Wow wow wow I loooved this one it was amazing and I simply cannot wait to read more from this author !!

An amazing book that gets under your skin. The story of Vanessa and the teacher whom she had a relationship with. How the mind of a young girl can be manipulated and how years later she is still dealing with it. It made me angry, it made me sad. I wanted to shout out to all young girls who have ever been in the position of being groomed or abused , ‘Don’t let him do this!’ The story seemed so real, so true. I imagine this will be a book everyone will be talking about, a book that would make a great ‘Book Club’ discussion topic. I think this book will stay in my mind for a long time.

'Slowly guided into the fire-why is everyone so scared to admit how good that can feel? To be groomed is to be loved, tended to, handled like a precious delicate thing." And Vanessa is: all of those things. But at the hands of her English teacher, Jacob Strane, she is flattered, manipulated and ultimately defenseless.

At 15, Vanessa finds herself in a new school, away from her parents, struggling to form lasting friendships, full of hormones and self-doubt. Strane recognises her vulnerability and she is lost at the hands and mind of a remorseless paedophile...for years. Until, in fact, even as an adult (no longer of any sexual interest to her abuser) she is incapable of breaking contact or indeed reporting him amongst wider claims of abuse. She truly believes (for her own sanity, she has to believe) that their 'relationship' was different from others he formed; that it was meaningful, that she was as culpable as him;
"I never would have done it if you weren't so willing," he said. It sounds like delusion. What teenage girl would want any of that? But it's the truth, even if no one believes it. Driven towards it, towards him, I was the kind of girl that isn't supposed to exist: eager to hurl herself into a swamp."

All too believable, Kate Elizabeth Russell's book demonstrates how, very easily, a child can be persuaded beyond the boundaries and into a world that their youth itself should protect them from. A quite devastating read.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sharing an advanced copy of the book with me in return for my honest opinion.

From the title, I thought this would be a thriller. Instead, it's the story of a woman coming to terms with the fact that her teacher groomed and abused her and she's spent her life kidding herself it was love.

As such, it's a hard read at times and not one to read if you're feeling fragile. It references 'Lolita' a lot and this is nowhere near in the same league, but at the same time, it's touching, compelling and heart rending. The character of Vanessa is complex and well drawn and the way in which she was seduced is very cleverly and delicately handled without any hint of victim blaming.

I'm not sure who this novel is really targeted at, because I suspect that for many the subject matter is simply too distasteful. Still, it is worth a read if you can stomach it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC with no obligation to review.

VVanessa Wye is a 16 yr old only child living in Maine and attnending Browick boarding school. She is a bit of a loner. She is completely reeled in when her 42 year old English teacher Jacob Strane, begins to pay attention to her by lending her some of his favorite books and commenting on her hair, clothes etc.,. Vanessa is convinced she’s been singled out as someone very special to him and starts a sexual relationship with the teacher. Strane is a maniupulative paedophile and a skilled groomer but Vanessa does not realise this and thinks of it as a love affair. Seventeen years later, Vanessa is in a dead end job, smoking weed and drinking herself into oblivion. Her one bright future is not there and her life is ruined. She still does not think she was abused or violated in any way even when other students go public about his abuse of them, she thinks their relationship was different.

This was quite a difficult read at times, especially knowing that he was responsible for the way her life turned out. You wonder about her parents and whether they could have done more, particularly her mother as she had an idea what was going on. It is a powerful read and frightening how easily Vanessa fell under his spell.

Really enjoyed this book. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC.

I could not put MY DARK VANESSA down. Every chapter packed a punch. This is a book not easily forgotten

My Dark Vanessa is indeed a dark book but I was gripped by the excellent writing. A brave story of grooming and love, this book deserves to be debated much as We Need To Talk About Kevin was.

I thought that the writer's ability to show how Vanessa couldn't bring herself to say anything when her teacher, Strane, did things to her that she disliked was excellent. How many girls feels the same, especially with someone older, who holds power over them? Years later Strane is brought to task by other students and Vanessa, who doesn't consider herself to have been abused has to decide whether to add her story to theirs.

