Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc. I’ve heard many good things about My Dark Vanessa so was elated to read this, however, upon finishing it my feelings are very conflicted. 
This told from the POV of Vanessa alternating from her present timeframe - where she is in her 30s and works as a concierge at a hotel, and in this #Metoo era the story about her high school teacher is being pursued by a journalist - and her past when she’s 15-years old and moved to a prep school where she meets Jacob Strane, her English teacher and the two embark on an affair. 
This was a frustrating, emotional and draining read. The prose is bleak and harrowing. Being in Vanessa’s head felt claustrophobic. For much of the novel she romanticises her traumatic relationship with Strane, even as an adult she’s in denial about it, which was frustrating nonetheless shows the rawness and messiness of the situation. I did struggle reading this, though, due to the lack of plot. Much of the book is in flashbacks and I much preferred the present day narrative situation. I was also repulsed by all the sex scenes between Vanessa and Strane which after awhile got repetitive and felt gratuitous. Reading this I was reminded of Precocious by Joanna Bernard which is also about a relationship between a teacher and student and has a similar now and then timeline structure. To be honest, while I commend the author’s efforts and intentions, I just felt like the book doesn’t say anything new on women’s sexuality and dealing with trauma. I wanted to like this book more than I ultimately did. However others may feel differently. This book will be polarising and it’ll interesting to see the debates it provokes amongst readers. Definitely a book club read!

My Dark Vanessa is the harrowing tale of fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye’s relationship with her forty-five-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane, and the lasting impact it has on her life. It also examines themes of consent, coercion and manipulation, and asks what is it that makes someone a victim. It also forces the reader to look at their own preconceptions and the prejudices that are often found when these situations come to light.

The story is told from Vanessa’s perspective, both as an adult and teenager. In both timelines she is under Strane’s spell and believes it was a great love affair rather than abuse. But when another of Strane’s former students claims he abused her, Vanessa is forced to reconsider if it was really love and whether she was a willing participant in a loving relationship or a victim of abuse. 

Kate Elizabeth Russell has written a novel that is powerful, compelling, timely and thought-provoking. Eighteen years in the making, it feels like this story has come at the perfect time with the rise of the #MeToo movement and the increasing number of victims who are finding the strength to vocalise their experiences. She addresses the nuances of this movement, the pressure put on victims to come forward even if they aren’t ready, and the way the tide can turn so quickly in how they are portrayed. 

This isn’t an easy read. The book contained some graphic, nauseating and unsettling scenes of what I consider to be abuse and a number of times I had to put down the book and stop reading for a while. After one particularly distressing scene, I was left feeling utterly broken with tears running down my face. At these times I was especially glad that I was reading this as a buddy read as I was able to talk through my feelings with my reading buddy. 

It has been said that Vanessa is an unlikeable character, and it’s true, she’s not particularly warm or bubbly, but I think the decision to make her so complex made the story all the more compelling and real. Victims of any kind of abuse often don’t see what is happening for a long time, if at all, and Vanessa wouldn’t have begun her affair with Strane if it had been obvious to her. Reading her desperation to be noticed and loved by him as she was unwittingly groomed was heartbreaking. In her adult years we see the immense damage he has done to her psyche, her unwillingness to see the truth and tear down the house of straw she’s built in her mind and heart. I couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever be able to heal.

It was heartbreaking to read her desperation for him to notice her, want her, like and love her, as her feelings are misdirected towards a man who has groomed her. 

The real unlikeable character was the manipulative, predatory, and vile Strane. But even he has layers to his character and has an awareness that what he wants and does is wrong. He tells himself it’s true love, that they are soulmates, that she is in control and sets himself boundaries. These are all designed to negate the wrong he is doing and reassure himself that he can’t help it and that he is being ‘good’. The tragic part about Strane is that I think he truly believes these things; even when he’s saying the most awful things to scare her into complying or saying it to another girl, I think in his mind it’s actually all true. This made him someone I detested but also, as much as it pains me to say this, pitied very slightly. He was a sad and pathetic man but also a loathsome predator and there were so many times I wanted to reach into the book and do him actual physical harm for what he did to Vanessa.
 
