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A review by danni_0412
Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
Did not finish book. Stopped at 36%.
This book has so many issues…
First of all the characters are very one dimensional. I didn’t care about Adeline, Zade, Daya etc. They had good one liners, but that doesn’t make for good character development. With Zade in particular, you can see this phenomenon. Essentially, he’s supposed to be a non-self aware good guy. But really, it felt like I was reading from two different characters.
Even with the trigger warnings, I found the flagrant abuse a bit much. Also this author tends to write tropes that promote negative representation to those with mental illnesses (seen in both this book and the novella Satan’s Affair.)
The book is also very bloated. This book did not need to be over 500 pages. I found myself skimming most of the filler and not even missing a beat. The book needed an editor badly.
In conjunction with the books being bloated, the prose is insanely boring. I felt no emotion from this book other than disgust at Zade. The smut couldn’t even keep me interested because I disliked the writing style and the characters so much. It was dry like the Sahara.
Normally, I tend to soft dnf books because it’s just not the write time. However, I am hard dnfing this book. I literally do not care about what happens next nor am I emotionally taken with this book. It was really just bleh.
First of all the characters are very one dimensional. I didn’t care about Adeline, Zade, Daya etc. They had good one liners, but that doesn’t make for good character development. With Zade in particular, you can see this phenomenon. Essentially, he’s supposed to be a non-self aware good guy. But really, it felt like I was reading from two different characters.
Even with the trigger warnings, I found the flagrant abuse a bit much. Also this author tends to write tropes that promote negative representation to those with mental illnesses (seen in both this book and the novella Satan’s Affair.)
The book is also very bloated. This book did not need to be over 500 pages. I found myself skimming most of the filler and not even missing a beat. The book needed an editor badly.
In conjunction with the books being bloated, the prose is insanely boring. I felt no emotion from this book other than disgust at Zade. The smut couldn’t even keep me interested because I disliked the writing style and the characters so much. It was dry like the Sahara.
Normally, I tend to soft dnf books because it’s just not the write time. However, I am hard dnfing this book. I literally do not care about what happens next nor am I emotionally taken with this book. It was really just bleh.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Murder, Rape, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Sexual assault, and Stalking
Moderate: Antisemitism