Boozy Bookgasms - A Twisted Review

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Find out what the cousin's think of Ana Huang's adult romance novel, Twisted Love. This is the first in the Twisted Series and revolves around Alex and Ava. Oh and get ready for chapter 26! Twisted Love by Aha Huang Signature Cocktail: Dark and Stormy Love  Ingredients: Dark Rum, Ginger Beer, Bitters, Lime Wedge garnish In a highball glass filled with ice add 2 oz dark rum and top with 3 1/3 oz ginger beer and two or three dashes of bitters. Garnish with a lime wedge. 

It was like, ooh, ooh, like I was, let us not have that. I don't care. Are you in my? Why? It's really good. We're doing the Lord's work. Buckle of literature fans. We're in for some boozy bookgasms today.

Join three cousins creating a titillating headspace where steamy romance novels collide with strong cocktails. So, sit back, sip slow, and enjoy the ride. I'm super excited to be here. I'm Lynn. I'm Jen. I'm Ken. And today we're diving deep into Anna Fawn's steamy and intense romance novel, Twisted Love. Fair warning, we'll be discussing major plot points. So if you haven't read the book yet and want to avoid spoilers, you might want to pause here and come back later.

So let's get into it. So what are we drinking tonight, girls? Well, tonight we're going to drink a dark and stormy love. A little bit of dark rum, some ginger beer, some live juice, little grenadine, your choice. And a lovely line wedge and a chariot. So perfect for this book tonight. That pairs beautifully with this interesting novel. I can already sense your excitement.

I cannot wait to get into this discussion. Okay. So let's start with the main characters. So we have Alex Volkov. He's the quintessential kind of brooding, mysterious billionaire with a dark past. And he is very interesting. I can't wait to talk about him. But he is, we find out, throughout the book, kind of driven by revenge.

You don't know that at the beginning. But as the sort of book unfolds, you realize sort of what's driving him. And it's a big part of sort of how he relates to all of these characters. And then there's Ava Chin. She's kind of the sweet, optimistic college student. She's studying photography. She has this, you know, kind of overprotective brother, these friends, and she's in college, kind of in her in her senior year.

But, you know, very sweet and very friendly, right? But she doesn't get along. Sunshine and rainbows for her. Yeah. Well, definitely. And before we jump it into much, yeah. Who read it? Who listened to it?

Oh, that's great. It would take a huge conversation point. I personally listen. Okay. So I read it. I read it and I almost always read. But that is interesting, right? Because the narrators will make a very big difference to the story.

Yeah. So that's good to point out. And we should make sure that we talk about like why. Maybe we don't like something based on the narrator. Okay. So, okay. So Ava now we find out kind of throughout the book that she's this like roses and rainbows character.

But she has her own trauma that she's kind of working through. through. And it makes her dynamic with Alex very interesting. And then, of course, I spoke about her brother, Josh Chen. He is super overprotective. They're, you know, this kind of Asian, typical Asian family. And so they have a lot of kind of familial, interesting parts. But they are, their family dynamic with their dad and kind of deceased mother is also a big component in this book. But the brother is actually who brings. are romantic couple together because Josh, the brother,

is really good friends with Alex. Josh is going to go away for a year, kind of a study abroad. He's graduated college. He's doing sort of a year away before he goes into med school. And he asks his best friend Alex to move into his house on campus

to basically watch over and protect Ava, his little sister. You're the only person I trust, period, outside of my family. So Ava and Alex don't. really get along. They've sort of been around each other. They've orbited

each other. But Alex is there to sort of watch her. I'll take care of her. Don't worry. And she is... She does think he's hot though. Like, I mean, right out as a great, like, she is like, I wish I didn't, but I do think he's pretty hot. Kind of like, don't protest too much.