My Dark Vanessa is the most dark and disturbing fiction book I have ever read. But it is also a well-written story that offers an insight on the intricacies of the dynamic between an abuser and their victim and on the #MeToo movement, filled with characters, situations and emotions that many will recognise. Just be prepared for a distressing read.

I think this is one of the most difficult books I've ever read in terms of subject matter - it tackles a very dark, but very real topic - but it is an important book.
Being in Vanessa's head is not a fun place to be, and this is not a 'fun' read. It is compelling and horrifying and uncomfortable - to the point where I had to put it down a few times and come back to it. The insidious nature of the grooming is horribly obvious to everyone except Vanessa, and you see how Strane controls everything about her. Her desperation for the relationship to be love, for her not to be a victim, is heart-breaking. I thought the slow dawning realisation that Vanessa goes through felt very realistic, the jumping timeline helping the slow unfolding of the truth of her history.
My only complaint was that the novel felt a bit long in places, and some of the sexual content felt a little gratuitous.

Apologies for the delay in the review of this stunning, dark and gripping debut. I had to put it down a few times because the exchanges between Vanessa and her teacher were so uncomfortable and reminded me of so many incidences I've heard from friends. This is a novel every parent  of a teenage girl should read, ditto every headmaster/mistress of a school  too. It is dark, uncomfortable and yet it brilliantly portrays the subtle manipulation involved in grooming a teenage girl. A difficult read but a necessary one. Kudos to the author for pulling this off. It's a triumph and I have recommended it to many girlfriends.

I didn't particularly like this book's content, and I don't think the reader is supposed to, but I found it compelling and even when I was revolted by what was happening I had to keep reading.
Possibly a little over long but one I won't forget in a hurry

An interesting viewpoint into the MeToo movement and the work that happens behind the scenes. The writing is fast paced and gripping, I finished this book in two days.

A dark, powerful, blistering debut novel. My Dark Vanessa is not an easy read. Most of the characters are pretty awful, being inside Vanessa’s head is frustrating and the justice I desperately wanted for her didn’t quite materialise, but this is a really interesting look at the life-long affects of abuse and the system that allows it to happen.

It’s a beautifully written novel about a horrific situation, and if you’re likely to be affected by stories of abuse then read with caution as it’s fairly graphic in places.

WOW! What a book! Such an important subject and something that is happening on a daily basis. We are very quick to judge people and say they should have put a stop to things or should have told someone but can we really judge if we are not in their shoes?
I was fascinated by the psychological aspect of the story, how Vanessa tried to make excuses for her behaviour and also for what was happening to her. She hated what was happening but also could not get enough of Jacob. It's like a mix of Three women and My Absolute Darling.

It is a very dark and disturbing read and definitely not for the faint-hearted.

There are books you read to enjoy and then there are books that you read because they are challenging, show you a different world view, invite you into the darker sides of Humanity and shine a light on it. My Dark Vanessa is definitely in the latter category.

Grooming and child sexual abuse is a fraught topic. Triggering for many, uncomfortable for most, it's a dark and difficult subject. Particularly given societal propensity to be biased against teenage girls, to see them as perhaps not willing participants, but at least as provocateurs.

So I didn't enjoy My Dark Vanessa. I don't think you're supposed to. There was a lot that I liked about it, though. I liked how cleverly it exposed the manipulations of Strane, even through the perspective of Vanessa as a young girl. I liked how it explored the power dynamic between them - the way Vanessa thinks she has all the power, but we as the reader can see that it's Strane letting her think that. I liked how despite finding Strane an abhorrent human being, it was possible to see from Vanessa's perspective exactly why he was so alluring to her.

None of it sat comfortably, but only by taking steps outside of our comfort zones will we start to recognise and challenge problematic behaviours, or the warning signs in young girls (and boys). It's a dark facet of Human nature that needs exposing to the light, if only so we can all see it for what it is and better eradicate it.

A thoughtful, interesting novel.

