Twist Me (Twist Me #1-3)

Not so much a romance as a blueprint for brainwashing. 17 yr old girl kidnapped by an arms dealer to a remote island. Raped, beaten, tortured, isolated and inactivity. Receiving occasional positive reinforcement (not beaten that day) she learns to respond to whatever pleases him. Since he was only attracted to her because of her looks it doesn’t really matter what kind of personality she matures into. She learns to like pain and he likes to give it. I didn’t like she ends up pregnant ( up until then she had 3year BC device inserted under the skin that was removed by the terrorists that kidnapped her from him)
these are 2 people who get off on pain and they are going to have a child. He is so obsessed with her that he has trackers inserted into her even though they live in a remote inescapable location, but he needs to know where she is every second. I can’t picture him sharing her with a child. More than likely be will convince her to hurt and kill the child.

I really agonized on how many stars I should give this novel and I decided to go with a five because I realized that just because I didn’t like the subject matter, I needed to judge the book on its merits. That being said it is a well written book that kept me reading even when it upset me. I could not put it down, literally. It also wasn’t the kind of book that one wants to necessarily to read, it says “dark romance”, it’s dark but this is not a romance. It is a tale of abuse from the perspective of both the abuser and the abused. I’m going to attempt to describe the main characters according to what I thought they were like.

Our “hero” Julian, what a sadistic, controlling, emotionally vacant person. This is your “typical” love story (cough cough) boy sees girl boy thinks she looks like his dead girlfriend, boy kidnaps girl takes her to island in the South Pacific and keeps her there for over a year. During that year he rapes her, beats her (he’s a sadist) and threatens her into behaving by threatening the innocent lives of others….that’s just the first book…I’m not even going to talk about second two. Like I said, he is a controlling, obsessive, sadistic psychopath….sure he had a horrible childhood but damn. Julian was never going to be normal because of his upbringing, NEVER! He’s a criminal. Ok, enough of his bad qualities, his good ones are that he’s hot, rich and has a big penis…I mean it, that’s it. He is a despicable character, he’s obsessed with the girl and doesn’t realize that what he feels is love. With even all that the author manages to make his character almost (a big almost) sympathetic. When we see things from his POV, you can see how he thinks and because of that you can see just how (expletive deleted) he is.

The heroine Nora, wow! Poor girl, talk about wrong place, wrong time. She is kidnapped, raped multiple times, beaten and is made to endure psychological trauma. From the beginning she trys to think of ways to get away, trys to remain strong but really in situations like that it’d be hard for anyone. She develops Stockholm Syndrome and starts to love and need her capturer, some would think that that is being weak but double damn, how would anyone remain mentally strong. She’s an innocent, caring, strong willed person who’s in a hopeless situation and who makes the best out of it. (If that can be possible)

There are people in this world who are just like Julian, uncaring and unfeeling, people who kill innocent people, people who kill whole families as a message to keep others in line or for revenge. There are people in this world who have no compunction in taking what they want, no matter who it affects. This book does not flinch away from this reality and presents this in a heartbreaking way and even though I will think about the characters often, I don’t know if I could read it again anytime soon.

In attempting to gather my thoughts on how I should proceed in my review I had conflicting views, I couldn’t quite do it and I’m sure at some point(s) I will edit this review. It is a captivating read, you can’t but help but think about the characters and try to imagine yourself in that situation and what you would do if you were in Nora’s situation. I would recommend this book but beware it is heartbreaking and a hard read. There is a “happily ” ever after but the journey, man, what a terrifying ride.

It was so difficult to even make it through the first book. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this book. The sexy scenes are brutal, absolutely devoid of consent, and everything in between is plotless. There is no character development other than the main character getting brainwashed into loving her kidnapper. I kept waiting for the escape scene and it never came. Was not worth my time, and I feel misled by all of the 5-star ratings.

This trilogy isn’t a conventional love story, but a dark romance, so take care if this isn’t your thing as the captor/captive theme remains throughout the books. The male lead, Julian, kidnaps Nora as she reminds him of someone special from his childhood. He whisks her away to his private island where she is help captive where he tries to come to terms with his obsessive, psychotic personality. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Julian as he was a strong male lead, but obviously a bit of a bastard. I liked the twists and turns in the books and Julian’s determination to hold on to Nora. Nora is conflicted throughout the books, both being captivated by his good looks, strong personality and overwhelming need for her, while holding her against her will and dominating every decision in her life. I must admit, this frustrated me a lot at times as she knew she shouldn’t have feelings for him, but did, even though he was an absolutely hateful prat at times. I had a bit of a problem with him making decisions about her body for her and against her will at times and I felt she got over these instances a bit too quickly for it to be more credible. She gave up a lot throughout the book and this frustrated me at times, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, as I found it was either glossed over or I found it a bit contrary. It was also a bit unbelievable how Nora went from a vanilla lifestyle to needing Julian’s particular, rough style of romance. Pretty sure this would be a mental disorder in the real world and her friends and family would be contacting the authorities lol. I liked how the setting changed at times and how Julian tried to grow as a man to be what Nora needed. I’m glad I bought the trilogy because it was great to head straight into the next book as I needed to. I have never read anything by this author before and going by this trilogy, I will happily purchase more books from her.

I wish I could give this book zero stars. I couldn’t even get through the first couple of chapters. The first time they had sex not only was it rape but to make matters even sicker she was recovering from being drugged. Shame on the author, publishers and even Amazon for being okay with this type of thing. It should probably have a trigger warning on here also.

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