My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell | Book Review

Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

Date Published: March 10, 2020

Date Read: April 8, 2020

Publisher: William Morrow Books

No. of Pages: 384

Setting: Maine

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Adult

Trigger Warnings: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual Assault

Get you Copy Here:  Amazon | Book Depository 

Reading this feels like watching a wreckage, logical thought would suggest you have to look away, but against all odds you just kept staring.

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, pedophilia, sexual assault.

My Dark Vanessa is the kind of read that will make your skin crawl. You will feel uncomfortable and bothered by what transpired between Vanessa and Strane. It has this inexplicable pull, its reader dare I say, a willing victim. Its darkness is all consuming and powerful, like you’re under an immense grey cloud hovering above you for days. Reading this feels like watching a wreckage, logical thought would suggest you have to look away, but against all odds you just kept staring. It will leave you with unsettling feeling, a feeling you cannot simply shake off. A book that will stay with you for however long you like it. Impactful and so beautifully written. A narrative that needs to be said no matter how ugly it was. I kept telling myself its fiction, but who am I kidding, these unspeakable things can happen or is happening to so many girls out there. That’s why it is so bothersome and depressing to read.

My Dark Vanessa is a book that will challenge you. Not an easy read. Not a book I would typically reach out, nor a book I would read during this pandemic. I first listened to on audio from Scribd, and I tell you it has the most talented narrator.Listening to it sends a different kind of chill – a whole new level of horror. The reading experience magnified and heightened 10x more. It will suck you in like a vortex. A tip to maximize your reading experience, listen to audio while reading the book. That’s a sure way to ingrain the book inside your pretty head. It was a harrowing read from beginning to end. My Dark Vanessa brought chills as I listen through Vanessa’s ordeal with what had transpired when she was 15, and how it affected her and her disposition throughout her adult life. Kate Elizabeth Russell’s writing style was precise, lucid and not too overwrought with unnecessary description of a place or a person, which somehow works really well in the book. It was able to send its chilling message across without sounding pretentious. My Dark Vanessa dumped love, consent, complicity, rape and manipulation in murky water making it hard to distinguish one from the other. Thought provoking at best.

The complicated characters, especially the narrator – Vanessa, gave so much depth to the book, making it more repulsive and graphic but also will give you a feeling you just couldn’t quite place, like sympathy and pity. Vanessa, was an enigma, (just how Henry Plough said it), her character so complex. You couldn’t quite guess what would be her reaction to certain things. There is darkness within her that is very hard to fathom, a kind of darkness that follows her, looms over everything she touches. Jacob Strane’s character is predatory and manipulative, but the book was able to paint him in a certain light that shows he is so much more than what he is. From this you will understand why Vanessa reacted the way she did or how Vanessa regarded Strane, on why she always puts him in a pedestal. It was frustrating to read, and yet the book was not amiss to lay down the foundation of Vanessa’s character, which was riddled with misplaced maturity and boldness.

I cannot in good conscience haphazardly recommend this book to whoever asks for literary fiction recommendation, I believe you have to set the trigger warnings first and always proceed with caution. It is a hard read, and I know not everyone would like it. A challenging read with sensitive topic but ultimately needed to be addressed. You have to have the proper mind set delving into this one. It will hit you differently, unpleasant at times, yet you will develop some profound understanding.

Kate Elizabeth Russell definitely made her mark with this debut. Now I have high expectations from her. Best believe I will be looking forward to more of her writing.

 

“Girls in those stories are always victims, and I am not. And it doesn’t have anything to do with what Strane did or didn’t do to me when I was younger. I’m not a victim because I never wanted to be, and If I didn’t want to be, then I’m not. That’s how it works. The difference between rape and sex is state of mind. You can’t rape the willing, right?”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