Wow this was an emotional read and also very gripping  - I had heard about the book so I knew a premise of what it was about but it was still a difficult book to read. The story of Vanessa is told in a dual narrative both from her point of view - one when she is 15 years old and the second when she is in her 30's. I couldn't put it down and when I was finished I was left with lots of questions. I think that this book will stay with me for a long time yet - fantastic book so well written

My Dark Vanessa is a difficult read. The story of Vanessa who is groomed and abused as a teenager by her English teacher.  The novel jumps between the past and the present where other girls are coming forward with allegations of abuse from the teacher and Vanessa looks back on their relationship in a different light. 
Stories like Vanessa’s, and other #metoo accounts, are important but I found the book to be unnecessarily over-detailed making an already difficult subject matter even harder to process. 
Russell is clearly a very talented writer and I look forward to reading more of her work but due to the subject matter, this one wasn’t for me. 
Thank you to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the copy.

My Dark Vanessa is a deeply emotional read that deals with the complex subject of adolescent abuse.  The writing is powerful and really hits home the disturbing reality of a teacher grooming a 15 year old girl, and the consequences this has for the woman who tries to come to terms with what happened to her.

This was a hard book to read given its content but I thought it was utterly gripping and so well written.  I love books that stretch your brain and question your perceptions. I have been thinking about this book for days after I finished it, it was so impactful. Flipping between the present and the past,  we see a love story between a student and her teacher, obsession, teenage infatuation or is it abuse and manipulation?  An absolute must read !  I have already recommended this book to peers and friends.  Thank you to Kate Russell, William Morrow an Netgalleu UK for an ARC in return for a fair and honest review.

The #MeToo movement has led to the fall of many high and mighty men (less high and mighty ones too) and belated justice for many wronged women.  More importantly, however, this movement has highlighted that the issue of abuse on women goes deeper than just the immoral and illegal actions of individual men. Often, the abuse could not have been perpetrated without the complicity, the connivance or, at the very least, the lack of concern, of wider society.  

The stories which we have seen in the media in the past years have also shown how complex the matter of “consent” can become.  We have heard abusers defending themselves by saying that their victims “consented” to or even encouraged their advances.  And, at a very superficial level, in some cases there could be some truth in this ‘defence’.  But what exactly counts as “consent”?   Where one of the parties is a minor, or in a vulnerable position, can it ever be present?

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel,   is unafraid to face these thorny questions head on.  Its protagonist and narrator is the “Vanessa” of the title. As a wide-eyed, fifteen-year-old outsider at college, she is flattered by the attention she receives from her English tutor, Jacob Strane, thirty years her senior.  This attention, however, soon changes into something far creepier, developing into a sexual liaison which will mark and traumatize Vanessa well into adulthood.  As Strane is accused by other ex-students in the wake of #MeToo, Vanessa has to face past horrors head on, and to admit to herself that what she considers the “love affair of her life” is, in reality, a sordid case of manipulation and abuse.  

Russell’s novel is intelligent and nuanced. Whilst it is clear throughout that Strane is an abuser and Vanessa his victim, this is neither a black-and-white account nor a one-sided manifesto.  And the novel is so much the better for this. It  helps, for instance, that Vanessa is not a particularly likeable character and that her negative traits cannot all be blamed on Strane.  This in no way lessens the gravity of the abuse she suffers – on the contrary, the novel shows how the weaknesses of a potential victim can be worked upon by an abuser. Russell also points to the factors which have allowed abusive practices to take place unchecked – from a reluctance of the authorities and family members to admit to inconvenient truths in the hope that they will just “go away”, to the subtle glorification of abusive relationships whether in “high” or popular culture (from literature to pop songs).  At the same time, Russell hints at some ambivalence about #MeToo as a "movement", in the sense that she emphasizes that the history of each victim is different and there is no exclusively "valid" response to trauma.  Trigger warning - some descriptions are explicit and revolting but, then again, the novels subject is not for the squeamish.

Is My Dark Vanessa the great book it is being touted to be? Admittedly, it is neither formally adventurous nor particularly striking in style and language. But it tells a timely and important story and does so effectively, leaving the reader with much food for thought.

This is a book I had to request after seeing it all over twitter and instagram. 
I have not been disappointed. This is darker than I expected, I have really enjoyed reading this one. I’ve found it difficult to put down.

This is one of the best books I’ve read for a long time.

