My Dark Vanessa

Not just important and incredibly written, but a necessary book, given today’s #metoo movement, My Dark Vanessa explores parts of the survivor experience that no one else is talking about. 

My Dark Vanessa follows Vanessa Wye’s life in two timelines: at fifteen as she begins a relationship with her much older teacher, and later in her adult life as her childhood classmates come forward with accusations against the same teacher. 

I’ve read a good number of other stories that deal with age-gap relationships of this nature and other, similar hard-hitting topics, but none of them explore the subject to this degree of depth, intimacy, and to the lengths that this book does. 

“Hide all you want, but the truth will always find you.”

Some reviews have claimed that this story is too long, which may be because the majority of this story takes place far after the events of other books of this type have ended. This book isn’t necessarily about the teacher, the relationship, or even the legal consequences of such a situation. It’s about Vanessa’s inner turmoil and the lasting effects the relationship had on her life.

Unabashedly taking on complicated topics of love, relationships, and the lasting effects of trauma, My Dark Vanessa depicts the complicated reality of why some women don’t come out about past abuse, and why they don’t support other women who do. It’s not a pretty picture, or a neat one, and not one that necessarily strikes up hope or a sense of justice.

In fact, you won’t find much peace at all in Vanessa’s story, so don’t go looking for any. And that’s part of why it’s so brilliant. 

The brilliance of this book lies both in its subtlety and it’s the ability to harness the power of contradictions. Vanessa is as realistic and relatable as a character can get, and yet incredibly unlikeable. She’s not the feminist, heroine, female lead we want in our books like this. But she’s the one we needed to see. You understand completely how and why she falls for Strane while remaining completely disgusted. 

“People will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful.”

This story goes into a level of detail that, in any other story, would serve only as shock value, and yet it all serves a clear purpose. Somehow, it manages to strike a balance between telling it all and not romanticizing anything, which is something many other taboo books find difficult to completely achieve. The story is predictable (because we’ve seen it in real life so many times before), yet full of suspense and remains shocking. I found myself gasping, cringing, and literally ew-ing out loud while listening. All of the themes are so obvious, and yet completely folded within the story of Vanessa’s life. 

Top it off with some of the most hauntingly beautiful writing I’ve seen in a while, which harkens back to the lyrical, gorgeously metaphor-driven, description-rich prose that seems to be going out of style, and this book becomes a work of art.

“I just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that.”

In the audiobook version, Grace Gummer is such a perfect voice for Vanessa and this story, nailing both the young and naive fifteen-year-old girl and the struggling adult, that her (honestly, pretty bad) attempts at doing male character voices, accents, and well, honestly anyone else but Vanessa, is (almost) forgiven. 

My Dark Vanessa is a 5-star story with an almost equally perfect audiobook. Fans of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and The Kiss should read this next.

 Thank you to HarperAudio and Book Riot for the opportunity to win a copy of this audiobook in their giveaway!

You can currently read My Dark Vanessa for free with Scribd trial.