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❝”What could have we done? We were just girls.” I know what she means — not that we were helpless by choice, but that the world forced us to be. Who would have believed us, who would have cared? ❞ — Kate Elizabeth Russell; My Dark Vanessa . ••• . 🖤My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell BOOK REVIEW🖤 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ . Reading this feel like watching a wreckage, logical thought would suggest you have to look away, but against all odds you just kept staring. My Dark Vanessa is the kind of read that will make your skin crawl. You will feel uncomfortable and bothered by what transpires between Vanessa and Strane. It has this inexplicable pull, its reader dare I say, a willing victim. Its darkness is all consuming and powerful, like you’re under an immense grey cloud hovering above you for days. It’s like watching a wreckage, logical thought would suggest you have to look away, but against all odds you just kept staring – that’s how I could describe this book. It will leave you with unsettling feeling, a feeling you cannot simply shake off. A book that will stay with you for however long you like it. Impactful and so beautifully written. A narrative that needs to be said no matter how ugly it was. I kept telling myself its fiction, but who am I kidding, these unspeakable things can happen or is happening to so many girls out there. That’s why it is so bothersome and depressing to read. The complicated characters, especially the narrator – Vanessa gave so much depth to the book, making it more repulsive and chilling but also a feeling you couldn’t quite place, like sympathy. I wish I could articulate my thoughts more, but I don’t want certain thoughts on the book to slip through my head. I will be making a full review on this, I just have to further gather my thoughts and make it coherent. But yes, if you want a challenging book, read this. TW: rape, pedophilia, sexual assault . ••• #MyDarkVanessa #KateElizabethRussell #literaryfiction #strane #bookconnectsus #bookstagram #booklover #bibliophile #nerdytalks #bookish #books #reader #tbr #tbrpile #read #readingissexy #beautiful #stackofbooks #bookworld #tales #pages #pageone

A post shared by Eunice 🇵🇭 (@nerdytalksbookblog) on Apr 8, 2020 at 11:05pm PDT

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh | Book Review

Entertainment Weekly’s #1 Book of 2018 

A New York Times Notable Book and Times Critics’ Top Books of 2018

The New York Times bestseller.

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Named a Best Book of the Year by:
The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Amazon, Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible

Date Published: July 10, 2018

Date Read: January 2019

Publisher: Penguin Press

No. of Pages: 368 pages

Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Psycological Fiction

Setting: New York

Get Your Copy: Amazon | Book Depository

Ottessa Moshfegh is a good writer, but her fiction maybe isn’t my cup of tea.

My first read for 2019 has proven to be somewhat a letdown. Otessa Moshfegh is an author I’ve been hearing for quite sometime, and I thought it is high time to finally get acquainted with her works. I gave My Year of Rest and Relaxation a try since it has been named by Time and The Washington Post  as Book Of The Year, a pretty huge thing to throw out there. And so the ever curious self in me picked it up, gave the most regal title of first read of the year. I was hoping it would start my 2019 reading year on a good note, but I have never been so wrong. I regret picking it up to be completely honest. or maybe it was just a bad timing. I don’t know. This book is definitely not for me. It feels like this book was just this huge montage of doctor visits, bodega visits, blacking out, ordering Chinese food and letting it stale, drinking too much pills, oh those poor kidney, participating in things our protagonist couldn’t remember anything about and this went on and on like a sick cycle. I was waiting for things to pick up but it was just a monotonous song lacking rhythm and rhyme. It was titled My Year of Rest and Relaxation but I was more restless and annoyed the more I read it. Half of the time I had no idea what was going on. I laughed a few times, yes, but that didn’t serve as a redeeming quality of the book. I feel like I don’t get the humor, I am supposed to laugh but I couldn’t find it in me to fully do it. It is as if everybody got the joke except me.

I love flawed characters, I enjoy reading about them. But our protagonist in this book is flawed yes, but I was more annoyed than interested. She was just flat, plain boring and even repulsive to a fault. Am I supposed to like her? I know I am not supposed to but at least I wast hoping there would be something I could relate to, or heck at least make it a worthwhile read. It was a struggle reading her narration, I just wanted it to end.

And that ending, wtf was that? Starting this book I thought it was centered on the 9/11 event, but boy was I wrong. It was January when she started taking Infermiterol, I thought after her stint with it with PingXi it will fast forward to the 9/11, but I just ended up frustrated because the 9/11 event seemed like an afterthought, I know it was somewhat a metaphor but it was so lost on me. I am not the right audience for this. I am one of the poor souls that won’t get Ottessa Moshfegh’s fiction.

Sad that this is how my 2019 reading year started, but I won’t stop reading until I find my next favorite read!

Sleep felt productive. Something was getting sorted out. I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then—that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.”

― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

All My Lonely Islands by VJ Campilan: Book Review

Synopsis from Goodreads: One crisp March evening, Crisanta and Ferdinand arrive on the remote Batanes islands for a mission: locate Graciella, whose son, Stevan, they saw die in a tragic accident a decade ago. But they need to confess something to her: Stevan’s death is not all what it seems. Oppressed by a decade of painful memories, Crisanta and Ferdinand must race against time—from the wild swamplands of the Sundarban forest in Bangladesh to the back alleys of Manila to the savage cliffs of Batanes—to offer Graciella the truth that they themselves cannot bear to face.

