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Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton: Book Review
One of Booktok’s favourite dark romances and my biggest book disappointment to date
There are many points regarding the profundity of my disappointment after completing Haunting Adeline, especially because it’s been relentlessly recommended to me by friends and strangers in my comment sections on the internet.
I can write an entirely separate essay on the male main character, Zade Meadows, one of the tremendously worshipped fictional men on Booktok.
However, this review will focus mainly on the book itself. Spoiler alert — I’m going to be disgustingly honest.
Have I mentioned that I am immensely, irrevocably, and exceptionally disappointed?
It deeply irks me how unrealistic everything in Haunting Adeline is. I understand this is fiction, but this book is much too illogical. It’s like there was no brainstorming, no prior mild consideration of the plot’s direction. I was expecting dark romance — wild, cruel, unmistakable twisted passion. Instead, I received sappy and drawn-out jabbering about saving the world.
I don’t care!
To hell with making a fictional world a better place.
Alright, let’s get into it.
It is annoying how unreasonably coincidental that everyone Adeline, the female main character, stumbles across is a psychopath who’s done some heinous crime. The book tries agonisingly hard to paint Zade as morally proper as possible. The bland justification is predictable and frankly unnecessary.
Adeline’s irrationality sometimes makes the book infuriatingly unrelatable and painful to read. Her monologues never match the passion displayed from Zade’s point of view. The book might be a dark romance, but a tinge of reality must still be present. Her odd attraction towards Zade should have been manifested and spoken of sooner. It’s much too jarring to randomly mention an allure when she’d never done it before. Her character is extremely inconsistent — a fatal flaw during character development.
Worse, Zade is just as disconnected from his character as Adeline.
