This debut novel about a girl’s relationship with her teacher is compulsively readable
When #MeToo broke, it wasn’t just about high-profile cases of abuse – it felt like a new light being shone on all past interactions, allowing us to see them differently. Everywhere you saw women talking feverishly to each other, you knew it would be about this creepy boss, or that older guy.
My Dark Vanessa – about a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Vanessa, who has a sexual relationship her 42-year-old teacher, Jacob Strane – animates this process of re-evaluation, albeit within an extreme case. Kate Elizabeth Russell resists the (now sometimes shrill) insistence on black and white in sexual dealings – instead inhabiting the mind of a vulnerable teenager, offering insight into how black might feel like white, how abuse might be taken for romance – and how this lie could be desperately clung to into adulthood. My Dark Vanessa reveals a slow journey towards a different understanding.
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