My Dark Vanessa

This was a difficult read. There were moments where I just wanted to fling my e-reader across the room and stop reading all together. But I knew I had to get through it. At first, it was because of the pay off— I wanted Strane to be brought to justice. I wanted her to let go of the pain and abuse he had caused her. But in the second to last chapter, I let go of all of that. She doesn't need to be happy in the end, this isn't a fairytale. She just needed to start healing. The first step is always the hardest.

Throughout the book, we had to see Vanessa go through abuse and gaslighting by someone she thought loved her. As she grew older, she truly believed that Strane was the only one who could love her the way she needed to be loved. He had made her believe that.

“To be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing.”
Later in the book, “He worshipped me. I was lucky.”

When we see her in the “present”, her life becomes increasingly messy. I was angry at her constant avoidance and the excuses she made for Strane. “The longer I talk, the more confident I become, blaming myself, absolving Strane.” But she was just a child. She didn't know any better. In some ways, even in her 30s — she was stuck at fifteen.

The topic of victimhood and self-flagellation becomes this entangled mess throughout. Vanessa didn't see herself as a victim but a willing participant in what had happened. Which lead to her self-destruction over the years. “I'm not a victim because I've never wanted to be, and if I don't want to be, then I'm not. That's how it works. THe difference between rape and sex is a state of mind. You can't rape the willing, right?” The abuse and gaslighting she had gone through was just so ingrained in her being by then.

In the end, I didn't really need her to bring him to justice. I just wanted her to start healing from the abuse she endured. “There must be a point where you're allowed to be defined by something other than what he did to you. [...] I can imagine how it might feel to not be his, not to be him. To feel that maybe I could be good”

This book made me sick to my stomach. But I knew, from the very beginning, that I needed to see it all the way through. If there is anything to be gained from reading this book, it's this; Believe women.