Yeah, but I don't think they didn't get along as much as they just didn't interact. She felt like he left the room. He wasn't. He just like she was just this little speck on the wall. He didn't show a lot. He didn't eam out very very much. They didn't show a lot of interest. I don't know. I kind of felt like they had this, I mean, tension because she did think he was hot. It sounds like he probably thought she was hot, but it was just like they, they sort of orbited each other. They just didn't really engage or

really have any interest in engaging. But the story starts out. Alex moves in next door to Eva. They are living in houses on campus. And Josh goes off. his year abroad in Central America. And they haven't really hit it off, but there is still that tension. And tension often obviously turns to attraction. So as the funny part about this is her friend, her best friend and some of their other friends basically think that Alex likes her, and they basically kind of dare her to try and get him to emot. dramatic pause. Operation

emotion. And try and get him to have feelings. And so she enters into this bet with her friends. I do just real quick, I do want to say, like, I wasn't crazy about this book, but I loved the character development of the girlfriend group. Because you really felt like you knew somebody, like each one of these girlfriends. And actually, the rest of the books in the series are based on the friends. And so you do get to really meet her friend group and like her crazy friend that she,

it's I think her roommate, the redhead. It is the roommate. Yeah. And so like you really like that is one thing that was done really well is that is the really descriptive character development of the girlfriend group. And they're a big part of her decision making and her story and that's like her family in addition to her brother. But they're pretty important in the book.

They're hugely. Yeah. And they're hugely important to her, right? And they really impact how she interacts with Alex because they basically are pushing her to a horse for she and right. Yeah. So they enter into the sort of almost bet, right, where she has to do these random things to get him to have some sort of emotion. And I think that is possibly one of the funnier parts of the book. But I think it really engages the like all of the characters. So she is sort of hygiene. and Sue, they are, they are really trying to get Alex to a moat. And then you start to really sense that Alex really obviously does like her. He, he cancels a date in order to sort of watch movies with her. She cooks for him. He pretends he likes these horrendous cookies that she makes. And she is confused why he likes these cookies. And as it turns out, they were horrendous. he liked them because she made them. This was where it started getting an island by you, Kim.

But it was like, how could he not? Like, I mean, the reader in the audiobook. Yeah. This is what was getting real cringy. She just her inner dialogue. That's what I struggled with was her inner dialogue and the way she responded to some of the things. Like, she was always in her mind thinking like things.

that they were both in their mind through the whole thing and like the narrator for her was just not good I'm sorry as a reader this is so fascinating so yeah so the narrator wasn't good a little whiny and like one of her one of her besties is like a princess right um and they made her very slow speaking very snobby sounding everything was drawn out. And it was just like, is that what royalty sounds like? But as a reader, like I would never have put that type of voice with that character. Right. Yeah.

But as a reader, did you notice the inner dialogue? Like that it was. Oh, sure. Like, yeah. It was a little hokey, like kind of a juvenile, I guess. But you also like she's 18. She's in college. Like she's, you know, she's engaging with this older guy.

I think you that. I think you, the nail on the head, it was a little juvenile. Yeah. I mean, I loved the interaction between the girlfriends. Thought it was great. Yeah, I did too. A storyline was actually good and could have been very well developed. I just think, and again, it could be the narration, but I was like, this is awful.

Ah. You guys are awful. It was the end of the dialogue. I was like, I don't want to hear every thought you have. Really? Strugly. Oh, interesting. Too many. All right. So as a reader, I didn't have, the inner dialogue didn't have as much of a reaction on me.

But I told, I do kind of see what you guys are saying. But the sort of the hijinks ensue, the interesting sort of trying to get Alex to a moat was kind of was funny, I thought, and really interesting. but they end up obviously finding out that they're attracted to each other, they hook up, right? But this is like maybe like midway through the book, right? So it took like half a book to really get to some of their... 26 chapters. It's a 26th chapter. So slow burn.

