My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

I promise you that this is not like anything else you will read in 2020, and this book might also go straight into your Top 10 reads of 2020.

This book is raw, real, disturbing, controversial and a powerhouse of its own. It is a debut from Kate Elizabeth Russell, and she will probably be asked a billion times if it is her own story.

There are two timelines in the books. We first meet Vanessa aged 15 and in love with her English high school teacher, and then we meet her again at age 32, struggling to get her life together.

Vanessa starts a sexual relationship with her English teacher, Jacob Strand, 45, at her boarding school when she is 15. But is it love or is it abuse? Vanessa is clearly vulnerable and at the same time starts to get an understanding of the power that the relationship gives her. There is no sugarcoating this relationship, but the writing is just so good, that you will find yourself turning pages.

Somehow, while Vanessa changes school, the rumor is already ahead of her, and she is defined as the girl who might have had a sexual relationship with a teacher. You can feel the teenage hormones and girltalk in the pages.

The second timeline is when a former student from the boarding high school comes forward, and accuses Jacob Strand for sexual abuse. A true #metoo campaign is gathering, and Vanessa is contacted by a journalist covering the case. However, Vanessa is still in touch with Jacob, but no longer in an intimate relationship with him (and she asks herself, as does the reader, is that because she is too old now for him? At the age of 32?)

This is a debut, and a mind-blowing one. The story feels personal and I found myself wanting to shake Vanessa up, I felt angry at her mother, and imagined what it would feel like if this were to happen to my own daughter. I got engaged in the book.

What is also interesting, is that there is no real victimization of Vanessa. She is there, and it is heavy material, but it is her life.

The book has already been sold to a Swedish publisher, and it will probably be a bestseller worldwide and a book that everyone will have a strong opinion about. Read it! Also if you follow Kate Elizabeth Russel on Instagram, you will find her funny and talented.

Reviewed by Lotte Bastholm

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Hannah Gough24 February 2020