I also praise that she kept writing the novel despite receiving firsthand feedback that the character was unlikeable. Like the author asserts, trauma is complex and never as cut and dry as we’d like it to be. It’s rare to find books like these that lay bare a topic we’d rather giggle uncomfortably about or condemn absolutely. I thought this was achingly honest and unapologetic. 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. 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. 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?Īlternating 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.
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. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. 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.Ģ017.
brilliantly crafted.”- The Washington PostĪ most anticipated book by The New York Times Įxploring 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.Ģ000.
“ exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.” - The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
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