The audiobook narrator is not great. The last 20% of the book is probably the best part. I feel like the book could have started at near the end and gone from there and been a much better book.
CW:
Dead body, death of a parent, shame, poverty, war, separation from family, PTSD, loss of a spouse, loss of a child, racial micro aggressions, grief, police violence, riots, depression, suicidal ideation, self harm, gentrification, car accident, religion: christianity, vomit, postpartum depression, cancer, deportation, stalking, rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, gun violence/threat of

The narrator of the audiobook speaks unbearably slow.
This review isn’t going to be spoiler free.
I understand what Russell was trying to do with this book. I do. However, this book felt weirdly voyeuristic and shamey to read.

We know as readers, what Vanessa is going through is wrong and traumatic, but what’s presented is this fluffy picture wrapped in poetic language. Then, with adult Vanessa resisting sharing her story, refusing to be a victim. It feels gross.

My Dark Vanessa is a novel of the #metoo era but it feels decades behind. If Vanessa’s story had been told differently, or arranged chronologically, Vanessa might have emerged as the hero.

I don’t know. Let’s discuss this book, what did you think?


Content warnings: pedophilia, rape, grooming, public shaming, masturbation, drug use, on page sex, school shooting mention, child pornorgrapy, violence towards animals, victim blaming, suicide ,sexual abuse/ harassment, shoplifting

Mamma Mia vibes in Capri section
Audiobook notes: narrator is annoying, bad Texas accent
CW: suicide mention, ableist mention, fortune telling, internalized racism, death of a parent, ptsd, grief, drinking/drunkeness, medical trauma, racial microagressions, antisemitism, drugs, spiritualism, oral sex scene, secondhand embarrassment, public shaming, flashbacks, sexist jokes, sex scene, infidelity, profanity, broken engagement

CW: politics / election, divorce, internalized racism, profanity, internalized homophobia, drinking/drunkenness, death of a parent, panic attack, on page sex, anxiety, grief, drug addiction, public outing, grooming mention, blackmail, sexual abuse mention, homelessness

What a boring book with an unsatisfactory ending. There were some passages with lovely writing, but overall, I found this incredibly dull. The audiobook is not pleasant to listen to.

CW:Poverty, Parental abandonment, alcoholism, domestic violence, slavery mention, child abuse/neglect, racial slurs, murder, segregation, food insecurity, selective mutism, description of injury, self-harm, menstruation, teen sex scenes, abandonment, sexual trauma/ assault, mental illness, ptsd, parental death, leukemia mention, generational trauma, trail

I read this because I happen to know the author from high school. I was able to read via kindle unlimited- I would have been disappointed if I’d paid for it. While the information presented was good, it was nothing new for me.

I was hoping for more personal stories about getting trapped in MLMs, and how to avoid being sucked it. It felt more like an essay than a book.

As a book, it’s unfinished. But still valuable information for those who are uninformed.

This was such a sweet book. The plot was blah and the characters blended together, but over all this was a sweet, easy read. Sweet YA romances in LGBTQ + are rare, so this was a sweet surprise