A review by atsundarsingh
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

3.0

I think this was a hard book where it takes a long time to get to what makes it valuable, but it was valuable. This is a first person (mostly) account of sexual abuse, and as a result the reader sees just how controlling, and how defining the grooming abusers do is for survivors. Vanessa isn’t always a sympathetic protagonist, but that is the point I think. She doesn’t need to be a perfect victim because no such thing exists, nor should it matter for us to sympathize with her experience. In the end, I think the healing moments are subtle and tender and fragile, much like they might be in real life. All this is an achievement.