 It takes a very serious and disturbing topic - child grooming - and turns it into a very readable book. The standard of writing is so high you keep reading even though the descriptions of the grooming are uncomfortable and unsettling. Told from Vanessa’s (the child) perspective - it isn’t grooming, it’s love ... isn’t it? Even as an adult Vanessa is still in denial that it was grooming rather than love. 

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It really is a compelling, quality read. Make sure you get a copy.

A tough but gripping read. Could put this book down, touches on a horrific subject with excellent tact.

Oh my goodness, what an incredible book. This is a really tough read and I think that's what made it so incredible - I initially gave it three stars because it made me so uncomfortable when I was reading, and it was only when I looked back and realised that was the point that I realised what a well-written book it is. Very deserving of all of the praise I've been hearing about it.

This is a deeply disturbing and visceral story about grooming and sexual abuse. Its power lies in the depth of understanding that the writer brings to her harrowing subject matter. Paedophile teacher, the vile and repulsive Jacob Strane preys on 15-year-old Vanessa Wye. He compliments her persistently, making her feel special, then his slow flirtations ramp up into full blown abuse. 

Told in two time frames, we live and breathe the warped situation with teenage Vanessa, while in other sections, ten years on, a momentum to bring Strane to justice is building amid the me-too movement. Vanessa though refuses to accept that Strane raped and abused her, instead choosing to hold onto the misguided notion that theirs was true love. 

This is testament to just how far Strane had manipulated her. He made her feel good about herself, powerful, how then, she asks herself, could it have been abuse? She can barely recall the way she cried the first time he raped her. In her refusal to acknowledge what really happened, she apes the behaviour of adults in the past who were aware of Strane’s involvement with her, but did nothing about it. When she later meets a teacher called Henry Plough, Vanessa is again forced to confront the wrongness of her relationship with Strane.

Russell traverses this uncomfortable ground so well. At times the writer almost fools you into forgetting that this is no teenage romance - in the same way that Vanessa herself is being fooled by Strane - but always there is the conniving Strane lurking and persuading coercing. Strane is so excellently drawn that he had me feeling simultaneously repulsed and enraged. He is absolutely loathsome. There was one particular scene where I felt so churned-up and disgusted by what was happening that I began to wonder whether I could carry on reading. 

But read on I did because I had to know what happened to the brilliant but brain-washed Vanessa. She is a victim and Strane is the perpetrator, but in the end it is clear just who is the weak one in this most warped of relationships.

Vanessa’s voice is so powerful that while you may want to turn away from what is happening to her, she pulls you in so much that the novel is impossible to put down. Indeed I spun through the pages so quickly that I finished the novel in a matter of days. And all the while my heart twisted ever more tightly. 

This is an exemplary, faultless work with excellent world building and pace. It may be remarkable, but it is no easy read.

Vanessa, our main character, was only fifteen and a student when she met and was groomed by Jacob Strane, her English teacher. Strane was thirty at the time. Now, as an adult, Vanessa is shocked to learn that Strane faces allegations of historical sexual abuse brought forward by another student, Taylor Birch, on the back of the #MeToo movement. Vanessa wants no part in the case - what happened between she and Strane was different. He loved her. Didn't he? How could he be capable of hurting someone when he treated her so lovingly?

This is a really hard book to read, I found Vanessa's head a really dark place to be and that's probably why I struggled to maintain enthusiasm (it ended up taking me months to finish). The grooming was very difficult to read about, I really hated Strane and how his actions affected every single area of Vanessa's life whether she realised it or not.

Comparisons, naturally, will be drawn to Lolita (which I hated) - but where Humbert Humbert was almost a parody of himself, Strane is pure evil (I have written in my notes "a horrible, manipulative, gaslighting POS" which I fully stand by).

This is really a book about a woman coming to terms with the events that shaped her current reality, but it's one I found myself wondering if I really needed to read or not - I don't feel like I gained anything by finishing it. In saying that, the writing is smart, the social commentary is biting, and the story is ultimately one of hope. I just don't think it needed to be as long as it was, it could have lost 150 pages and still been a powerful novel.

I received a copy to review via Netgalley.