my first rant is about haunting adeline/hunting adeline by h.d. carlton as i recently read it and every time i see these books on booktok i wanna scream.

WARNING... mentions of sexual assault and sex trafficking.

also contains spoilers if you
haven't read the books!

▬ so, i read it, i read its sequel. i even read the prequel ( the little novella about sibby ) and while the story telling is okay, i can't get behind this book or fucking zade meadows.

zade is an asshole. that's really all there is to it. it's like she tried to make him less morally grey and more so just an absolute dick that occasionally has very few decent moments.

i get that people are contradicting, almost everyone is, but his contradictions are wild.

if you haven't read the books, zade started this company, Z, where he takes down sex trafficking rings and while he is based in Seattle, he has branches all over the country. he saves women and children from these awful people and he even gives the ones with no place to go somewhere to live.

so, you'd think this man would be one of the last people on the planet to ever SA someone - especially someone he CLAIMS to love but this man constantly breaks into this woman's house and one night he decides that he just can't wait anymore and he does... some stuff to her with a gun.

and i've read the gun aspect in other books, but it made sense in those. by the time the other books got to that, the two main characters already had a bond and trust - so that's not the part the bothers me.

the part that bothers me is that he SA's addie with it, he doesn't ask and she doesn't give consent - that's what bothers me. that's the problem.

and when it's in his point of view, he says he knows it's wrong but he can't bring himself to care because she belongs to him. because he 'loves' her.

after what he sees on a daily basis with his job, and he does that to the woman he claims he loves?? what the hell, dude?

side note :: i believe it was less love and more obsession, that's the way it came off

and his reasoning is that if he shows her all of his darkness and she loves him anyways, then he knows that she really loves him. which is insane!

he's crazy! and not in a hot way.

i had to put the book down after the scene with the SA and i almost didn't finish it because romanizing SA makes my stomach turn, but i hate not finishing things, so i read it.

and while he does have his moments, i don't like zade and that is largely do to the SA. but even if that hadn't happened, i don't think i'd like him. i find him annoying and arrogant. and i just don't get the hype around him.

he is quite possibly the worst mmc i've ever read about - i know people are gonna come for me about this but even his redeemable qualities are annoying as hell and none of it makes up for the SA - nothing ever will. that's a line that should not have been crosseed.

zade meadows is a rapist. plan and simple.

i'm also not a big fan of addie, she essentially just lets this man stalk her. granted, she has made police reports, but guess what? he's a hacker so he deletes all of them.

she even texts this guy that's just watching her through her window.

she's stupid, she says she's stupid many times but she never does anything differently. so, yeah, she's an idiot.

and i'm not saying she was asking for it, she didn't. she didn't ask to be stalked, she didn't ask for this man to become obsessed with her, she didn't ask him to break into her house. she didn't ask to be SA'd, but she definitely didn't handle the situation correctly - that's all i'm saying. ( i'm not victim blaming because the fault is all on zade and not addie )

neither of these characters are good characters, both are annoying as hell. i honestly don't know how i managed to finish both books but i did.

and also, the last 100 - 200 pages of the second book, Hunting Adeline was just them having sex. There was little to no plot in it, just them going at essentially non-stop - at least that's what it felt like. and at some point, i was just like 'kill the bad guy already so i can stop reading this!'

and while i get that some of those spicy scenes are a little necessary - if you've read it you know what i mean, if you haven't and you want to know message me on ig - but we did not need all of them.

i felt like the author just smushed all of the smut in there because the book was split into two parts and in the first part addie and zade aren't together, not physically at least because addie had gotten kidnapped at the end of book one and the first half of book two is her being abused and SA'd almost constantly and him trying to find her for three months.

so i get that aspect of it, but, damn, we didn't need a spicy scene in nearly every chapter! it did nothing to move the plot forward, there was no reason for it.

over all, H.D. Carlton is an okay author. she paints a decent picture with words and she really does the dark part of dark romance really well, but her characters aren't the best ( from what i've read so far ) and i really don't think her books, at least this one, should be classified as a romance.

the only characters i liked were sibby ( yes she is where i got the name of my oc in barbed wire heart ), jay and daya ( all side characters that we don't see enough of )

my favorite, however, is sibby. i love that little psychopath. she's the best character and no one can convince me otherwise. she's literally the best part of the entire series and i hate that i don't know what happened to her at the end of Hunting Adeline. and i refuse to read anymore of her books.

anyways... dark romance authors are starting to romanticize SA and that's just not right and while H.D. Carlton probably isn't the first, she's not helping the situation. she is popular among readers and even aspiring writers and because of the love these books get, new writers are gonna think SA is romantic and that's just not right.

SEXUAL ASSAULT IS NOT ROMANTIC!

it's awful and brutal and disgusting. if you think it's romantic, then please just dip out now - and don't try to defend it. there's not excuse for it.

and i do believe there is a difference between CNC ( consensual non-consent ) and SA. but CNC only works if you are in a trusting relationship, rules have been set, and a safe-word has been chosen. that is the ONLY way CNC is acceptable - to me at least.

i'm not well versed in CNC, so please do your research and don't just take my word for it!

and i feel like i should add that i don't hate the stalking aspect, i actually really like stalker romances if they are done well, which was why i was actually excited about these books. i had heard great things on booktok and even from my sisters, but not once did anyone mention the SA. no one warned me. and all the videos i saw on booktok promoting the book made the gun scene out to be something it wasn't. they glossed over it, not calling it what it was, which was SA. everyone used that specific scene to recommend the book as of it was some grand gesture, but it wasn't. it was awful and brutal.

these books were a let down, to say the least. i just can't get over the SA - there is no excuse for it, and it should not be this widespread. and the fact that so many people aren't saying that scene, and even the entire book, is SA is upsetting. and the worst part is that it's women recommending and promoting these books.

i do not recommend these books. or any books by H.D. Carlton.

thanks for coming to my yap session, that's all for now!