The cring is cringy and that's spicy. The flag is not my kind of recipe. Yeah, it definitely was a slow burn, right? like you're to so much of that attraction, will they won't they? Well, they won't they, right? So, but their relationship does deepen. And then you start to really get into kind of both of their traumas, like where they've come from, why maybe they have the points that they have. They go back for, so Josh, the brother is still in Central America. And she has to go home for a holiday. And she brings Alex with her. because Alex has been going to this holiday with her family for years as the best friend of Josh, but not as her significant other.

And so he goes and you start to realize so her mom died early in her childhood. There's a lot of trauma for that. She has this sort of vision that her mom tried to kill her as a young child, five, six, seven years old. He has night terrors throughout the book, like even leading up to this. And then you find out it's because. she thinks her mom tried to kill her. Because her dad told her. Yeah, exactly. So then you start, so she goes back to the daughter home. The dad is apparently, like, has raised her, has paid for her college as, you know, supportive,

but they've always had this sort of distant relationship and she doesn't understand why. And Alex comes to this holiday with her and it really starts to bring up a lot of this emotion. She starts to remember what maybe really happened. She's remembering things that she didn't remember before. So this is where sort of the sort of drama kind of comes in in this book where you're really trying to understand like what her situation is. And to this point, I don't really think we're really understanding where Alex is coming from. He's just this brooding sort of billionaire, but we don't really know what's going on with him. And then as it turns out, the dad is actually the villain in this book, which kind of caught me by surprise.

The dad and the uncle. Excuse me while I cry a non-existent river. They're both. Well, I think of that call. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't gotten to Alex. He was raped like that call after his parents.

We're murdered in front of him. Murder. Yeah. And yeah. So then we start to realize Alex's story, right? Yeah. So Alex's family was murdered when he was a young child. He has his own trauma.

And it turns out he thinks Ava's dad is who basically put hit out on his parents who killed his parents and his younger, younger sister. And he, Alex, has been working with his uncle, but doesn't, but, you know, assumes that this dad, this is a father figure type of person, Ava starts to figure out, like, she has trauma. Her dad is actually the villain who maybe is actually the one who tried to kill her. The mother ends up dying. And then we find out that there's a connection between Ava's dad and Alex's uncle. Dun, done, done. So now we're in a basically like a thriller. So what

happened to this like romance book of now we're in sort of this whodunit type situation. But we find out that Alex has known all along that he thinks that Ava's dad is the one that killed his parents and he's basically been in a long game of

laying the chins, Josh and Ava's family, against each other so that he can get revenge for his parents' death. Right? So he started going to the Thanksgiving and making best friends with the brother in order to get close to the dad so he could take him down. Take him out. But in the meantime, he develops a true friendship with the brother.

He develops true feelings. He loves the daughter. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, this is where it kind of picks up. Yeah. Yeah.

And once Eva kind of finds out, like, what kind of her truth? right she finds out where Alex was that betrayal hits her very hard i wanted to throw up panic gripped me it's icy claws digging into my sweat slicked skin and drawing invisible blood my stomach pumped in rhythm with my wild heart causing my breakfast to slosh around like rubber ducks in a bath she breaks up with him and she really tries to sort of move on from him and sort of put him to the side um but it's clear that they you know obviously still love each other that they um have a real connection and Alex starts to realize that like what is this quest for revenge right like should he really be continuing this quest um instead of this relationship with eva because he's he's really

obviously like gained feelings for her um and so this is where sort of that redemption arc comes in right like what where is he going to go is he going to go for revenge or is it going to go for love um he decides that he really can't lose eva gives up on their revenge plan but then hatch is sort of a new plan how are they going to sort of together kind of master both of their demons, right? So they invite the father to Alex's office and they basically try to catch him admitting that he killed the mom and tried to try to kill Eva. And the dad totally plays into it. It's a very like masterful plot to get the dad, Josh and Ava's dad to admit his wrongdoing,

probably a little too easy. A little bit, yeah. But basically it figures that out. Then in the kind of the course of this, figures out that the uncle actually also was a part of this, hated Alex's dad, and basically had this sort of undermining scheme to take out Alex's dad. So now, Ava's dad and Alex's uncle, bad guys,

they good guys, and they've basically taken down now. Yeah, but the point. The tricky part is that the dad, Ava's dad never really did anything to Alex's family. Right. They tricked him into thinking he did. But they were, there was a connection against the chins this whole time when they did nothing wrong. Right. This whole book is like a bad when they stand.

