By Collection Management Librarian Dontaná
I love how much our community uses the library. Sometimes that means waiting for the hottest titles. Don’t fret! I can help you find a similar reading experience to THAT book you are waiting for or that you finally read and loved.
My Dark Vanessa readalikes
My Dark Vanessa, like all the titles on this list, centers on unethical and predatory relationships between teachers or mentors and their students.
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Why you should try it: This National Book Award-winning novel centers on a relationship between two people of the same age, but with the interference of their theatre teacher.
Description: Falling in love while attending a competitive 1980s performing arts high school, David and Sarah rise through the ranks before the realities of their family dynamics and economic statuses trigger a spiral that impacts their adult lives.
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
Why you should try it: Both novels explore the heightened emotions of adolescence through relationships with older men.
Description: Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. A rich character study of a yearning 17-year-old who disregards all obstacles in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
Why you should try it: Where My Dark Vanessa is more of a character study, this literary murder mystery from bestselling author Oates also seeks to understand the behavior of predatory adults.
Description: After the vehicle belonging to the enigmatic new teacher at a boarding school is discovered submerged in the woods near a dead body, the community begins to unravel.
Sam by Allegra Goodman
Why you should try it: Both books immerse readers in the psyche of young women coming of age through inappropriate relationships with older men.
Description: Grappling with self-doubt and insecurity as she grows into her teens, Sam, yearning for her climbing coach’s attention, dealing with her father’s absence, and raging against her mother’s constant pressure, must decide who she wants to be in the face of what she’s expected to do.
The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
Why you should try it: Both Saskia and Vanessa are adults dealing with the ramifications of childhood abuse.
Description: The setup: Former piano prodigy Saskia Kreis endured a rigid, emotionally isolated childhood. Now an adult, she must return home to Milwaukee to settle her mother’s affairs. What goes wrong: Saskia learns her mother has willed the family fortune to an ex-colleague, a man whom Saskia loathes with good reason.
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Why you should try it: The public nature of accusations of misconduct against men forms the basis of the connection between The List and My Dark Vanessa
Description: A high-profile female journalist’s world is upended when her fiancé’s name turns up in a viral social media post.
About Dontaná
Dontaná is a Collection Management Librarian who was born with an unending reading list. She is almost always reading two books simultaneously and is easily distracted by cool covers.