My Dark Vanessa
June 7, 2026
Book Name: My Dark VanessaAuthor: Kate Elizabeth Russell
Page Number: 373
Date Finished Reading: June 5, 2026
Rating: 4/5
Decription: *taken off amazon* 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.
Review: My Dark Vanessa is a very uncomfortable novel, but I could not stop reading. I was able to read it in two days, it took me 6.5 hours. The characters are extremely well-written-- so well-written, you almost feel sorry for Mr. Strane sometimes. It's sick. The author encapsulated the manipulation victims are put through to a T. It was extremely sad seeing Vanessa hold onto her past so hard, she felt like she knew no other life. Which in a way, she didn't. She had spent more of her life with him than without him. She had to start building a new life almost. She had associated everything with him.
I found with time, Jacob Strane got more and more pathetic. I'd like to think as Vanessa grew stronger, she started viewing him in a bad light. At first, his character was glorified, his bad traits weren't focused on as much. Like I said, it's sick how accurate the author wrote him. He genuinely did seem sweet at first, and as the reader I kept having to remind myself
HE'S THREE TIMES HER AGE!One complaint I had about this book is I think using the metoo movement watered the story down a bit. It could be hard to take it serious at times due to the
cringinessof denying the movement, or the generic
You go girl!comments. I understood how it was a good modern day segue for Vanessa to realize she is a victim though. I just thought I would point that out.
Overall, this was a great read. I would recommend it, especially to younger women/men struggling to accept that they were a victim. It's a much different perspective being the outsider looking in.
-Kay