But legitimately, you have a slow buildup foreplay. Then you have this quick climax. And then you're like, now what the fuck. Because now you're confused. Everything's mixed up. We haven't out of a slow burn. Is that the last part of the book is all sex.

We did not get the payout. It was nothing. I got nothing. I feel children. I really do. I never had sex again. After 26, that's all you get it. Like get ready.

It's going to be quiet. Once you're a chancer. Just skip it. But like, like the aftermath is like such a mess. She's taking Chrome and gosh. She's learning to swim. She's doing all these things. Oh, she went to Europe.

Oh, my gosh. My dad is the one that tried to kill me multiple times. He tried to suffocate me. Oh, yeah. And he tried to drown me because I'm not really his. His kid, right, which we haven't talked about, right? So the mom cheats on the dad has the daughter. Dad doesn't want to upset the apple cart.

in like the community assumes her as the daughter, right, and then kills the mom, tries to kill her. Yeah, very traumatic, but all it does, I agree with you guys, very frenetic, I feel like, sort of how this story came together with all of the varying kind of pieces.

And then Europe. Then there was Europe, which was really, really, kind of came out. Really unrealistic. Yeah. And long. And long.

It was long. With no sex in the end. I mean, right. Thank you what I'm talking about. I'm like, if we're going to wait. Oh, wait. No, they did in the museum. They did.

There's more sex than one chapter. And then there's, of course, like the tension and traction. But it's not, it's not all the way through. This is certainly a plot based book, not a sex base book. The sex just like happens to be there for sure. For sure. So anyway, I mean, the moral of the story is they fight their demons. They get back together, right?

Which you knew that was going to happen anyway. That was not a, not a huge surprise. and sort of a kind of the book ends on sort of this hopeful note with the two of them like ready to go right and it sets up the next few books right which are like based on the friends and you now you know know the friends you're kind of invested in that but there are definitely some themes in this book right like so like revenge a redemption and Alex is sort of kind of being consumed by that and then love kind of you know changing the course of of his trajectory so like what did you guys think about sort of how he pivoted from sort of revenge at all cost to sort of having their solution

Josh, but Ava being the one that really kind of like changed his mind about where he wanted to go. It was harder to read than a Latin textbook in the dark. I think I'd start coming. I mean, it's kind of what you, it wasn't a surprise that he wanted the girl. And then when he realized that Ava's dad didn't do anything wrong, I don't know. Yeah, he didn't have a lot of feelings about He didn't have a lot of I feel like Alex

He was like fine of one dimensional in that book Like it was he was very flat for me as like a character So like yes I agree like from a straight art perspective Like it was very like obvious what was going to happen But like the way he was written it was just very flat And my heart kicked like a damn rock edit radio city music hall there were a lot of things I can go back to Europe

because we didn't talk about how Alex straight up stalked her for a year for a year that's true that's like hate is just another word for love that's a little concerning to me he's a little stalkery he's a little

right I mean every day for a year it's like that's that's a violation of a restraining order well but she totally so yeah so for so for For our listeners, we kind of breeze past this, right? But she breaks up with Alex. She goes to Europe. She gets this amazing photography scholarship.

And he basically puts his business, this billionaire business on hold to go to Europe and basically live there until she takes him back. And he stalks her. But she buys into it. She gives him enough rope to keep him there, right? Like he never gets the sense that she doesn't really want him there. I don't know. I feel like she did her first photography studio big opening and he bought everything. I mean.

But that was so like obvious, right? She's like, oh my God, every single thing was bought. But I told me from 50 shoot the gray. Or any other Hallmark movie lifetime events. Right. The billionaire boyfriends. This could be a Hallmark movie. A hundred percent.