Publisher: Anvil Publishing

Date Published:  2017

Date Read: February 2017

Number of Pages: 204

Setting: Batanes, Philippines / Dhaka, Bangladesh

Get your copy here.

Source: Sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Exceptional writing style, truly worthy of its praise.

This book won the Grand Prize for the Novel 2015 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for a reason. It is without a doubt truly worthy of that prestigious award. Now how to give the justice it deserves? I have zero idea, but I’m trying anyway. I have to point out first that this book is very well-written in all sense of the word. The words used in each sentences were carefully crafted so as to give life to the story. And though it was fairly a short read, it was a book that you need to savor. It is the book that you don’t rush finishing, but still ultimately look forward for an unadulterated time to be alone with it. It has this melancholic vibe to it that one can’t simply shake off. A book that will give you that sense of foreboding and as the story peaks up, you’re hanging on to every sentence leading to the inevitable end.

I truly adored how the story was written, it was a recollection of Crisanta’s life  from childhood up to her teenage years in Dhaka, Bangladesh and all the events that transpired between then and the present times. How the main character was able to reconcile the demons of her past with her present self. And can we also talk about how the narration was so vivid and beautiful it is as if you are truly there in the story. Batanes, Dhaka and Sundarban were all described with such eloquence and impressive imagery. The author painted these places in such a beautiful light, without sugarcoating it. It was presented in the most realistic way possible and I think that contributed to the overall beauty of the book. All My Lonely Islands also highlighted a lot of Filipino cultures and traditions though most of the book transpired in Dhaka Bangladesh. A book I will definitely recommend to those who would want to know  more about the Philippines and its haunting beauty.

Each character was unique – flawed, yes, but forgivable. Take for an instance Ferdinand, this troubled boy who didn’t have an easier life and was always living up to what people purports him to be. Oh that part when his parents found out that he was in trouble, the relief on their faces – because he was something they could define. Good god, that was a great explanation. I don’t want to reveal much of it, I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone anyway. I loved Ferdinand’s character, this may not be the same to others. But his character was the one who improved a whole lot. Crisanta’s character on the other hand was pretty consistent one, her character was the perfect depiction of every Filipino teenager, or every teenager for that matter. I was able to relate to her in more ways than one. And Stevan, how do I even start with Stevan? I wish there was more of Stevan. He was the character I wanted to know more of. He seems to be that boy who was also trying hard to survive each of his grueling days in high school, just as much as everyone else. Every character in this book was well thought out adding color to the story.

The subtle hints provided by the author in each chapter was enough to keep you going, enough to keep you interested. It wasn’t revealing everything at the first instance, there was the element of surprise and coherence. Every event was connected to the other. The side stories are also exceptional, like the one about Pobrito, man, that hit me hard. It was heartbreaking, ugly, depressing and yet I was so drawn to it, that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who would have thought that this was only the first book of the author? It seems to me that she had been writing all her life to come up with something that’ll hit you hard, of something that is so thought-provoking you couldn’t help but pause and ponder on the words you just read. And if being a Filipino is the only association I can have with this author, then I am damn proud to be a Filipino. Filipino talents are indeed world class, this book is the proof of it. This book struck a special cord in my heart, I’m confident to tell (yes even just two months in the year) that this book will be included in my Top 17 Books of 2017. This book deserves to be read even once in one’s lifetime. Honestly the blurb didn’t give the book much justice. If I passed by this one in a bookstore and read that blurb, I would be curious, but not enough to be inclined to read it right away. I just wish there was more to the blurb, it wasn’t able to fully grasp the whole beauty of the book. This is the only issue I have with this book, but hey this is what reviews are for. So I’m really trying my best to persuade you guys to not just depend on blurbs. Take a chance on a book, take a chance on this one!

That ending was exactly what the book needed – it was a closure. I felt more satisfied than ever, I appreciated that it took its sweet time. Not one thing was forced, it is as if everything happened at its own pace, at its own perfect time. Everything culminated and unfolded into this simple yet profound tale. Im glad I have read this one, made me value life more.

Rating: 

“You’re trying to look for rock bottom, to that part of yourself that could no longer feel pain. But there is no such thing as rock bottom. As long as there is left to destroy in you, you’d do it. We always feel the need to sink ourselves because we keep being intolerable, because if we’re suffering then maybe people would give us a break for all the shameful things we do. You think you could impose your own penance, but it never goes away, does it? That kind of deadening that’s worse than actual dying.”

― V.J. Campilan, All My Lonely Islands