Genre: Psychological Fiction
Four and a half stars: * * * * 1/2
What a book. This is one that's incredibly difficult to describe but if you like this genre then I highly recommend it. The writing, the story, the emotion...are all incredible. And deeply disturbing. I can't believe this is the author's debut novel. This is a dark story of coercion and grooming of a child. It's so well written that as the reader, I also felt groomed. I felt sucked into the spell of Strane, spun into Vanessa's confusion and trapped in a disturbing relationship.
Synopsis
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager-and who professed to worship only her-may be far different from what she has always believed?
As given on author's website.
My thoughts
This book is incredibly hard to get out of your mind. The devastating effect that one man can have on a child throughout her life is just so distressing. The author makes you experience this so personally and intimately that it takes strategically placed internal dialogue from Vanessa to remind you that this is wrong, this is harmful, this is damaging and dark. It's like Vanessa is paralysed by Strane, stuck in time, in thinking and progressing and, as a reader, I really felt it too. I find it incredible that the author has found the words and narrative to make me feel this as a reader.
The story allows you to come up for air periodically to see how 'the affair' impacts Vanessa's relationships, her education, her life, her career, everything. It's an addictive read, analogous to Vanessa's addiction to Strane. But it's dark and it's haunting and not for the faint-hearted.
About the author
Kate Elizabeth Russell lives in Portland, Oregon. My Dark Vanessa is her debut novel. She is originally from eastern Maine and earned an MFA from Indiana University and a PhD from the University of Kansas.
Slightly edited from that as given on author's website.
Comments