No, I couldn't because it has to be. lifetime because somebody died. If somebody dies, because there is a bit of trauma. Like lifetime is more the traumatic. Hallmark is like the road like too rosy. Yes. If somebody dies in the hallmark, it's because of natural causes for a tragedy that will. And I don't ever see on it's before you.

It's never. Right. It's like immediately out of the way so that you can redeem the full character are there. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Alex is flat to me. It is flat.

Agreed. Agreed. And I felt like his redemption was sort of just very obvious, right? Kind of paid by numbers. Like this is of course how we're going to go. And then of course, Eva shows, you know, her themes are more around like healing from trauma. Right. She's been there a lot.

She doesn't really let it define her. Strength really comes through. But especially how she deals with Alex's betrayal, which in this case, I actually, you guys didn't like the Europe piece. But I actually did. And it kind of goes back to some of the other books that we've read, which is like she kind of got a backbone. Like she wasn't like the hero.

and they just kind of forgave him. She was like, screw you, I'm out of here. I'm going to Europe. I don't like to swim and I love to fly. I'm like so scared about everything, but I'm going to go and like live my best life and try and make something of myself. And so I actually kind of actually liked that part because she kind of left him alone and kind of went to kind of pave her own way. You promises me nothing to me. And, you know, to me was kind of a deeming for her as a as a character.

I like the backbone, but I didn't like that he, I didn't. I just, based on the character we met in the book for him to show up every day for a year, just felt like super unrealistic to me. Yeah. Yeah. I also made you my favorite chapter and I didn't have very many, but my favorite was when she gets shoved into the pool at the party. Oh, yes.

Then blazing mad. I mean, he is hot. And he takes her out. he takes care of her and stuff. And I was like, okay, he is there to help her. He is there to protect her. Maybe we're going to have some depth to him. And then it just kind of.

Fizzled. And there is the overly possessive moment at the, at the ball or the, whatever it was, the charity event. Yeah. She was dancing with another. I love when they do this. They like get seemingly jealous over something benign. And it's like, ooh, oh, okay.

I was, like, super possessive. I wanted to gouge out the eyes of every man staring at her like they were starved and she was a juicy steak, which was pretty much every man here. That, I'm down with that. But I didn't need her secondary. I'm going to the pool to do this myself. And I need to reflect on life.

So I can learn how to swim on my own. I've taken all these lessons and I've done this and I've done that. But I'm going to swim by myself and I'm going to be amazing. And then I'm going to be, yeah, I don't need him. she's just going to like prove to herself but I think that that's the point right she's 18 it was kind of juvenile I think in the the character development of like who she was but I think like you hit it on the head there were pieces of this book that like made you want to kind of keep reading and like you kind of kept hoping that it would become something but then it just kept falling flat right out spikes of interest and then you just kind of like had to make it to the next kind of area so that That is kind of how I felt, too. So anyway, so anyway, this is a bit more than romance, right? It's about healing, forgiveness.

It's about trauma. It's about sort of this redemption story. It's about kind of what love can kind of change you or make you into and kind of get you over some of these bad things. But it was. But I mean, that's what I was going to say. But the romance, I think, took kind of a back seat in this one, which is kind of interesting because, you know, as we were looking at, potentially reading it. The reviews kind of say it's spicy. They say it's a romance. They say that you should definitely read this that this is the type of genre that you like. But I don't, I don't think it hit the mark for me.

So let's start with our sort of reviews. So spicy factor. Where are we? I'm going to go one and a half chili peppers. Oh, that's generous. Oh, there was some, like if it weren't for chapter 26, I would say this was a young adult book. Like, you know, I would call us a young adult level, but there was enough spice that it was, it's probably 18 plus. So because of, it gets at least one chili pepper. I would give it one chili pepper, but I'm not convinced it isn't a young adult based on today and time. I just, it felt, it felt very immature to me. And like I said, it could have been because of the narrators that that can make or break a story every time.