A difficult but enthralling read, perhaps not one for women who themselves have been abused by people in authority though?
However I highly recommend it. Readers who 'enjoyed' Louise O'Neil's 'Asking For It' and Zofka Zinoviev's 'Putney' will find this equally as good.

My Dark Vanessa is sure to be one of the most discussed novels in 2020, if not beyond. Many thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the opportunity to read and review it.

This book just knocked the wind out of me. It discusses a very complicated and distressing subject with such grace and whilst it makes you feel deeply uncomfortable, I think it’s an important story. It’s compelling and yet sensitive and I think it somehow manages to tackle the grim topics of grooming and abuse with an elegance I hadn’t expected. A chilling but brilliant read.

This is an incredible book. Dark, gritty and hard reading, this deals with the subject of abuse and grooming by a person of power. This is such an important and relatable book that deals with issues around power, desire and the after effects of grooming so fantastically. The characters are complex, human and flawed and Kate Elizabeth Russell's writing is flowing and will hook you instantly. A must read.

Quite a dark read, not surprising the topic it covers. But it is quite disturbing and raises a lot of questions that aren't easy to answer. Very difficult to read, but also very hard to put down.

★★★✰✰ 3 stars

“I think we’re very similar, Nessa,” he whispers. “From the way you write, I can tell you’re a dark romantic like me. You like dark things.”


Recently I read a nonfiction book which claimed that when reading a book “However you get it, you’ve got it right”. When I read those words I found them vaguely patronising and equivocal. Case in point, in My Dark Vanessa the misreading of a novel has disastrous consequences.
When fifteen year old Vanessa is given a copy of Lolita by her forty-five year old teacher, Jacob Strane, she becomes obsessed with it and comes to regard it as a tragic love story. In her eyes Humbert Humbert is not a degenerate pedophile but an unlucky man who happens to fall in love with a twelve-year old girl.

“That seems the likely ending to this love story: me dropping everything and doing anything, devoted as a dog, as he takes and takes and takes.”


Narrated by Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s novel opens up in 2017 when the #MeToo movement became viral. Vanessa, a disillusioned thirty-something concierge, is forced to re-evaluate her relationship to Strane after one of his former students, Taylor Birch, writes a Facebook post accusing him of assault. Although Vanessa is still in touch with Strane, the two are no longer ‘involved’, and she believes that “Everything [Taylor] wrote is a lie”. Yet, even as she tells herself this, there is a niggling doubt at the back of her mind. When Taylor messages her asking her to share her own experience with Strane, Vanessa finds herself wading back in time in order to re-examine her relationship to Strane.

“I know what he thinks, what anyone would think. That I’m an apologist, an enabler, but I’m defending myself just as much as I am Strane. Because even if sometimes I use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth, the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened.”


In 2000 fifteen-year old Vanessa returns to her second year at Browick, a private school in Norumbega, Maine (although I don’t believe a town called Norumbega actually exists Russell vivid depiction of this fictional place makes it seem all too real). Vanessa is all too aware of being a loner. She feels that her red hair, her lack of friends, and her penchant for morose observations distance her from her peers, so it isn't all that surprising that Vanessa initially ‘responds’ positively to Strane’s attentions. He compliments her appearance and her writing, and soon enough Vanessa starts to believe that he is attentive because he thinks that she is ‘special’.
Vanessa regards her relationship to Strane as a consensual love story hindered by an age-gap. The only reason why she entertains the possibility of it having unethical is because he was her teacher. Yet, when Vanessa revisits her past, she does not always able to romanticise Strane and his actions.
The first few graphic scenes between them felt horrifyingly necessary. In spite of the superficial charm that Strane uses in order to make his abhorrent actions appear ‘darkly romantic’ readers are aware of his true nature. He is a perverted manipulator who masks his inclination for young girls under the guise of being a hopeless romantic, as if he is a blameless victim of love. He instills in Vanessa his own skewed perception of their relationship, he uses her own insecurity against her (time and again her reminds her that she is ‘special’), and makes her feel complicit. Often he draws similarities between them (for example he tells her they both have the same ‘darkness’) in order to make her feel as if it is ‘them’ against the world. Strane also uses Vanessa’s poetry against her as he attributes to her poems and verses mature and inappropriate meanings (for instance he calls one of her poems “sexy”...).
Strane also implements Lolita in order to introduce to Vanessa the possibility of an adult-child ‘relationship’, and while he often compares Vanessa to Lolita, he refuses to cast himself as Humbert (“Is that what you think I am?” He asks. “A pedophile?”).

