Many books are said to have the power to heal, but can a book trouble you? I didn’t realise it until I read Kate Elizabeth Russell’s ‘My Dark Vanessa’. This novel has deeply impacted me, breaking my heart. I even allowed it to rob me of peaceful sleep. It is devastatingly beautiful and worth every bit of the sorrow it left behind.

Russell weaves themes of love, trauma, denial, grooming, and the long-term effects of abuse. I struggle to express how a story filled with pain and turmoil can be portrayed with such beauty. How does grooming blur the lines between love, control, and abuse? This is one of the novelvs most Intriguing questions.

‘My Dark Vanessa’ begins in 2017, introducing 30-year-old Vanessa Wye as she prepares to work at a hotel in Portland, Maine. The narrative opens with her refreshing her Facebook page. She is anxiously awaiting updates about Jacob Strane, who is her former English teacher and is under investigation for sexual assault by a former student.

The story alternates between this timeline and Vanessa’s past, starting in 2000 when she is a 15-year-old scholarship student at a prestigious boarding school, Browick. In the same year, Vanessa’s relationship with her best friend had turned cold, and no one had filled the vacuum. Vanessa isn’t particularly close to her parents either. Her mother urges her to promise that she will make a large group of new friends so she won’t spend all day alone in her room. Vanessa’s mother is determined for her to “get out there” and live a fuller life this year.

To cope with her loneliness and become more involved, Vanessa joins the creative writing club, where Jacob Strane is the faculty advisor. After learning that Vanessa has no friends, Jacob asks her personal questions. As their conversation continues, Jacob's behaviour makes Vanessa uneasy. These lines from the book reveal the beginning of something unsettling: “Mr Strane sets the eraser on the chalk rail and contemplates me from across the room. He slips his hands into his pockets and looks me up and down.”

“That's a nice dress. I like your style.”

A middle-aged teacher commenting on a student’s outfit feels uncomfortable. One day, in the classroom, Vanessa makes a mistake on the computer. Jacob reaches down, places his hand over hers, and guides the mouse. When she makes another mistake, he repeats the action but squeezes her hand this time. What’s disturbing is that Jacob doesn’t behave this way with other students. This marks the beginning of Jacob’s physical closeness to Vanessa.

Gradually, Jacob starts asking to read Vanessa’s poems and writings. He praises her work, making her feel special—intoxicating, as she feels isolated and misunderstood at school. Jacob’s behaviour is a mix of charm and manipulation, which lays the groundwork for a grooming process where he preys on her vulnerabilities, convincing her that their bond is unique and meaningful. Over time, Vanessa enjoys his attention, secretly longing to be noticed.

One day, while Jacob is still focused on her poem, his knee brushes against Vanessa’s bare thigh beneath her skirt’s hemline. Vanessa freezes. As he continues reading, he tells her she’s a dark romantic like him, someone drawn to dark things. Then, he pats her knee. She remains paralysed, unable to move, while he continues marking her poem, his other hand slowly stroking her knee. At that moment, Vanessa feels disconnected, as though she has changed and become something less than human.

Vanessa feels detachment and disorientation as Jacob touches her. She is no longer grounded in her body, drifting away from her sense of self. The unsettling actions make her feel alienated and disconnected from her usual identity as a teenage student. She feels she has transformed into something unfamiliar and distant, leaving her unable to respond or react.

Then, as days pass, Vanessa feels desperate for something more to happen between them. Little touches turn into kisses. Russell describes how Vanessa feels a sense of power to make a 42-year-old teacher fall at her feet. With a man 27 years older than her, Vanessa thinks that she has encountered love for the first time.

Russell articulates Vanessa as fearless and bold for wanting something that can ruin her being. When Jacob invited her to his house, she readily agreed. Russell describes Vanessa in Jacob’s house, how she feels being there, what they do together, and what Jacob does to Vanessa.

Although Vanessa perceives these encounters as consensual or romantic due to Jacob's grooming tactics, they are exploitative. Jacob positions himself as a lover while simultaneously reinforcing his dominance through emotional manipulation—he convinces her that she instigated their relationship and that their bond is special.

Later, when Vanessa becomes more mature, a part of her believes that she was mistreated by Jacob, and another part wants those things more. When you are traumatised, when you are exposed to a negative feeling a lot, you start to get accustomed to it. You associate meaning with it. That is what Vanessa did: she associated abuse with love.

The adult Vanessa struggles with her past, unable to form genuine connections with others. Now in her thirties, she finds disinterest in relationships with men her age. Instead, she focuses on Jacob, who occupies a central place in her thoughts.

Despite the revelations of Strane's predatory behaviour towards other students, Vanessa clings to the belief that their relationship is special and consensual. This attachment is rooted in a complex mix of nostalgia and denial; she perceives Jacob as her first love, complicating her ability to move on.

Vanessa often romanticises her past with Jacob, seeing it as a love story rather than confronting the manipulation and abuse she endured. This mindset drives her to fiercely defend him, even as she struggles with the truth of his actions. Her inner turmoil is captured in this powerful monologue:

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

“Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?”

“It’s my life. This has been my whole life.”

These lines are loaded with emotional weight, and reading them brought me to tears. Russell captures Vanessa’s internal conflict perfectly—how she mistakes abuse for love and refuses to see herself as a victim.

Jacob, unable to face the consequences after being exposed by his former students, is later found dead in a river, with suicide suspected. As Vanessa processes his death, she tries to piece together her life and heal.

By the novel’s end, Vanessa adopts a dog and takes it for a walk. With the sun on her face and the dog beside her, Russell writes that Vanessa feels an immense capacity for good. She is finally stepping into a new chapter of her life, free from Jacob’s presence in her mind.

I couldn’t have wished for a more fitting conclusion to this haunting yet powerful novel.

My Dark Vanessa

Author: Kate Elizabeth Russell

Publisher: William Morrow

Year: 2020

Pages: 384