Latest / Rachel Oates / BookTok's Worst: Haunting Adeline

Transcript

BookTok's Worst: Haunting Adeline · Rachel Oates

• 0:00
  All right, I'm finally doing it. You guys have been asking for
• 0:02
  this for literally years. I'm finally reading and
• 0:05
  reviewing the infamous cat and mouse geology of haunting
• 0:09
  Adeline and Hunting Adeline. I have been put in this office
• 0:13
  so long because I knew I was going to hate these books and
• 0:16
  they still exceeded my expectations and I hated them
• 0:20
  even more than I expected to. I have so much to say about
• 0:25
  these books. If you've seen any of my other
• 0:26
  videos you'll know that I am not a fan of books that romanticise
• 0:30
  abuse. And I do feel like in
• 0:31
  particular, these books just excuse and normalise abuse of
• 0:35
  men and romanticise their behaviour to a great degree and
• 0:38
  I'm never going to be OK with that.
• 0:39
  The fiction isn't real life argument just doesn't work for
• 0:43
  me. Because we all know that reading
• 0:45
  fiction can have benefits to people.
• 0:47
  It can help them increase empathy, help them understand
• 0:50
  people in situations they've never been in themselves.
• 0:52
  Reading fiction can positively influence how we act, who we are
• 0:55
  and how we treat people, and I fully believe it can also do the
• 0:58
  opposite as well. I just don't see how people who
• 1:00
  repeatedly read about abuse and violence against women being
• 1:04
  normal and romanticised aren't going to internalise that in
• 1:07
  some way, even if they don't realise that's what they're
• 1:10
  doing. I'm going to be discussing that
• 1:11
  in more detail throughout this video, but today we are going in
• 1:15
  depth with these books. I am taking you through them
• 1:17
  step by step, quote by quote, All 1300 and so pages of this
• 1:23
  books. I'm going to be bringing in some
• 1:25
  other studies and research to support my opinions at times.
• 1:28
  So if you're into quick surface level reviews, this video and my
• 1:32
  channel in general might not be for you.
• 1:33
  But if you want to come on a little journey with me, sit for
• 1:35
  a few hours, maybe have me on in the background while you're
• 1:38
  doing crafts, while you're doing housework.
• 1:40
  If you want to listen to this video in parts, if you want to
• 1:42
  put it on, well, actually maybe don't fall asleep to this one.
• 1:45
  It's a bit dark, but if you like your big in depth videos then
• 1:48
  please come on this journey with me.
• 1:50
  I am so grateful to have you. So just to be completely up with
• 1:54
  you guys, these books cover some really, really damn dark topics.
• 1:58
  We are going to be talking about rape, child abuse, violence,
• 2:03
  sexual violence against women. There's some strong language but
• 2:06
  I'm going to try and censor it and it's a really, really damn
• 2:09
  difficult read. So if you need to skip this
• 2:13
  video for your mental health, please do.
• 2:15
  It's not not a fun one. So just be careful, please,
• 2:19
  during editing. I'm also going to be adding in
• 2:21
  some other clips from other people's reviews so that you can
• 2:24
  kind of compare and contrast their reactions with mine to
• 2:28
  certain aspects of the book and certain characters and so on.
• 2:31
  So I think it's going to be an interesting experience.
• 2:33
  Let's go. So we're starting with Book 1,
• 2:36
  which is haunting Adeline. It opens with a trigger warning,
• 2:39
  which I would be grateful for, except let's read it.
• 2:43
  Warning. This book ends on a cliffhanger.
• 2:46
  Yeah. Because that's the most
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  important thing to start with, right?
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  The contents are very dark with triggering situations such as
• 2:51
  CNC, which is consensual non consent, violence, human
• 2:55
  trafficking, and disturbing situations.
• 2:57
  This book was previously taken down due to the warning.
• 3:00
  Please find them in reviews or feel free to message me
• 3:03
  directly. I was a little confused by what
• 3:05
  that last line meant, but let's just move on.
• 3:07
  So at least there's a warning, but it's not actually a great
• 3:10
  start. So many of these dark romance
• 3:14
  books as they call themselves or or as I prefer to call them
• 3:17
  romanticised abuse novels or even just abuse porn.
• 3:21
  I do feel like a lot of them don't do the trigger warnings as
• 3:27
  oh they don't take them as seriously as they should.
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  I should say like they say here, this contains consensual non
• 3:33
  consent. Can we please stop pretending
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  that straight up rape is CNC because it's not consensual Non
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  consent. The keyword there is consent.
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  It's usually a role play situation with elements of
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  coercion or force that have been discussed beforehand by both
• 3:51
  participants. It's a role play situation.
