Haunting Adeline by H.D Carlton

DNFing at 50% 

 “When you make someone fall in love with the darkest parts of you, there’s nothing you can do that will scare them away. - They will be yours forever because they already love all the fucked up bits and pieces of you.”

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 This book definitely has that dark, atmospheric spooky vibe going for it which so many people seem to love… and at the same time I feel like there is a lot that can be critiqued about the execution of some of the ideas and topics that go on in this story (especially if you’re a more picky/critical reader like myself)… so I’m happy I gave it a shot because now I at least understand the divide in the reviews for this book… and I see both sides… but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. 

 I personally wasn’t enjoying the writing style and it didn’t have as good of a storyline as I was hoping for… I was imagining more of an intricately plotted out, creepy dark romance that would give me a spooky criminal minds/mindfuck series vibe with some crazy next level smut… but unfortunately that was not the case (at least from what I’ve read so far). I’m not a big fan of insta-lust/instant obsession… so that was making it hard for me to connect with Zade’s character. 

I wasn’t enjoying the naivety and stubbornness of Adeline…so I was having a hard time connecting with her. I didn’t care for the murder mystery/history repeating itself side-plot… and I didn’t like how there were so many inconsistencies in both of our characters personalities/actions. I know this is a dark romance and books like this are supposed to be next level twisted and messed up… and in theory I don’t really have a particular issue with reading about anything on the laundry list of trigger warnings this book came with… but realistically, how can someone’s life mission be to kill pedo’s, rapists, and human traffickers but then have him also be a stalker, force himself on his prey, and then justify it by saying she secretly wants him… she just doesn’t want to admit it to herself yet?

That’s literally what every single rapist says… How are you no better than the people you hunt down and kill?? It’s just too much of a contradiction for me - I think I would have been more fine with him just being a flat out crazy psycho stalker killer… and bringing in the human trafficking and other dark topics some other way. I was only halfway through and I already felt like it was dragging hard, and since I wasn’t invested in it by now… I don’t see it getting much better from here considering I’m not loving either of our characters, I don’t really care for the majority of the plot, and the smut’s not doing a single thing for me… so why waste any more of my time? I really wish I was able to get more attached to Adeline and Zade so that I could have been more consumed and invested in the story… because I think that would have helped me just enjoy it for what it was instead of looking at it from a more critical POV… but I can’t force myself to connect to something I’m not… so whatever.