Twisted Love Review

Twisted Love, published by Ana Huang is a modern romantic fiction, which forms the first book in the Twisted series. Based on the legal and medical suspense novel Ava Chen and Alex Volkov are the main couple whose love affair is depicted as hot. Ava the main character of the story is a pure-hearted photography student with a tragic past, and Alex is a brother’s best friend to Ava but a ruthless businessman with a penthouse and a bike with the same sad past. After Ava’s brother moves to another country, her neighbour, Alex, is left in a position to take care of her, thus beginning a love affair.

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Plot Overview

Ava and Alex are two different people from two different worlds and they meet only by the time Ava’s brother, Josh leaves for a humanitarian mission. Alex, Josh’s best friend and a business partner, agrees to meet Ava reluctantly and keep an eye on her. Nevertheless, the cold and distant man in Alex makes him fall in love with the lightness of Ava with whom the passion explodes and reveals all the hidden truths.

In the whole of the book, we find Alex struggling with his flaws and growing to have a weak spot for Ava. Ava on the other hand has her own issues when it comes to the past, as the girl has traumatic experiences connected with her parents’ death which also influence her relationships and identity. The conflict of interest is apparent, and Huang is particularly successful at ratcheting up the sexuality that is always the foundation of the show.

Being in love, both characters have to open themselves up to painful discoveries about their future together. Alex is a man who wants to take revenge for a family tragedy and Ava has a/placebo/ in which she is not sure about the much Alex can make her trust. As Alex starts pulling Ava into his previous sins and struggles for power, the passion of their relationship and everything they went through brings more intense episodes to the story.

Themes

1. Love and Redemption: Among the leading topics of Twisted Love it is possible to name the key issue – the ability of love. Here we have Ava, a charismatic and nurturing character and Alex, who is brooding and emotionally unavailable. Through the development of their convoluted romance, the book shows how love can save, even a cold-hearted man like Alex. He finds a way to make himself look vulnerable in a different light and finds that he is capable of being loved and loving in the process.

2. Trauma and Healing: Both the main characters, Ava and Alex have Ava patron of the Trauma of an instance when she may have lost her parents and abandonment issues that lead to to her interpersonal relationships. Alex on the other extreme has a tragic past that makes him cruel and egoistical in his seek for success and vengeance. In the course of the novel, to some extent, the two main characters have to work through their traumas and start the process of staking, if not recovery.

3. Forbidden Love: The fact that the characters are ‘forbidden’ to be together definitely creates a bit more suspense. Alex cannot date Ava because they are introduced as newfound relatives and, on top of that, he is Ava’s brother’s best friend which makes the no dating rule mandatory. This taboo sustains the initial kiss of their intimacy when they are shy and do not tell anyone about their feelings. It is easier to accept their love knowing that they progress slowly, hence making their love status unique and more appealing to the viewers and readers…

4. Revenge and Justice: Obviously, Alex’s character change is based on his thirst for vengeance. He has been planning for several years against those who brought misfortune into his family. He seeks justice which is a main topic that unfolds in the book as the main external conflict. However, Alex has been seeking revenge as his motivation conflicts between his past life and the life he has the opportunity to build with Ava.

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Characters

Ava Chen:A Ava is a nice interesting and complex heroine with a dark history. It was sweet, compassionate, and protective of friends and family, and always angry. This is demonstrated through her photographic interest, wherein, she wants to photograph the world’s beauty with the endured darkness. It’s a very realistic novel almost painful at times and I think that’s due to Ava’s inner conflicts about abandonment and trust and her path to regaining control over her own life.

Alex Volkov: It’s worth pointing out that Alex – is an alpha male hero described as ‘ cold and distant, but secretly passionate and aggressive’. His character is portrayed as a control freak, this is because he lost his family. At times it can seem as though he is a villain, but Huang does an excellent job of making him seem far more like an antihero whose actions come from suffering rather than from evil. The character development of Colin from the beginning of the book up to the point he starts to tell and let Ava into his life is good and necessary.