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  The actual consent behind it all is what's important.
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  There are safe words the participants can stop at any
• 4:01
  time. But when you have situations
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  like in this book where a character is just straight up
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  sexually assaulting another character and then they try and
• 4:09
  justify it afterwards with, oh, we we was orgasm, that's not
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  consensual non consent. That is just rape.
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  And this book does not have a trigger warning for rape.
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  And it should. This book and the sequel are
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  filled with rape after rape after rape.
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  There's, I think in the first book, only two to three out of
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  about 15 sex scenes that are actually consensual.
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  Everything else is just sexual assault and it's awful.
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  I am genuinely concerned about inaccurate content warnings and
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  trigger warnings because this means that people will be
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  potentially exposed to traumatic content without being prepared
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  for it. So editing me here is just going
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  to do this first part of the video.
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  And I thought I would just like double check through the trigger
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  warnings because I've got a little bit later on where I look
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  at the trigger warnings and content warnings that she has on
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  her website. But I want to check that I have
• 4:54
  the latest version of the book and because I, I see some
• 4:57
  reviews where she's got like more information on the front
• 5:00
  page. So it turns out that I have an
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  older version of the ebook and the newer version that is
• 5:05
  currently available on Amazon in the UK does list more trigger
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  warnings. It lists more triggers.
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  It's more comprehensive, which is good.
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  I have to not applaud that, but at least like commend it a bit.
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  This new content warning that she's got does list non slash
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  dubious consent as one of the triggers.
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  However, it's not dubious consent.
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  It's just missing consent. And can we stop trying to
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  downplay it by being like, well, it's maybe non consent?
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  It's just non consent. It's just, let's call it what it
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  is. It's rape.
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  It is rape of the main character by the other main character, by
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  the love interest. It's glamorisation of rape.
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  So while this new updated trigger warning is better, it's
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  still not perfect. It's still not, in my mind, good
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  enough. And sometimes I feel just
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  because you had a trigger warning, that doesn't mean you
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  can just write about whatever you want without it having
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  consequences for real people, you know, I'm so sorry.
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  Could we send a grumble in the background because she's ready
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  for bed? I was actually reading up on the
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  importance of content warnings as part of this video because I
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  thought, you know, maybe I'm just overreacting, but I don't,
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  I don't think I am. It's about giving people a free
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  choice over what they want to consume and allowing them to
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  actually give informed consent and not exposing them to
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  potentially distressing or disturbing content without that
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  consent. You know, I did find some really
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  bizarre opinions online though of people who disagree with me.
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  So one person asked Reddit if they thought the book should
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  contain content warnings and one person responded with saying
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  like if you if you support content warnings on books, you
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  are indirectly advocating for censorship.
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  Censorship. Because such a system would most
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  certainly be used to blanket ban any book with a certain warning
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  from public schools or other libraries.
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  People get very far out of their way to make sure other people
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  aren't exposed to ideas that they don't like.
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  Because ideas are dangerous, and the only thing more dangerous
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  than ideas are people that that can form their own opinions
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  about ideas. In short, if it can be abused,
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  it will be abused. I just I can't agree with this.
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  I don't think providing a warning to people is the same
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  thing as censorship. Like yes, a warning system could
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  be abused, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a warning
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  system in the 1st place, you know?
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  We can be against banning books for political reasons without
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  being against warning people that hey, this book might
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  traumatise you, hey this book might trigger some bad memories,
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  hey this book contains distressing scenes.
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  You know, is a person being allowed to write about the
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  glorification of rape really more important than the
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  well-being and the right of a person to not be unknowingly re
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  traumatised by a book they chose to read for fun?
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  You know, people always talk about like, you know, the right
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  of the authors having free speech and you know, they should
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  be able to do what they want and this and this and this.
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  But I'm like, what about survivors of sexual assault?
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  What about people who have been traumatised in their life?
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  And then you'll hear right in about the glorification of
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  everything horrific they went through and sexualizing it and
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  romanticising it and normalising it.
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  Like what about survivor's rights to feel safe,
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  uncomfortable and not be essentially re traumatised and
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  re victimised again? What what about them?
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  I did read a really nice blog post about this which put it
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  like this. At its core, providing a content
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  warning is an act of kindness and respect.
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  It recognises that literature can evoke strong emotions,
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  allowing readers to approach your work in a way that honours
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  their experiences and well-being.
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  And I kind of love that. I think that's a really
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  beautiful way of looking at it, and it's a really important way
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  to approach things as an annoying flying the house.
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  I'm so sorry. Yeah.
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  And I think This is why it's so important.
