Twisted Love

Disclaimer*: This book is Twisted. Shocker, I know. However nothing could have prepared me for how intricate this book would truly be to its core. I consider myself a die hard romance fan and it is the number one genre in my eyes, which is why I decided to indulge myself in this book; however this book is much more than what meets the eye. 

At first, I was hesitant to start reading it. I usually get most of my book recommendations from TikTok, more specifically the side infamously known as BookTok; but something about this series was not entirely enticing to me. Curiosity got the best of me as I would continuously see more and more videos about Twisted Love and I became more and more interested. When I picked up the book however, it was hard to put it down and I ended up staying up until 2 o'clock in the morning just to finish. 

When I picked up the book, I initially wanted to see what the hype was about and was not expecting too much in return. However, Ana Huang surprised me in this romance with a mystery twist. Alex Volkov is the embodiment of the dark, brooding, intense, and mysterious brother’s best friend that we all hoped for in our own lives but would never actually admit out loud. Ava on the other hand is the optimistic, go-lucky, and happy female love interest. These two drastic personality differences create the atmosphere for the classic good girl bad boy dynamic. I know I know, those tropes are typically so very cliché and can be extremely cringey, making you want to close the book immediately. Twisted Love does not give off that overbearing tacky vibe. 

Both Alex and Ava have their own dark pasts that still haunts them to the present. This added to the depth of the characters and added to the overall development of the story. I feel many people may feel the mystery aspect of the story may have been out of place within the romance novel, however it is what made it ten times greater. This book receives well-deserved recognition that tends to focus exclusively on the romance it contains without much consideration to the other parts that come together to make the story so much more, and I have no idea why! 

I do feel this book included a minor miscommunication trope that lead to big problems in the end. It makes you want to scream at the lack of transparency between the characters knowing they never had to be mad at each other and the book could have been pages shorter if they simply just talked things out. However, Huang makes up for this lack of communication with some of the best groveling I have read. I am so sick and tired of storylines where men doing the bare minimum and women come crawling back in the palm of their hands; but Haung and I seem to be on the same page about this. Alex definitely deserved the amount of begging he had to do to regain trust, and it was written in a way that was tasteful and made me wish that I had a boyfriend that would do something even remotely similar for me. I enjoyed the fact that Haung developed the story so that Alex changed for Ava but still maintained his threatening personality to those around him. As usually some male characters will do a whole 360 when meeting the female protagonist and she has “changed” them for the better. It makes their relationship feel more special that she is the only one to receive such special attention from him. 

The book was amazing and exceeded my expectations beyond what I originally thought it would be. I definitely suggest this book to someone who is looking for a romance with a twist!