My Dark Vanessa

Vanessa is 15, shy and talented, a pupil at a boarding school, when her English lit teacher grooms and seduces her. By lending her [b:Lolita 7604 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604.SY75.jpg 1268631] nontheless. The affair and relationship stretches off-and-on over the next decade, rendering Vanessa blind to its abusive nature. We follow along in alternating timelines: we experience the sweet and sickening beginnings at the boarding school through the eyes of a teenage girl, and we also encounter how a grown-up Vanessa has to come to terms with her trauma, when the #metoo movement flares up and various allegations about her former teacher emerge. I just really need it to be a love story. [...] Because of it isn't a love story, then what is it?Even though this is about a scandalous story, this isn't a scandalous book. It's darkly fascinating and uncomfortable, but nuanced, and not all black and white. It does a great job at depicting the psychological torment that's hidden in Vanessa, in the past and the present, toggling love and repulsion, self-awareness and submission. The book shows how hard or sometimes impossible it can be, to dig your way out of something so traumatic. She is marked by this story, unable to escape it, seeing and seeking similarities in the people and relationships around her.