Secondary Characters: Although the main characters Are Ava and Alex, the other people in the story also make it more colourful . Ava’s friends, who will be introduced in the subsequent Twisted books, as the series is planned, add comedy, encouragement and explanation of Ava’s experience. Josh is still Ava’s brother and he is an important character who affects the story even if he is not present: the love triangle between him, Alex and Ava serves as the source of the main conflict.

Writing Style and Structure

Ana Huang is a good writer and she does a good job at gradually raising the stakes both emotionally and physically between her characters. Alternating between Ava and Alex’s points of view draws the audience into the character’s heads to look at their want and need, therefore making it much more complex.

Huang provides very elaborate descriptions throughout his essay, though the most elaborate were those concerning the romantic/sexual aspects of the novel. She shows the right kind of chemistry between the two main characters, Ava and Alex, that will feel hot and passionate as most readers who love contemporary romance would love.

As for the weaknesses, one of them might be considered the fact that some of the settings or even dialogue can appear quite clichéd or the ending might be too foreseeable, especially in the frame of the romantic genre. Still, to balance it, Huang fully explores her characters and the emotional arcs they are experiencing.

Strengths

1. Strong Emotional Core: By and far the best aspect of Twisted Love is the portrayal of the characters and their feelings. Ava and Alex are not perfect protagonists with broken pasts in terms of character and personality profiles in their respective books. Their development as characters in the course of the novel is thought-provoking, and the viewer would want the young people to overcome all barriers within and outside them.

2. Sexual Tension and Chemistry: Huang especially does a proper work of creating sexual chemistry between Ava and Alex. It feels like their chemistry is real and their love story is very emotional and quiet and that’s very exciting for me. There is good scripting of the love-making scenes and it helps bring sensibility to the characters.

3. Dual POV Structure: Second, dual perspective helps to explain in detail the processes occurring in the minds of both Ava and Alex. This narrative technique is quite useful in to the novel as it gives the reader a more profound understanding of each character’s desires and feelings which makes the reading process more real and convincing.

4. Compelling Plot: What is more important though is that the novel blends romance with mystery and even revenge, making the plot of the novel much more than just a love story. Superimposing vengeful motives on the main character creates certain intrigue, as well as Alex’s gradually unfolding backstory.

Weaknesses

1. Predictable Tropes: Although written and developed extremely well the novel gives a rather cliche romance story: brother’s best friend-like plot, emotionally detached male lead-like plot. To the experienced romance novel reader, these paradigms may seem somewhat cliché, although Huang prescribes the cliché sufficiently differentiated twists.

2. Moral Ambiguity: Certain viewers of the show may be in a dilemma over moral conduct and even criminality especially where Alex is involved. His possessiveness, and more so, his choices may be rather unpalatable to modern audiences that expect clean-cut heroes.

3. Pace and Repetition: Of course, there are times throughout the book when the action becomes somewhat sluggish, more specifically in the middle parts of the novel. Furthermore, some inner thoughts and emotions are again mentioned, it might bore several readers who wait for tighter pacing.

Conclusion

Ana Huang’s Twisted Love is a beautifully written, passionate work that will keep lovers of contemporary novels with a dark touch happy. A distinction should be made between victim trauma, which shapes characters’ actions, and the use of traumatized characters and their genuine attempts to add emotional depth to the novel that, along with plenty of passion and well-developed characters, sets the book apart within the genre. It has a few clichés linked to romance books but for this reason the characters are well drawn and the situation that they are involved in is passionately described.

As a romantic novel, Twisted Love is packed with an enthralling storyline, powerful characters and a demanding, realistic love story relationship, therefore any Ana Huang fan or any reader expectant of a turbulent, passionate love affair would not go wrong with this book. Depending on the kind of reader you are, whether it’s the complexity of Alex’s character, the romance between the lead characters or just the simple follow-up of one event in another, you’ll be thrilled to the bones in this book.

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