A review by katiealex72
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

5.0

A serial predator grooms and then repeatedly abuses his teenage student and ruins her young adulthood. What makes this book extraordinary is reading it from the girl’s POV; as a 15yo, as a 32yo, and reflecting on all the years between. Vanessa is not a likeable protagonist; but so real as she tries to navigate the wreckage of her life without realising why it’s such a wreck, still blaming herself, and still believing that the guy who abused her was the life of her life. Along the way the author deftly shows the thousands of ways in which girls and women are treated as objects; by men and sometimes women who are not paedophiles but teachers, lecturers, random men in bars, and all sorts. Her gradual enlightenment makes for a great but really disturbing read.