Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Haunting Adeline

God I knew this was going be be bad, but this was unbearable. The main character was so stupid and one dimensional, she had no personality at all. The writing was like something written by a 13 year old on wattpad, the way the characters inner monologues spoke was just so bad and i definitely gave this a go for far longer than it deserved. don’t read this book, not only is it terribly written, but the story perpetrates that rape is something women secretly want, and it’s just gross.

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honeybeewitched87's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

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kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Honestly, if it weren’t for such an intriguing plot, this book would’ve likely been a DNF or at the very least a 2 star or less. The writing is so bad. The punctuation is messy. The dialogue is stilted. I had to stop and reread countless times because the way the sentence was structured made it difficult to comprehend or just sounded so odd it was off-putting. This is significantly spicy but it was really difficult to overcome the bad writing to get to the heart of the story. Seeing as this is a duology and it ends on a cliffhanger, I feel compelled to read the second book, but I am not looking forward to submitting myself to that kind of torture for 500+ more pages.

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azileotulp's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I've procrastinated reading it for months and I'm so happy I finally got around to it. Obviously this book isn't for everyone (pay attention to warnings!), but I'm perfectly happy with darker stuff.

I really liked how long it took for the real smut to actually start. I'm honestly not a big fan of smut in general, so I liked that it didn't start until about one-third of the way in. It really ramped up after that point, but I didn't mind. Like I said, I'm not a fan of it in general, but I don't let that reflect my ratings because it's something I've come to expect.

I also loved the mystery throughout the novel with Adeline trying to find Gigi's killer. I did guess it, but it took quite a long time for me to realize. The use of Gigi's diary pages between chapters was also a really nice touch.

And how can I talk about why I love this book without talking about "the shadow?" (I'll call him Z for the rest of the review just in case anyone considers revealing his actual name a spoiler.) This man is a whole comedian. I lived for his POV. I loved seeing him come face-to-face with pedophiles and absolutely obliterating them in his mind. Just a very sassy, funny little guy. I feel like under most circumstances I would dislike how much of a hypocrite he was (a rapist who hates rapists?), but the fact that he acknowledged his own hypocrisy and just didn't care was such a power move and kind of hilarious to me.

Of course, I loved Adeline too. Her conflicting feelings of desire and hatred of Z were really interesting to me, and I liked the parallel between her own feelings for Z and Gigi's feelings for her stalker. Even without Z, I appreciate her as a character in her own right. She's funny, sassy, and strong. Even if I preferred the shadow chapters a bit, I definitely enjoyed her chapters too.

I honestly would love to give this book a slightly higher rating because I absolutely adored it. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 was that it could honestly be a bit cringeworthy at times, specifically when it came to some of Z's dialogue. I wish I could give examples, but I don't have the book with me (borrowed it from a friend). I just know that as I read some of his dialogue, I had to put the book down and take a breath. It didn't happen often enough that it destroyed his character for me, but it was often enough that it brought down the book overall just a bit. Other than that, I have literally no other complaints. I feel like a lot of the hate comes from people thinking that it "glamorizes" things like sexual assault and stalking, but I never really got that feeling? I don't believe you're expected to read the story and conclude that Z would be a good person in real life. The warning at the beginning of the book literally describes his actions towards Adeline as non-con/dub-con. The things that happen in this book are pretty common fantasies for women (fantasy as in things that we don't actually want to happen in real life) and we shouldn't be ashamed of that.

I can't recommend this book enough. I've started the second one and I am loving it so far, and I'm definitely hoping I'll be able to give it 5 stars.

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