Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Hunting Adeline

Much like the first book, I’m not totally sure of what to rate this book.

Firstly, I have avoided writing a review because I’m conflicted. I’ve literally read two other light romances before coming back to this review.

I’m not going to go in super detail about plot because this book is dark. Please read trigger warnings, because this is actually dark.

I have not dabbled in dark romances. This is my first toe in the water and I’m pretty confident I will not read anymore. This is brutal to read. Especially the first 40/50%. There is graphic explicit rape, sexual assault, gore, knife play, death, murder, misogyny, etc… Had I not been buddy reading this, I’m not sure I would have even made it through book one.

All of this sounds rather negative, but I did like aspects of this book. Namely Addie’s revenge. It was the only reason I kept reading, because I wanted to see her assaulters suffer. Which, spoiler, they do in fact suffer.

This book is addictive. I’m not sure I would say that I enjoyed myself, but I wanted to know the end. I felt compelled to finish the book. But honestly, this didn’t even feel like a romance. It felt like an origin story. By the end of the book Addie is not at all who she was in book one. She’s understandably traumatized, but she also becomes bloodthirsty. I’m not sure it actually felt true to her character, but trauma changes everyone.

There were a lot of random, unnecessary side plots and points in this story. One being the journal Addie finds. Another being this weird cult that keeps being mentioned. The other strange thing being the rituals related to this supposed shadow government. Also, Addie’s house being hella haunted? It was a lot of extra just kinda spooned in with everything else to the point of being muddy.

I don’t really know. I’m giving it 3 stars because I finished it, and it made me thing, although I would never pick it up and read it again.

Content Warnings

nineinchnails's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

i really wasn't sure how to rate this just because the content is so heavy - definitely check the triggers beforehand, and be very aware that all of the very graphic

sa/r4p3 isn't done by the mmc like in most dark romances

. i definitely consider this more of a thriller (a la gone girl) than a dark romance but i actually preferred this to the first book.

it feels like there's much more depth to the characters now (plus i got to see more of sibby and i love unhinged women personally) than in it's predecessor and i might be imagining it but there seemed to be a jump in quality in general from haunting adeline. i can imagine a lot of readers would have wanted

addie and zade to reunite much earlier than they did but i actually appreciated their time apart, and i think it gave a lot more depth to

addie. i think it was more "realistic" too, considering how

gritty the first half is, and it would have felt really flippant for her to just be rescued straight away from the tone of

the first part of this book. she was learning

how to "survive" without zade coming in on his high horse every time someone even thought of hurting her, which i think was really important for her development and her confidence in her own strength. technically, yeah, he did rescue her after she escaped but the fact that she managed to escape that horrible place by herself (knowing what she was risking if she failed) is impressive of its own accord

.

zade also showed a different side to himself in this book, which was unexpected. he'll always be an antihero but i don't think he's as irredeemable as he was in the previous book. more importantly TO ME

addie got to have her revenge arc - again, a la gone girl (one of the best movies ever put on this earth). it might just be the books i come across but i find it rare for the fmc in a dark romance to actually get to carry out true revenge and i need more of it personally. while the book is very dark, it sets up for a very satisfying deliverance of karma and i wasn't disappointed. i did think it was odd that addie was umming and ahhing over whether to ask zade not to kill rio even though zade himself did worse to her but i'm just relieved he survived in the end he was my favourite new character

Content Warnings