Review: The Boy from the Woods

The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Harlan Coben is amazing. Really. In fact, I may just be his biggest fan. Everything he writes is just so well-constructed that the pages seem to turn themselves, and time spent between those pages becomes irrelevant. I inhale his work like oxygen, and it all leaves me a little heady.

As with his other books, the characters here stand alone yet will be familiar to those who follow closely. It’s the beauty of the lure—those new to Coben will still find a full-bodied story that is fun to read, while devotees will find small details that are familiar, evoking a giddy sense of being one of the “in-crowd”.

There are plenty of reviews here that will impart plot details and analyses of character motivation. Ignore them all, buy the book and dive in, head first with no expectations. I promise you will emerge, some hours later, feeling like you’ve found a new vice—and one that is easily indulged, as this author’s body of work is as vast as it is enjoyable.

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Review: My Dark Vanessa

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



My Dark Vanessa turned me inside out—a story that struck intensely personal chords, while it simultaneously forced the acceptance of truths absurdly foreign. In the trailing fringe of the #metoo movement, this tale calls into question the role of perpetrator and victim, and shines a spotlight on the moments that come to define us.

Vanessa Wye is a fifteen year old girl, with one foot in childhood and the other stretched over the divide of adolescence and into adulthood. Emotionally, she is a teenager struggling with being an introvert and finding her place as a student at a prestigious boarding school. Intellectually, she is inquisitive and curious, eager to reach beyond her years and dive head first into complex abstracts for which she has no foundation. It is her need to find a way to position herself in relation to newly acquired, and beyond her years, constructs that allows a trusted teacher to slowly and insidiously wend his way into every cell of her being. The question becomes how to convince a teenager, who is eager to be loved and racing toward maturity, that she is in truth a puppet, manipulated by a man who has groomed her to believe that she holds all the power—a teenager taught to equate being a victim with weakness while also made heady with romantic notions of tragic love and lust.

This wasn’t what I would call an enjoyable read, but for me, it was an important read. The convoluted questions that arise from the abuse of power, the accepted nuances of victimology and the ultimate accountability for one’s actions are examined through the lens of a woman who has allowed herself to be defined by a relationship that is as dark as it is damning. Book clubs will have a field day here, dissecting responsibility, pedophilia and issues of blame and repercussions. Those with personal demons who, even years later, find themselves wrestling with guilt reinforced by someone who abused his power, will find pieces of their lives scattered here—sliver of sharp truths that may reside like splinters in the psyche, but that once examined may finally warrant removal.

Well-written and in a format that takes one from present to past and back again, Kate Elizabeth Russell has given readers a book that deserves five stars.

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