published: march 10, 2020
source: kindle unlimited
rating:★★★✩✩
from goodreads:
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
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?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
my review:
my dark vanessa was just that, dark. it was an okay book, some things made me cringe super hard but it was interesting to see a count of child abuse from the victims eyes.
vanessa was very naive and strane very much so took advantage of her,
and others. she irked me when she talked about the things that happened to her because again she was so so naive but thats the way she viewed herself. she was very confident in what she was doing and no matter how much she hated what she was doing she accepted it as a real relationship because he realized how "special" she was. vanessa struggles, even now in adulthood, to see what strane really was. she goes through the battle of therapy as an adult and still thinks everything that happened to her was right and really accepts him as her first love up until his ultimate demise.
strane is the ultimate pedo. i wish we could have gotten a snippet from him to see all that he "ruined" as he rested his head in whomevers lap. strane was demented in various ways, how many girls did he ruin or not ruin according to vanessa. i guessed he did love her in a way but it still does not make sense for this 45 year old man to be hitting on his students who lived at this school, away from their parents who could have maybe protected them. who knows. in the end he showed himself to be a true coward and could not take responsibility for his actions.
vanessa had a lot of people on her side, her family, jenny, taylor, but she did not want to consider herself the victim that they all considered her to be. as her parents, i would have done more to fight for what was right but if she did not believe that she was a victim i guess there was nothing to really fight for. jenny and taylor did what they could to try and help her but if she did not want the help there was only so much that they could do for her.
my dark vanessa was a good read. it was very raw, realistic, and sort of unfiltered. it shows how the things of our childhood, especially traumatizing things like this, can shape us into who we are and how we see the world. vanessa was traumatized, unwilling to believe it, but it showed throughout her lifetime. and strane the demented man he was, i just have no words because it really happens in the world out there. if you're going to read this be ready for a whirlwind of emotion and rawness.
favorite quotes:
"people will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful."
"hide all you want, but the truth will always find you."