Yeah. But for me, I was like, this has such a huge possibility in plot and it could have gone so differently. Yeah, I just feel like it just fizzled. Yeah. And up, you came down. That was it. Yeah. So I think the spice is probably a two.

I mean, there's something for me is sort of the attraction will, they won't they, that sort of could me, like, helps kind of build up some of that for me when I'm reading. And I read it, right? So interesting. so the both people that listen to it definitely like lower scores than I have. But I call it a two-ish. But, you know, the internet says it's three and a half, which is, I definitely wouldn't get it close to a three and a half. But I thought the attraction.

Chili cars. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. They shouldn't read the rest of our books for sure. But I call it too. But for star rating, I would say that like, I. I did actually like kind of like the storyline.

I felt like it had potential to what you were saying, but it just didn't hit the mark for me. So I would say three and a half. I don't even think I didn't give it a four. Like three and a half. It was a good book. It was a solid read. It was a quick beach read, right? But not really like breaking the bank on stars for me.

It's a quick read. If you go in not wanting a spicy romance, it's a, it's okay. The inner dialogue, some of the phrases. we're just super crunch worthy, but sometimes you're there for that. You know, you go in and you're here for that. But for me, my expectations were a little element. So I'm going to say this was two and a half stars for me because I was hoping,

I was hoping for more spice and I less cringe. That's fair. I gave it a two. But I think that's because I went in. with more and higher expectations. But I think you're right, Lynn, if I'm looking at it, like, I grabbed a book off the shelf in the airport to read on the flight and I'm not invested in it. I'm in.

And I could get the extra half. But because I went in with such great expectations, it kind ofizzled out for me. And I will say that like the internet says this is like, you know, pretty decent spice. Great book. Great. So I think I also went in with these like high. your expectations and I think to your point if you didn't know what you were getting I think it was a solid book easy beat read but but going and thinking I was going to get like a high spice book um it didn't

hit the mark and I've loved that girlfriend group a lot like part of me don't is one that's we like go the princess one goes like I mean she's she's definitely getting with the bodyguard right like don't totally but they're like I don't know if I can handle any more of the inner dialogue like I would not continue to series even though I don't love the friends and I thought it was great and I and I could see where that went. I feel like I would just be sadly disappointed yet again. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I honestly like because it's based on the girlfriends, that's why the guys don't have a lot of depth, right? Like she has all the energy into the girl. That's true.

That's a good point. I didn't really think about that. But I don't know. I think I might if, you know, I'm not saying like if I were desperate, but you know, if I was looking for a book, I couldn't really find something. It's an easy, it's an easy pickup, right? Like I don't think it's bad. I think the writing was decent. Like it flowed, all of that. But yeah, if you're going for high spice, this isn't the series for you. It was a quick read. Like there, there have been a lot of books that just were such a slog. And I wouldn't say this was a slog. Like, it was a quick read. And it was easy read. And it was easy to get through. It was just like, ooh. Like there were some moments. Yeah. So like you were climbing the never ending ladder.

Like you were just like, but you want to hear you. You're like, it was just like. But you're like, woo-hoo! Let's hear. Okay, let's try for one. Right. That's the point. I think the only one that doesn't like best, it's great to me. To be the point, right? Like, you kept waiting for it to, like, the writing was good enough. You kept thinking like it was going to get good right around the corner, right? And it just kind of kept falling flat. And you kept reading it, right? I never really got bored. I just stopped. I kept wanting it to be, like, to get to the point. It doesn't. Yeah. It just has to be good enough. It has to keep you in suspense. Yeah, totally. And we'll see you next time.

Happy reading. Thanks for tuning in. We hope today's episode was the climax of your day, leaving you breathless and wanting more. Until next time, remember to indulge in the pleasures of life and to keep the passion alive. You can find more tantalizing episodes

at boozybookgasms.com. Enjoy the ride. And we'll see. See you soon.