megan_deathe 's review for:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
5.0
challenging dark emotional 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
This book was brilliant, the writing was incredible and the topic of abuse was explored so deeply but yet so sensitively. Russell created a book that is gut-wrenching and extremely painful to read, but so important. Vanessa and her story will stay with me forever, I have never felt so much empathy for a character in my life. The book handles her story with so much care and seeing her viewpoint change from being a powerful enabler to being a manipulated child is both heartbreaking and liberating. Having the story be written in first person and present tense is so powerful as you truly see how complex abuse is, the love she felt from Strane does not diminish the fact that he is her abuser. One of these facts does not diminish the other, they both coexist and this makes it so hard for her to understand how awful he was to her. Overall this book is in my opinion a brilliant temple of how to discuss traumatic events in a respectable but impactful way. Although I will be wary to recommend this to people due to the very sensitive subject matter, this book will have an everlasting effect on me. 
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