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catsandcliterature's review against another edition
5.0
This was the book that made it clear to me that my anxiety cannot handle a thriller or a mystery. It was really well written but I almost had a heart attack.
ldb4436's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lexicorona's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
pbest811's review against another edition
3.0
It was good, could have left out the last couple of chapters in my opinion but other than that I’d say it was a decent book.
highladyofdelulu's review against another edition
5.0
“Choose to live, bella. Choose me.“
My song for Does it hurt: The Night We Met by Lord Huron
Does it Hurt is tragic, beautiful, unnerving and breathtaking.
It is also very dark but it never feels exaggerated or wrong. It’s a darkness that is alluring and frightening - it draws you in until it becomes difficult to separate yourself from the story.
I was devoured by the cat-and-mouse-series and I have drowned in Does it Hurt.
And the things this book made me feel - I’ve never come upon an author who was so good at dragging me through such a wide spectrum of emotions in the matter of mere sentences.
Enzo is a force (and him speaking Italian only made me crumble faster), but so is Sawyer. Both are intense - and very relatable without ever having experienced anything remotely close to what they have. Once again, the layers put into these characters, the little twists and perfectly painted imperfections, the back stories, the development and emotional structures are so detailed and stringent that at times it’s hard to remember they are not “real” but created from the mind of one single person.
H.D. Carlton is a genius.
There’s no other way to put it.
Though she asked not to compare this to Haunting Adeline I can’t help but use the comparison as a reason for how amazing this book was!
To me, it is incredible how anyone can build one story of such quality and moral dissection with characters as amazingly structured and captured. That H.D. Carlton now did it a second time only shows how amazing and talented an author she is and I honestly hope she never stops writing.
My song for Does it hurt: The Night We Met by Lord Huron
Does it Hurt is tragic, beautiful, unnerving and breathtaking.
It is also very dark but it never feels exaggerated or wrong. It’s a darkness that is alluring and frightening - it draws you in until it becomes difficult to separate yourself from the story.
I was devoured by the cat-and-mouse-series and I have drowned in Does it Hurt.
And the things this book made me feel - I’ve never come upon an author who was so good at dragging me through such a wide spectrum of emotions in the matter of mere sentences.
Enzo is a force (and him speaking Italian only made me crumble faster), but so is Sawyer. Both are intense - and very relatable without ever having experienced anything remotely close to what they have. Once again, the layers put into these characters, the little twists and perfectly painted imperfections, the back stories, the development and emotional structures are so detailed and stringent that at times it’s hard to remember they are not “real” but created from the mind of one single person.
H.D. Carlton is a genius.
There’s no other way to put it.
Though she asked not to compare this to Haunting Adeline I can’t help but use the comparison as a reason for how amazing this book was!
To me, it is incredible how anyone can build one story of such quality and moral dissection with characters as amazingly structured and captured. That H.D. Carlton now did it a second time only shows how amazing and talented an author she is and I honestly hope she never stops writing.
cheruphim's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Okay, so allow me to explain myself.
This was something of an ironic hate read, after seeing snippets of it circulate on Twitter (i.e. the dedication is 'Move aside baby shark. Daddy Shark is here.'), along with some brief summaries of what happens in the novel. So, my curiosity piqued, and wanting to give it a shot, I decided to check this out. I went into this knowing that it'd be a read I may not like, judging by what I had seen, so my rating is less about subject matter. I know it's dark romance smut, and I'm not going to whinge about the possible negative impact that dark romance could have on its readers, or that it's smut. Rather, I'm going to mainly talk about its tone, its prose, its characterization.
Does it Hurt? is a dark romance about two characters named Sawyer, an American and our FEMC, and Enzo Vitale, an Aussie-Italian man and our MMC. Sawyer is on the run from her past, sleeping with rich men to get by and steal their identity so she can open credit cards in their name.
So, I guess she was meant to invoke the femme fatale trope, or the sexy thief girl at the start, but as soon as she meets Enzo, her personality then screams more 'quirky awkward horny anxiety girl', from her inner dialogue to her spoken dialogue. The book then does the classic Booktok-era romance trope of telling us that our FeMC is badass, but not showing, from that point onward, inste ad giving her quippy dialogue to spar with Enzo to give the allusion that she's a Certified Badass, talking about "bean gods", how a spooky lighthouse reminds her of a video game, and Finding Nemo, because she's SOOO relatable. I think my beef with Sawyer's character is that her personality feels plucked from a Young Adult 12-15 novel, rather than an Adult Dark Romance book filled to the brim with gore, dark themes and smut. She -supposedly- is a 28yr old badass that stole a gun and commits fraud under rich mens' names, but Daddy Enzo figures her out immediately after she charges >$1000 to a credit card she opened in his name? And cries over stuff like thinking Enzo called her ugly? Or not needing her? That's not even touching upon the crucial element of her backstory, which is thather twin brother raped and molested her repeatedly, and she murdered him, which is why she is on the run. But she gets BEYOND scared over a possible 'ghost' existing in the lighthouse? And says/does dumb naive things for Daddy Enzo to rescue/console her? Which is it, book? Femme Fatale with a tragic past, or sheltered girl?