The novel does a terrific job in portraying the power-imbalance between a grown man and a teenager girl. Strane uses his age and experience to manipulate Vanessa, often leading her to believe that she is the ‘boss’. His disgusting behaviour is rendered in minute detail as the author does not shy away from portraying him at his most repugnant.
Rather than ‘empowering’ Vanessa however he is disenfranchising her. He convinces her that she is ‘precocious’ and far more mature and independent that the other girls her age.

“Every first step was taken by him. I don’t feel forced, and I know I have the power to say no, but that isn’t the same as being in charge.”


While we are made to see how Strane manages to convince Vanessa that they are mutually complicit, two ‘dark romantics’, his charm never reached me. Everything he says and does felt wrong and illicit. While Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert admits to himself that he likes little girls, Strane seems to actually believe that he has fallen in love with Vanessa not because of her age but in spite of it. Yet, as present-Vanessa grudgingly realises, he would find it arousing to infantilise her and his attraction for her diminishes as she grows ‘older’.

“Like I was crazy. A stupid, crazy little girl. I get why you did that. It was an easy way to protect yourself, right? Teenage girls are crazy. Everyone knows that.”


While I think that this novel does an exceptional job in depicting Vanessa’s horrifying story of abuse (she would dislike my using this word but I call it what it is) I did not feel incredibly affected by it and for the most part I was disgusted.
Strane was the only character who struck me as believable...and he was a monster. Vanessa however remains more ‘blurred’. While this is surely somewhat intentional (the trauma caused by Strane has had horrific repercussions on her life and her sense of self) it also made it harder for me to believe in her as a character. Her dissociation and alienation are a result of her ‘relationship’ with Strane and his presence in her life is toxic , that much is clear. Still, she often makes out-of-character choices or big decisions without any distinct reason. There are two instances were she makes potentially life-changing decisions without articulating the reason behind her actions. Much was made of her ‘darkness’ but I could only see it as a consequence of Strane’s gaslighting her. Part of me wished that we could have seen her before him, perhaps during her first year at Browick. That way we could have gotten to know her on her own terms, and not as Strane’s victim (not that Vanessa labels herself as victim or survivor, in fact she hates these terms: “But that word, with its cloying empathy, that patronizing, flattening word that makes my whole body cringe no matter the context”).

At times there were moments were more could have been made of her personality. Even if Strane has forced her into taking on this role of ‘Lolita’, there could still be some traces of her own distinctive personality. Her job sadly seems merely to recount in an almost detached way Strane’s repulsive actions towards her. And if she is totally disconnected from her own self than I wish we could have been at least made privy to what she was thinking when she makes those potentially life-altering decisions (usually she just describes her movements or surroundings in these instances).
There are many other characters but they all blurred together. Once again this may be deliberate, given that Vanessa herself knows that she struggles keeping people straight in her mind. However, even during those scenes set in her past, I found that the characters to be lacking: there were a few named J-something and I could barely distinguish them from one another. Most of them seem to have been included only to say or do something to hurt Vanessa. Their motivations were sketchy and given that their personalities remain off-page, I had difficulties believing them.
Vanessa’s parents are incongruously depicted. Her mother seems to undergo three or four changes of character in the course of the novel. The father is totally expandable. Maybe if they had more page-time, I could have seen glimpses of their personalities and of their thoughts. Not only do we never know how they felt about their daughter’s time at Browick but the few times where we see their behaviour it seemed to be all over the place.

“So if someone doesn’t want to come forward and tell the world every bad thing that’s happened to her, then she’s what? Weak, selfish?”


