As someone who works with future teachers, this was both a teaching and learning experience. Of course, I want all my future teachers to learn from the book, but more importantly to understand how young people (both male and female) are manipulated by predators.

Vanessa is a woman who has never made peace with, or grown past the time in her life when she was the victim of a teacher who was a pedophile. The saddest thing is how she holds her 15 year old self as the responsible perpetrator for all the damage that was done.

The book is beautifully written and endlessly engaging. The reader becomes a witness to the grooming process, the manipulation, the trade of secrecy for perceived love that predators use to entrap their victims. The depth of the feelings and insights make the reader feel that this is a memoir rather than fiction. Quite an accomplishment.

As a teacher for many years, I have seen this process in real life. I have watched young children lured by predatory adults who bribe them with promises of love or money. The witness is often ignored by authorities. It was not until recently that there were actual reporting channels to bring these criminals to justice.

I will add this to my seminar reading list since all educators must read this.

I thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this extraordinary novel.

Vanessa is struggling to find her place at the boarding school she begged to go to. That is until she meets Mr. Strane. Her English teacher who is consistently impressed by her and showers her with his attentions. Eventually it leads further than compliments and at 15, she is in a full blown secret relationship with a 40+ year old man.

That’s the basic background for this book, but it is so much more than that. This book was infuriatingly well done. I wanted to scream while Strane manipulated and abused her. I wanted to cry when she continued to insist she wasn’t abused and that it was a mutual loving relationship. This book points out what is truly happening when a man in power uses that power to abuse someone beneath him, whether they realize at the time that they are being manipulated or not. It’s an important read that I highly recommend everyone check out.

Before going into it, this book has lots of creepy and sexual abuse, something I wanted to warn about before anything. The book is about sexual abuse and the boundaries of what some people think is and isn't right about consent and the ages between girl, women and men. 

This book may cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and flashbacks and make you feel so horrible in general because to me it feels like you are a watcher and you can't do anything to help the poor girl; this is a work of fiction and I felt that way.

I wanted to talk about how this can be related to the situations that started when women started to come out about men abusing them from years ago. The book has the premises of this. The book switches back and forth between Vanessa at fifteen and Vanessa in the present day at thirty-two when memory and trauma is so infused when you are a teenager and discovering their own body.

I can understand this emotional trauma between when you were sixteen and then as you are at an adult; how more self-aware you are about it because as an adult you know it wasn't right what had happened. Then, you were scared and didn't know how to stand up for yourself and still don't.

Vanessa is relatable if you ever been in a sexual abuse situation but I don't like her passivity on what she thinks she knows what she wants and how she tells herself she wants it when you truly don't but that's what Grooming is; when a predator makes emotional connections where you feel safe and you believe that you are friends when really they are taking advantage of you. That is the complexity of Grooming and boundaries.

“Tell us what he did to you”

It is a hard story to follow because she knows she is traumatized by it but still believes she loved him but her internal dialogue is going back and forth. It is sad.

“Blaming his behavior on her; that what he does is because he sees her and loves her”

I really loved it and anyone who doesn't get squimish or nightmares of things happening like that. Give it a go! All I will say it has a happy ending.

❄️❄️❄️❄️/5 snowflakes

I pulled an all-nighter to read this book. It's unbelievably good. A horrifyingly real and complex study of the psychology of "grooming" and abuse. I'm in awe.

Psychologically thrilling debut novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa is essentially a play by play account of an affair between Vanessa, a teenage student and her English teacher, told from the perspective of Vanessa. Russell’s writing is captivating. Carefully depicting the explicit thoughts of a teenager amid a traumatic experience and how the undeveloped brain responds to such trauma. You get a vivid picture of how a predator uses manipulation tactics to groom a young woman into thinking that she is experiencing true love and devotion. It really is a deep dive into the psychology of a teenage girl’s brain and how irrational it is. As a woman myself, I could identify with Vanessa at times and imagine how a young, intelligent woman like herself can end up in an unfortunate situation, and how the people you are supposed to trust can fail you.

There are a lot of references to Nabokov’s Lolita. In fact, you can describe this book as a sort of modern retelling from the point of view of Lo herself. I recommend this book to lovers of fiction, psychological thrillers, as well as to people interested in true crime, non-fic psychology, or to those of us following the #metoo movement.

Disturbing, captivating, dark, relevant, thought-provoking - all words I'd use to describe this book. This book is definitely well written and held my attention, but I would say it's not for everyone. Not sure how I felt about the ending, but I don't know how I would have ended it.

A dark and difficult book to read but I think that this would be a great book for discussion. Kate Elizabeth Russell does a fantastic job of putting the reader into the mind of Vanessa and her struggle to come to terms with what happened to her as a teenager.

3.5 stars, rounded up. This was such a difficult read.

As the summary suggests, at fifteen years old Vanessa enters into a sexual relationship with her English teacher. The rest of the book outlines the multi-year relationship while flashing forward to her teacher dealing with multiple allegations of sexual assault of girls. Vanessa's initial (and sustaining) romanticized acceptance of her teacher's actions is heartbreaking, as is the culmination of her analysis of her relationship. It was a little annoying how much Russell wanted to hit the reader over the head with the Lolita comparisons, though; Vanessa's constant references to it got old quickly.