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  And if you value blanket free speech over encouraging
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  thoughtful kindness in people, then I think you're missing the
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  point of having free speech in the 1st place.
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  But yeah, like I say, ultimately it's about consent, isn't it?
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  And allowing the reader to be able to give informed consent or
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  not. And I guess it doesn't surprise
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  me that HT Carlton, the author of these books, doesn't bother
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  to label her books and content warnings correctly, because why
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  would she care about her reader's consent when she's
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  constantly when she's constantly violating her character's
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  consent and glorifying their rape and abuse?
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  Of course she doesn't care about anyone's consent, real or
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  fictional. I keep seeing people online
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  saying things like if you don't like it, close the book, but
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  it's, it's not that simple, is it?
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  Once you've read something just because you stopped reading or
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  closed the book, that doesn't just erase it from your head.
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  It stays in there. Once you've read it, once you've
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  consumed it, once you've thought about it, it's it's in there.
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  And if you like read something without knowing where it's
• 9:38
  going, that's, that's just already in your head.
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  Sure, you can stop reading and before it gets worse, but you've
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  already got some of the bad stuff.
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  You've had to experience the bad stuff to know it was there.
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  And that's just messed up, isn't it?
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  It doesn't disappear from your head just because you stop
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  reading. It doesn't go away and get a
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  raise just because you stop reading.
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  I know it's a little different for me because I forced myself
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  to read these books for work. I went in knowing they would be
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  bad, although I didn't, I didn't realise how bad they would be.
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  So at least I was a little bit more informed than a lot of
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  people reading these books and I I forced myself to keep reading
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  through the difficult bits. So like I say, it's different
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  for me. I get that, but even I was so
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  shocked at some of this content that I had to stop and take a
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  break and like just step away from these books and be like, I,
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  I need space. I need to go in the real world.
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  I need to clear my head a little bit.
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  I'd go and take a nap at some points or like go to sleep on a
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  night after writing my script for this and reading these books
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  and I was having nightmares about this stuff.
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  Because just because you stopped reading doesn't mean it goes
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  away, you know? So even as kind of emotionally
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  prepared as I tried to make myself, these books really
• 10:54
  messed me up. Like I was struggling.
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  And so I can't imagine what this would be like for say, like,
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  like if a rape survivor picked this up expecting romance and a
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  little bit of consensual non consent and instead they got
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  this. I cannot imagine what it would
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  be like for them if they went in completely unprepared because
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  they also didn't provide trigger warnings.
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  OK, that aside, let's get into the story.
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  So the prologue opens with our narrator, Adeline or Addy being
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  stalked. Someone is watching her from
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  outside her window while she casually wanders around her home
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  half naked. She can't decide if she's
• 11:28
  terrified or a little bit into it.
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  It just it keeps going back and forth.
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  It's like, am I scared? Am I turned on?
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  Am I scared? Am I turned on?
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  It's over and over and over. And the prologue is repetitive,
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  but then that's the whole book. It's just repetitive,
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  repetitive, repetitive. And it's, it's not realistic, is
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  it? In the real world, no regular
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  human would have this reaction. So we're already having to
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  suspend our disbelief here, You know, just a couple of pages in,
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  there are passages like my heart skips a beat and then
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  palpitates, my breathing turns shallow and my hands grow
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  clammy. It doesn't matter how many times
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  I see him, he always pulls the same reaction out of me.
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  Fear and excitement. I don't know why it excites me.
• 12:09
  Something must be wrong with me. It's not normal for liquid heat
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  to close to my veins, leaving tingles burning in its wake.
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  Yeah, that's the quality of writing my getting.
• 12:18
  It does not get better, I'm afraid.
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  In fact, it gets a lot, lot worse.
• 12:22
  Of course she is a silly little rich girl who inherited a
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  massive family mansion. Because they always are in these
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  books, aren't they? She says.
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  I inherited this house from my grandparents.
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  My great grandparents had built the three Storey Victorian home
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  back in the early 1940s through blood, sweat, tears and the
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  lives of five construction workers.
• 12:44
  I hate her and her family already.
• 12:46
  Let's not glamorise the exploitation and literal death
• 12:50
  of working class people, please. Can we just not?
• 12:54
  Chapter 1 opens with Honorator saying sometimes I'm not always
• 12:57
  sane while she complaints about having dark thoughts about her
• 13:00
  mother because her mum says to how she's living is living in is
• 13:04
  unsafe and needs to be torn down.
• 13:06
  Yeah. Don't we all have evil fantasies
• 13:09
  about people who are just concerned for our well-being?
