My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell 
Book
Contemporary
Book
Contemporary
Updated: 28 September 2025
No rape or sexual assault
Rape or sexual assault mentioned in passing (in discussion and/or implied)
Sexual harassment (e.g. verbal or non-consensual touching/grabbing)
Sexual relationship between adult and teenager
Child sexual abuse
Incest
Attempted rape
Rape strongly implied/details surrounding a rape discussed in detail (i.e. the events before/after)
Detailed/vivid description of rape

Description

This book follows Vanessa Wye in 2017, at the height of the MeToo movement, as a 32-year-old woman sees online a young woman accuse her former English teacher, Jacob Strane, of sexually assaulting as a student. We then follow Vanessa as a 15-year-old lonely teenage girl at a boarding school because groomed, sexually abused, and raped by Strane in 2000—all experiences Vanessa views as consensual. There are multiple instances of sexual assault and rape between a teenage girl and an adult man, including instances where she is pressured or disassociating during the abuse. The older man also takes suggestive photographs of her. There are multiple instances of the boarding school enabling sexual abuse by giving female students “rape whistles” and allows students to have dinner at teachers’ houses. A teenage girl is eventually forced out of her school because school officials believed she was lying about having a relationship with her teacher when, in fact, it was true and she agrees to cover for him to protect him. A teenage girl is also threatened by an older man who she was talking online. A young woman publicly accuses her teacher of grooming and sexually assaulting (e.g., sexual touching) her as a 14-year-old girl in 2006.

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