Overall, I can't, in good conscience, recommend it to anyone because it's a horrific exploration of abuse (and it is abuse, even if Vanessa or Kate Elizabeth Russell say otherwise) and how abusers manipulate their victims.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a DRC of this title for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

OOOF. This was a hard book to read. Not because it was bad, but because it was actually so, so good and the topics it tackled were brutal to look at head-on. Told in two timelines, one when Vanessa is a student at a private boarding school, and one in current time, where she is a 30-something dealing with the fall out of what happened to her old professor. After arriving at her new school, Jacob Strane, her English teacher, takes an interest in her and their relationship progresses rapidly. Now, looking back on it, Vanessa is determined to keep up the illusion that the whole thing was a relationship and not something abusive. It's nothing like what the other girls who are accusing him of, the power plays that left them weak and ashamed. Because Vanessa was in control, even if nobody else believes her. Strane always asks her before doing anything and she remembers giving consent. And that can't be abuse. Or rape. Or anything of the sort, especially since she went back to him after turning 18. Because it if was abuse, or rape, or pedophilia, then what did she commit the last 7 years of her life to?

Highly recommend. This is a dark, gritty read.

Russell did a really great job with this very tough subject - in high school Vanessa begins having an affair with her English teacher, and then the story goes back and forth between the past and 2017 when more allegations against the teacher surface. When women start to come forward about the abuse they faced from this teacher, Vanessa has to face what happened and her own feelings about her relationship with him. This is a difficult read, but very compelling and well done.

This book made me curse, shout, clap and punch my fist in the air -- dark, disturbing (only because it is so easy to identify with) and completely absorbing (in the same way drowning would be). You don't want to put it down, and once you do, you absolutely cannot stop thinking about it, I'm still thinking about it!

Russell has created a riveting story and deep dive into a complex and beautifully crafted main character. Well-written and compelling examination of the potential long term and widespread effects of sexual abuse.

I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very well written, compulsive read. I read this within a day and will be recommending it to patrons who want a grittier more realistic Whisper Network, Speak, or Lolita

Powerful, moving story about a vunerable student at an East Coast boarding school. Vanessa's complicated relationship with her English teacher extends far beyond her school days and shapes her life choices. Vanessa views herself as special, unique, and loved. She believes she is a willing participant in a difficult relationship but readers will have a different interpretation.

I was unsure about this book at first due to the subject matter. After some glowing reviews from colleagues I decided to give it a try. They were right - it is absolutely excellent, and approaches the subject of grooming and child abuse with nuance and empathy. The protagonist does not believe herself to have been abused but, as the story goes on, the reader clearly sees how her experience has influenced and damaged every aspect of her life. The story is told in such an engrossing and sensitive way that you completely understand Vanessa's thought process. It's unforgettable. The debut of a very talented author.

I had the complete and utter fortune of reading Kate Elizabeth Russell's *My Dark Elizabeth* months before its publication, and I feel confident in saying that this is going to be one of the most significant novels of 2020.

This books spend its time predominantly in 2000/2001, following 15-year-old Vanessa as she is groomed and manipulated by her much older teacher, and also in 2017 in the midst of the #metoo movement as at least five girls come forward against the man Vanessa considers to be the love of her life. Unsettling, hard to stomach, horrifying, and blood boiling, this is the best depiction of an abusive relationship and surviving the emotional and physical effects of abuse that I have ever seen. As a survivor of intimate partner violence and sexual abuse, Kate Elizabeth Russell has hit every nail on the head with this in ways that I have truly never seen expressed in writing before. Russell's writing is both beautiful and haunting, and it kept me coming back to finish in less than 24 hours even though the content literally made me nauseous.

While Vanessa's story is different from mine in the sense that she does not see herself as a victim of abuse, I know that this message will ring true with so many people. This is a necessary and vastly important narrative that I think will only become more needed as it ages. Like a line Vanessa says in the book, this novel feels a bit like home. Too many of us understand what that's means. I'm going to pre-order a physical copy and I'm going to revisit it when I need to. The content is horrifying but the writing and authorship is literal perfection. If you are in a safe enough place to read this, I cannot recommend it enough.

An interesting, yet heartbreaking, examination of a young victim of a serial abuser. Recommended for fans of Eileen or What Was She Thinking.

My Dark Vanessa was a powerful book about a dark subject that I wasn't sure I wanted to read. As disturbing as it was I think it's going to be one of those must-reads that people shouldn't shy away from.

A modern Lolita for today's world. A dark and twisted tale of a professor's manipulative relationship with a young student. I didn't want to read this book, but I couldn't put it down.

Loner student Vanessa is lured into a toxic relationship with her English teacher at a private New England high school that lasts years. The story alternates between present day when Vanessa is in her late twenties and when she was in high school. The present day narrative weaves in topical references to the #metoo movement as other former students speak out and Vanessa is forced to make the decision of speaking out against her former teacher. Flawed, sometimes disturbing characters combined with a compelling and introspective style (the story is told exclusively from Vanessa's point of view) make for a believable, unforgettable, heartbreaking story.