my dark vanessa, a review
Title: Min mörka Vanessa (My dark Vanessa)
Author: Kate Elizabeth Russell
Published: 2020
Pages: Swedish version has 414 (416 with notes and extra material)
Translation: Yes, by Emö Malmberg
Rating: 5 out of 5 hangovers
LIST OF TRIGGER WARNINGS!
Some call it a modern-day Lolita, a book that is referenced a lot in this novel.
Disturbing, beautiful, uncomfortable and captivating.
Enraging and makes you feel very compassionated and caring.
For the victim of course because fuck the abuser, disrespectfully.
So grotesque yet very delicate.
15-year-old Vanessa Wye engages in a sexual relationship with her 42-year old English teacher Jacob Strane. A relationship that starts off innocently with their shared love and interest of literature.
There’s themes of consent, manipulation, Me Too-movement, age gap, shaming, power play, grooming, suicide, victim-blaming, trauma, denial and self-harm with drugs and alcohol… to name a few.
It’s incredibly raw and if you’ve dealt with anything like this in your own life or know somebody who have, please beware and read it with caution since it may be very triggering and read this list of triggers for this specific book. It was a painful experience, as a reader, to follow along and see the victim go through and live through the abuse and to also witness how the abuse begins to define her life all the way into adulthood and sooner or later affect her future relationships. The last 125 (289-414) pages broke me as much as it gave me hope, especially the last four pages (410-414). I literally smiled through my pain and fought a few tears to seep through.
I appreciate the idea of jumping back and forth between two lifetimes (2000-2007 and 2017). Although I was afraid of it making my reading experience slightly complicated, the flow of reading was impeccable. An easy read with hard topics.
Considered a controversial novel, I personally think that it’s a highly important novel, if not one of the most important ones out there. Hopefully it has brought up in the past, will bring up in the future and continues to bring up important questions so that important and life-saving conversations can be had. It made me re-evaluate my own relationships in the past and those of my friends. It did an amazing job with putting things to perspective such as what was allowed in the past that shouldn’t have been. Friends’ stories from when we were teenagers, especially in the years 2003-2006 at the age of 13 to 16. I cringe sometimes when I think of it and ask myself, how the hell did we survive it?
I give it 5 out of 5 hangovers and acid in the eye to all thepaedophiles in the world. What a book to end the year with.
I have a feeling that this novel and Vanessa Wye will live rent-free in my head for a very long time. And I absolutely have no idea how I managed to finish this book, especially with this heart-wrenching quote by Vanessa to Ruby, her therapist:
