Twisted Hate by Ana Huang Review

 

* This review is spoiler-free *

3/5 ⭐

Tropes

➮ Enemies to lovers

➮ Forced proximity

➮ Best friend's brother

➮ Dual POV

Synopsis

Josh Chen and Jules Ambrose are the classic enemies duo. Josh is a cocky doctor who has an affinity for talking women out of their clothes. Jules is his sister's best friend who has been a thorn in his side for years. When their lives are thrown together more than before, they agree to be enemies with benefits. Their demons catch up with them and turn their relationship into hellish chaos. 

Best Quote From the Book

“'Sometimes, people change. And sometimes, they meet people who make them want to change.' 

'And sometimes people sound like a human fortune cookie.'"

My Thoughts

This book follows Ava from Twisted Love's brother Josh. I was inclined to continue reading this series because of Twisted Games and Bridget's story which I quite enjoyed. This book left me feeling simply disappointed. 

The one part of this book I really liked was Jules and Josh's back and forth. They had a legitimate reason to go from enemies to lovers. It didn't force them together too quickly and their relationship took an extended period of time to actually develop and for their distaste towards each other to morph into something more. They also didn't ignore that Josh is Jules's best friend's brother which introduces its own challenges. 

Josh was legitimately supportive as Jules dealt with her grief and complicated life situation. The way he asked her out in a bookstore was a bookish girl's dream. There are redeemable moments for them and their relationship. Hence this book got three stars instead of a lower score. 

The first half of the plot was engaging and kept me on my toes excited to see what happens next. After that though... it just droned on and on and on. There was an excellent stopping point of the book at the nine-and-a-half-hour mark. The book continued on for five and a half more hours... At that point I was just desperate for the book to end and the senseless drama and smut scenes to stop. The back third of the book was just so murky and stereotypical and hard to root for them. I blatantly stopped liking Josh and believed he wasn't deserving of Jules by the end. 

This book is the spiciest in the series thus far. Instead of being an adult romance, this is starting to lean into the realm of erotica. The plot of this book is just so unnecessarily long and it all feels like an excuse to create more and more smut with a loose sense of plot. If you are going to read a book for smut, there are honestly much better series for it and a plot that is actually worth reading. 

In the end, I don't recommend this book. Stick to the first two of the series. It was entirely too long by 100s of pages/hours of the audiobook. Their relationship is hard to root for by the end. Most importantly, it just becomes a poor version of smut.