While I appreciated the way the novel unflinchingly discusses sexual and emotional abuse, its praise and critique of certain aspects of the #MeToo movement, as well as its incorporation of texts (Lolita and Ethan Frome) and historical figures/anecdotes which can be used to normalise or romanticise ‘relationships’ between under age girls and middle aged men, I found that much of the narrative relied on explicit content. The first few times, as I already mentioned, I thought that however revolting these scenes were necessary. Needless to say, these scenes were not easy to read. Strane eroticises his fifteen-yearl old student and makes Vanessa believe that, like Lolita, she is ‘precociously seductive’. Although Vanessa tells herself that she enjoys this feeling of making a grown man sexually desire her, readers will have a less rose-tinted view of things. Although their first encounters are graphic, I did not see these as being included for shock value. However, as these scenes grew in number, I grew tired of them...they made me want to gag and to be repeatedly exposed to them seemed unnecessary. If anything they made the first explicit scenes less impactful.
Sometimes keeping certain things off the page isn’t a sign of ‘cowardice’ or ‘sensibleness’. If anything it requires even more effort to make your audience aware of certain ‘transgressions’ without having to actually to include them. For instance, in a recent episode of one of my favourite tv shows, a character is forced into the realisation that he was abused as a child. Rather than cutting to a tasteless flashback of this, the camera remains trained on his face, and viewers can see the incalculable hurt that this abuse caused him. His trauma, anguish, and despair are conveyed without the episode having to actually show this abuse happening.
Another example I can give is by the great Stephen King (who happens to have appreciated My Dark Vanessa more than I did, given that he described it as a ‘package of dynamite’) who in his latest novel avoids depicting in horrific detail a scene in which a child is tortured, cutting instead to the before and the after. Even if he doesn’t include e the ‘during’ scene, his readers can clearly see the harmful effects that this maltreatment has had on the child in question.
Sadly, I found that once I was 30% into My Dark Vanessa the graphic scenes lost some of their significance. They were so lurid that I could not see why there had to be so many of them. I get that some were meant to show us why present-Vanessa has such as distorted perception of her sexuality but when a story relies on numerous revolting sex scenes...I loose interest. I don’t find ‘splatter’ films to be good horror films, so perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that I wasn’t all that impressed with My Dark Vanessa.
Additionally this year I read two other books that deal with similar topics. What Red Was is a stark novel that depicts the lasting effects of rape on a young woman's mind, body, and life. I found that novel poignant and heart-wrenching. Promising Young Women instead tells an imaginative and subversive story of a relationship between a female employee and her boss. Those two novels resonated with me a lot more than My Dark Vanessa did. In Russell's novel, the only character that was truly believable happens to be one of the most disgustingly perverse characters I've read of in a while. For all her self-fashioning, Vanessa did not strike me as ‘dark’ or even ‘precocious’. For the most part she is passive and apathetic towards other people. In one scene she willingly stands by as one of her young colleagues is harassed by a patron. In those instances where she is spurred into action, I still could not understand her or her motivations. More could have been made of her sense of loneliness and of her fraught relationship with her mother.
The novel takes its time discussing the guilt she feels, and by the end I just wanted this novel to end.

“But it’s the truth, even if no one believes it. Driven towards it, towards him, I was the kind of girl that isn’t supposed to exist: eager to hurl herself into the swamp.”


Still, future readers should not be deterred by my not so positive review. So far most of the reviews for this novel are glowing and singing this book’s praises. Heck, even King liked it...so maybe I’m not the right reader for it...I can't help it but I found some of Russell's descriptions to be trying (eg: “dishwater blonde hair and granola clothes”) and I was frustrated by the way in which she would convey Vanessa's distress or her anguish (Vanessa bites her cheeks a lot).
There are some great discussions in here (about abuse, guilt, gender, power) and while this is ultimately a story of an uneasy self-reconciliation, it is one that is as uplifting as a work Joyce Carol Oates (ie. pretty depressing).

Wow, what a terribly emotional read. It had my heart torn in a million pieces and constantly needing to read more and more. I found it to be a very important read, especially knowing the lengths Vanessa went to protect her abuser, because as parents, administrators, teachers, friends, I believe we could truly learn from this book. Be ready to have your heart broke and be in different thoughts at different times, but also able to be thankful you can see it from outside instead of in.
Will make sure I buzz this book up everywhere!

