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Meine dunkle Vanessa

This novel by Kate Elizabeth Russel is unlike anything I’ve read before. It’s so disturbing and dark, you feel like throwing up at some parts, but so intriguing and beautifully written at the same time. My Dark Vanessa is an exploration of the psyche of a woman that was groomed as a 15 year old by her 40 something y/o English teacher Mr. Strane. Vanessa grows up believing that what they had was some great love story which most people were just too narrow minded to understand. The reader can tell that the protagonist herself is not quite sure about this herself but is trying to hold onto this one thing that has defined her whole life. And who wants to be a victim first, human second? To Vanessa this seems to be the only way her life could be seen by herself and other people if what happened to her wasn’t love. So she lies to herself again and again. I loved the two different time lines. At the beginning I got a bit annoyed when it was time for the 2017-timeline but as time went on and the story developed, I was sucked more and more into the storyline of Vanessa trying to come to terms with her past. Overall, this was an amazing and incredibly powerful novel about (child) s*xual abuse and the struggles that victims of said abuse face afterward. 5/5 stars