Then we have our MMC, Enzo. He suffers from the same stuff that Sawyer has, being a melodramatic teenager underneath his Suave Italian Possessive Daddy Dom vibe, and the narrative always sides with him over it. After their first tryst (in which he makes her squirt multiple times for the first time ever in her life), he finds out that she opens a credit card in his name, and what does he do? He.. tracks her down, makes her get on his boat, and fucks her while dunking her head in shark infested water to punish her. Kind of an overreaction if you ask me, especially something as inconsequential as credit card fraud, but Enzo is torn up over this, and mentions this multiple times to Sawyer throughout the story of this being the reason why 'he can't trust her again', how she wound him so badly, etc. etc. Mind you. This is a grown man who assumedly has a lot of money, being a marine biologist with his own shark rescue and boat.
It is this that leads them to shipwrecking on the shore of a mysterious island with a lighthouse, where we spend the rest of our book, sucking and fucking with a dark mystery in the background. There's a creepy Australian named Sylvester, who owns the lighthouse and offers them refuge from the elements, with a catch.And of course, he's there to be the gross perverted old man that our Enzo needs to defend Sawyer from, and, because this is the author who wrote Haunting Adeline, he is also revealed to be an incestuous pedophile who repeatedly rapes his own underage daughter that he had kept locked in the lighthouse.
I don't have a problem with people writing 'dark' content, really, but I think it's the way it's done that bothers me in this book. It feels like shock content, if that makes sense? Dark for the sake of dark, if you will, akin to a Sonic the Hedgehog/My Little Pony fanfiction where they're in a max security prison and one of the characters is a baby eater, suddenly. There isn't really much keeping me invested in Sawyer and Enzo's relationship, other than the smut scenes, which are '..eh' in and of themselves. I think I would enjoy them more if the characters weren't archetypes for the sake of archetypes, but they aren't. Enzo is here to be the possessive daddy dom and there's nothing else more to his character aside from his tragic backstory thathis mom abandoned him and nuns raised him. And that he's killed before. Ok.. Sawyer is here to be the quirky 'not like other girls' that is traumatized and experienced but naive and innocent at the same time, and hates Enzo so much she wants to kill him till he's dead, but also gets wet at him speaking words.
And the prose. Here's a few tidbits:
“I’d rather spend my time gurgling caffeine, like I’m a porn star surrounded by five dicks.”
“..the glare he shoots me could melt fucking Antartica.”
“...to be no more desirable than a vasectomy without anesthesia.”
“We broke. The fucking table. Like, Humpty Dumpty bad. There’s no putting it back together.”
“..the fact that he remembered has my ovaries exploding.”
“His tongue sensually slides against mine, coercing it into a dance as if they’re swaying to a ballad of star crossed lovers.”
Something I didn't notice people mention in reviews that I saw was the character of Simon, and how he embodies not only the Token Minority trope, but the Magical Minority trope as well (specifically of Maori people, IIRC?) He shows up to make Sawyer happy and gives her tattoos on the bus. Full disclaimer: I'm white so I can't really speak completely on this issue, but so is H.D. Carlton, and I've seen and read dissertations from writers of color regarding its appearance in media. I cannot help but notice it here.
This was something of an ironic hate read, after seeing snippets of it circulate on Twitter (i.e. the dedication is 'Move aside baby shark. Daddy Shark is here.'), along with some brief summaries of what happens in the novel. So, my curiosity piqued, and wanting to give it a shot, I decided to check this out. I went into this knowing that it'd be a read I may not like, judging by what I had seen, so my rating is less about subject matter. I know it's dark romance smut, and I'm not going to whinge about the possible negative impact that dark romance could have on its readers, or that it's smut. Rather, I'm going to mainly talk about its tone, its prose, its characterization.
Does it Hurt? is a dark romance about two characters named Sawyer, an American and our FEMC, and Enzo Vitale, an Aussie-Italian man and our MMC. Sawyer is on the run from her past, sleeping with rich men to get by and steal their identity so she can open credit cards in their name.