My Dark Vanessa certainly lives up to its name; dark, absorbing and very disturbing. Vanessa is a small town girl with a scholarship for a preppy boarding school where she doesn’t fit in. She’s fallen out with her only friend and so, lonely, clever and vulnerable, she is delighted when her teacher singles her out. Soon his attention makes her feel special, validated and so when that attention gets physical, Vanessa is compliant, blocking out any unpleasant reality in order to keep hold of the power she tells herself she has.

Over a decade later other allegations against her teacher surface and a journalist tries to persuade her to tell her story but Vanessa refuses. It’s not the affair that’s responsible for her drinking and drugtaking, it’s not her teacher’s fault she’s not living up to her potential and instead is working front of house at a local hotel. She wasn’t abused, she’s not like the other girls, she was in a relationship and she chose to be there. That has to be her truth, because if she’s wrong, if she really lets herself examine the reality, then who is she? Just one of a series of victims, not special after all.

This is an unflinching look at grooming and control. It’s explicit, uncomfortable and all too real, a coming-of-age story for the Me Too generation. Written in the first person we stay with Vanessa as she is manipulated and seduced and raped, understanding her actions whilst repulsed and horrified by her situation. My Dark Vanessa is a difficult read thanks to the subject matter, whilst expertly plotted and beautifully written. Highly recommended.

Excellent account of a very difficult subject. The heroine is rounded, flawed, inconsistent and very real.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 ok stars.

This book is well written and does a great job of describing and unpicking how clever paedophiles are in grooming their victims and ensuring they maintain secrecy.

It’s a difficult book to read but just because of the subject matter but also because it jumps around in time periods so much.

None of the characters are likeable which also makes it a tough read.

I can see all the 5 star reviews so I am in the minority but for me it was slow going.

Right from hearing about this book the concept pulled me in, I was so excited and intrigued to read it. I think this book is going to do very well when it is released in 2020. I think this book will be a must read of 2020. The concept is something so different especially in this time with the #MeToo movement.

My Dark Vanessa is about a 15 year old who has an affair with her teacher, when another girl speaks out in the future Vanessa tells her story of how it was 'love' rather than abuse. It is an interesting to read to understand from her perspective and switches between her past life and her present life, learning more and more about Vanessa leads the reader to be attached to her but also wanting to shake her and scream at her. It's definitely a captivating read.

I definitely would recommend this to my friends and family and I think it's going to be a big hit next year!

My Dark Vanessa is a thought-provoking story, unsettling and uncomfortable at times. It took me a while to read and I was about to give up several times as it was quite slow and repetitive in places. The characters were well developed and realistic, but I found the structure with shifting time lines a little confusing. Overall, a reflective and memorable read but not one I'd recommend.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I can’t make my mind up about this book. I thought that it was a bit of an eye opener as to how people can be groomed and manipulated. I found some of the book hard to read. There is a lot to process. The characters all seem real and the events are believable.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Don't be misled by the pretty YA-style cover - My Dark Vanessa is a nuanced and conflicting take on both the #MeToo movement and teacher/student sexual relationships (in the vein of Notes on a Scandal), which I'm certain will cause a stir when it is released in early 2020.

The early parts of the novel follow Vanessa at 15 years old - in 2000 - begins having an affair with her 45-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane. We then fast forward to 2017, where we meet Vanessa aged 32, working in a dead-end job at a hotel and living a pretty miserable life. It may seem obvious why her life as ended up this way, but the way Russell handles Vanessa's interpretation of the relationship in the intervening years was, to me, very well done. Allegations start to appear, accusing Strane of sexual abuse with other students, and this causes Vanessa to reassess her entire life since aged 15.

Highly recommended - Russell is one to watch for sure.

A fantastic book. Dark, twisted and shocking to read. 5 stars,

My Dark Vanessa make for uncomfortable reading. The subjects tackled in this book are not easy to read or, no doubt, write about. Russell's writing however is fantastic and powerful - you want to scream at Jacob as he makes his moves on Vanessa.

I can't wait to see what Russell writes next. Until then, I'll be recommending this book to others, it is one of the best books I've read this year.

Thanks to NetGalley, Fourth Estate and Kate Elizabeth Russell for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.