma makes you weak, sometimes it turns you ugly.
Everyone talks about #MentalHealth when it’s “do yoga and drink water” but no one understands when people lack hygiene, work ethic, or substance abuse. They blame it once again on the person instead of understanding .
This book isn’t a comfortable read. I doubt that was its intention. I was angry a lot, mostly because I saw the real world in it: the way men get away with heinous shit they commit, the way everyone ignores the signs of abuse, how teaching environments facilitate the space to predators, and how complicated it is for a person to deal with childhood and sexual trauma.
My God, I hated Strane. I hated him so much because because I saw my teacher on him. How men lie to young girls, how everyone claims that women mature faster, how they insist that they confused a teen for a grown woman, the way abusers manipulate their victims, made them believe they wanted it, they made it happen. It was so infuriating how he’d gaslight Vanessa and convince himself that she was consenting AS A CHILD. As someone who felt abandoned, telling her that everyone would turn her back on her is she spoke, that she’d be living with the consequences, that his life was a tragedy because he loved her. It makes me so mad because so many men, so many of us (population in general) BELIEVE that. Believe there are exceptions. There is so much to say but I will shut up now.
Everyone has different experiences with trauma, and one could never possibly say that one experience represents everyone. I consider Vanessa a well done in depth analysis and process of her trauma. Although if you believe that’s not how it works, that’s ok too.
The prose itself was alright, every now and then it was poetic and beautiful, which I enjoyed. However I have to admit that there was an unnecessary stretch around halfway through the book. The scenes kept repeating, al though I understood that Vanessa kept going back to him bc that’s what she’s used to: I enjoyed much more the scenes when she was mad at him, yell at him, tell him the truth about himself. I think that anger could have made the book more interesting.
My complaints were n this book would be:
1. Not a fan of the cover
2. Side characters weren’t developed
3. Unnecessary repetitive scenes
4. Most importantly:
Completely destroyed my emotional stability
I would be a bit cautious on who to recommend this book, although I consider it and important debate on our culture (r4pe culture, p3dopheli4, trauma, childhood abuse, SA) it is troubling.