So, I guess she was meant to invoke the femme fatale trope, or the sexy thief girl at the start, but as soon as she meets Enzo, her personality then screams more 'quirky awkward horny anxiety girl', from her inner dialogue to her spoken dialogue. The book then does the classic Booktok-era romance trope of telling us that our FeMC is badass, but not showing, from that point onward, inste ad giving her quippy dialogue to spar with Enzo to give the allusion that she's a Certified Badass, talking about "bean gods", how a spooky lighthouse reminds her of a video game, and Finding Nemo, because she's SOOO relatable. I think my beef with Sawyer's character is that her personality feels plucked from a Young Adult 12-15 novel, rather than an Adult Dark Romance book filled to the brim with gore, dark themes and smut. She -supposedly- is a 28yr old badass that stole a gun and commits fraud under rich mens' names, but Daddy Enzo figures her out immediately after she charges >$1000 to a credit card she opened in his name? And cries over stuff like thinking Enzo called her ugly? Or not needing her? That's not even touching upon the crucial element of her backstory, which is that
Then we have our MMC, Enzo. He suffers from the same stuff that Sawyer has, being a melodramatic teenager underneath his Suave Italian Possessive Daddy Dom vibe, and the narrative always sides with him over it. After their first tryst (in which he makes her squirt multiple times for the first time ever in her life), he finds out that she opens a credit card in his name, and what does he do? He.. tracks her down, makes her get on his boat, and fucks her while dunking her head in shark infested water to punish her. Kind of an overreaction if you ask me, especially something as inconsequential as credit card fraud, but Enzo is torn up over this, and mentions this multiple times to Sawyer throughout the story of this being the reason why 'he can't trust her again', how she wound him so badly, etc. etc. Mind you. This is a grown man who assumedly has a lot of money, being a marine biologist with his own shark rescue and boat.
It is this that leads them to shipwrecking on the shore of a mysterious island with a lighthouse, where we spend the rest of our book, sucking and fucking with a dark mystery in the background. There's a creepy Australian named Sylvester, who owns the lighthouse and offers them refuge from the elements, with a catch.
I don't have a problem with people writing 'dark' content, really, but I think it's the way it's done that bothers me in this book. It feels like shock content, if that makes sense? Dark for the sake of dark, if you will, akin to a Sonic the Hedgehog/My Little Pony fanfiction where they're in a max security prison and one of the characters is a baby eater, suddenly. There isn't really much keeping me invested in Sawyer and Enzo's relationship, other than the smut scenes, which are '..eh' in and of themselves. I think I would enjoy them more if the characters weren't archetypes for the sake of archetypes, but they aren't. Enzo is here to be the possessive daddy dom and there's nothing else more to his character aside from his tragic backstory that
And the prose. Here's a few tidbits:
“I’d rather spend my time gurgling caffeine, like I’m a porn star surrounded by five dicks.”
“..the glare he shoots me could melt fucking Antartica.”
“...to be no more desirable than a vasectomy without anesthesia.”
“We broke. The fucking table. Like, Humpty Dumpty bad. There’s no putting it back together.”
“..the fact that he remembered has my ovaries exploding.”
“His tongue sensually slides against mine, coercing it into a dance as if they’re swaying to a ballad of star crossed lovers.”
Something I didn't notice people mention in reviews that I saw was the character of Simon, and how he embodies not only the Token Minority trope, but the Magical Minority trope as well (specifically of Maori people, IIRC?) He shows up to make Sawyer happy and gives her tattoos on the bus. Full disclaimer: I'm white so I can't really speak completely on this issue, but so is H.D. Carlton, and I've seen and read dissertations from writers of color regarding its appearance in media. I cannot help but notice it here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Pedophilia, Cursing, Child death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Sexual content, Alcoholism, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Abandonment, Violence, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Grief
Minor: Gun violence
regancovert's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
akoenk's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
I love, love, loved it. Sometimes I got a little annoyed with them (can't explain bc of spoilers, once you read it you'll know) but that can he overlooked. (It was a small detail) it really got me on the edge of me seat thriller wise!!
anggia's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
askelizabeth's review against another edition
4.0
HD Carlton does it again. Took me down a winding adventure. Sharks, shipwrecks, and Sawyer. The story between Enzo and Sawyer was everything. Seeing the anger and hatred transform into hurt and love. I have never highlighted soo many parts of a book.
‘“Oh God,” I cry, trying to keep my voice down but failing miserably. “Can you see him, baby? Ask him for forgiveness.” “Why?” I pant, another high-pitched moan nearly swallowing the word. “Because you worship me now.”’🦈
‘“Oh God,” I cry, trying to keep my voice down but failing miserably. “Can you see him, baby? Ask him for forgiveness.” “Why?” I pant, another high-pitched moan nearly swallowing the word. “Because you worship me now.”’🦈