Jim's Reviews > My Dark Vanessa

With the opening pages this novel had my attention: Vanessa in 2017 monitors a young women's Facebook post recounting incidents of abuse that occurred to her at the age of 14 in 2010 by an English teacher at an elite boarding school in Main.
And why does Vanessa care? Because she too was "abused" (Vanessa's italics) by the same teacher at the age of 15 in the year 2000.
Vanessa's present tense narration bounces between 2000, age 15, the time she started her soph0more year at the boarding school, and back to 2017 at the age of 32 as she tries to reconcile the wave of #MeToo voices with her own story.
This is a disturbing but brilliantly written story. Russell takes us into the mind and world of a lonely and intelligent 15 year-old trying to fit in. We see the predatory actions of the English teacher, Strand, his smooth manipulations, his grooming of this lonely girl through Vanessa's eyes and thoughts. In Vanessa's young mind this is a love story. The English teacher has her read Nabokov's Lolita. She reads it again and again as their relationship (her word) gets darker and darker.
Meanwhile in 2017, at the age of 32, the accusations of that old teacher keep coming. The #MeToo movement inspires girls to speak up. But Vanessa, too proud perhaps, or too frightened to face the damage, refuses to see herself as "a survivor", or as "a victim", or to even accept what happened was "abuse." No - she tells herself again and again - she's not like those other girls. She wasn't a victim - not a survivor - she wanted it, there was love. She controlled the situation just as much as Strand did. Maybe more.
And meanwhile she drinks and smokes to suppress the fear, the trauma. It's clear Vanessa's is not going to come to terms with her reality very easily. There's so much pride.
The last third of the novel does get a bit repetitive as we watch the adult Vanessa again and again reject the notion of being a victim. Where will this go? At times the narrator gets so frustrating I wanted to scream at the pages "Wake Up! Face it! It was a nightmare!"

This is an absolutely powerful novel. I highly recommend it but also with the warning that it's very disturbing, perhaps because it brings to light the full spectrum dynamic of such abuse. It's not all black & white when taken from Vanessa's POV. Definitely not a feel good read but perhaps perfect for reading in rainy weather.