• 13:13
  The mother daughter relationship in this book is so damn messed
• 13:15
  up and weird and it just feels like women hating women for the
• 13:19
  sake of it. You know?
• 13:21
  I think the author is trying to make Addie edgy but relatable
• 13:25
  but I just don't relate at all. She's just like edgy to the
• 13:29
  point of cringe. I don't.
• 13:30
  I don't like Addy, I'm sorry, I don't.
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  She doesn't deserve to go through the stuff she goes
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  through in these books but I don't like her as a character.
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  She's quite annoying. She's very annoying.
• 13:40
  The mum says just because your grandparents gave you the house
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  doesn't mean you have to actually live in it.
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  It's old and we'll be doing everyone in that city a favour
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  if it were torn down. I thumped my head against the
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  headrest, rolling my eyes upwards and trying to find and
• 13:52
  trying to find patients weaved into the stained roof of my car.
• 13:56
  How did I manage to get ketchup up there?
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  And just because you don't like it doesn't mean I can't live in
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  it. I retort dryly.
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  My mother is a bitch, plain and simple.
• 14:05
  She's always had a chip on her shoulder and for the life of me
• 14:08
  I can't figure out why. Yeah, I'm really over women
• 14:10
  calling other women bitches. Can we just not at this point.
• 14:13
  The amount of times women are called bitches in this series is
• 14:17
  disturbing. It's done by women to other
• 14:20
  women just to put them down. It's done by men to put women
• 14:24
  down repeatedly. She's a bitch, she's a bitch,
• 14:26
  you're a bitch, bitch bitch. Like I'm just tired of it.
• 14:28
  I'm absolutely over it. I still don't see either how
• 14:31
  from this one line of dialogue we're meant to hate the mum, but
• 14:34
  apparently we are. I don't get it.
• 14:36
  Her mum seems quite sane. Her mum and dad are two of the
• 14:40
  only sane characters in this entire series, especially the
• 14:43
  dad. And he's painted to be a villain
• 14:45
  in all this. Like he's he's a big bad.
• 14:47
  Like even at the end of the series, she doesn't make up with
• 14:50
  her dad. She just cuts him out of her
• 14:52
  life for good and it's insane. It Oh no, we love the dad.
• 14:57
  We don't actually see him until like the last 50 pages of book
• 15:00
  2. But he's the only sane one in
• 15:02
  this series. So immediately we're told Mum's
• 15:04
  a terrible person. Grandma, who she inherited the
• 15:07
  house from, was an absolute Angel.
• 15:09
  She could do no wrong. We can't question it, just
• 15:12
  accept it as it is. As the author goes on another
• 15:14
  page long rant about how awful this woman, her mum, who seems
• 15:18
  pretty reasonable on paper, we get a page long rant about how
• 15:20
  awful she actually is. We have to hate her because
• 15:23
  reasons. Mum didn't get along with Nana.
• 15:28
  I never understood the tension between them, but as I got older
• 15:30
  and start to comprehend mum's snarkiness and underhanded
• 15:33
  insults for what they were, it made sense.
• 15:36
  Nana always had a positive sunny outlook on life view in the
• 15:38
  world through rose coloured glasses.
• 15:40
  She was always smiling and humming while mum is cursed with
• 15:43
  a perpetual scowl on her face and looking at life like her
• 15:46
  glasses got smashed when she was plunged out of Nana's vagina.
• 15:50
  I don't know why her personality never developed past that of a
• 15:53
  porcupine. She was never raised to be a
• 15:55
  prickly bitch again. Can we just not?
• 15:59
  Oh unrater Addy info dumps her back story which stops being
• 16:04
  relevant after the first like 50 pages of this book.
• 16:07
  So there we go. She dropped out of college,
• 16:09
  moved in with her mum or grandma.
• 16:11
  It's hard to tell from the way it's written.
• 16:12
  I assume it's grandma because she likes her but it's it's
• 16:15
  really unclear. Either way, she relied on
• 16:17
  someone in her family to financially support her and
• 16:19
  emotionally support her and physically support her until she
• 16:24
  became a successful indie writer.
• 16:27
  Self insert. And then she went travelling for
• 16:29
  a while and then her grandma died and left her this massive
• 16:31
  mansion and now she's living in it and she hates her mum for God
• 16:34
  knows what reason. The author tries to set this
• 16:37
  house up as creepy and isolated and Addie is just so edgy and
• 16:40
  not like the other girls because she actually likes it because
• 16:42
  it's creepy. Parsons Manor is situated on a
• 16:45
  Cliff side overlooking the Bay, with a mile long driveway
• 16:47
  driveway stretching through a heavily wooded area.
• 16:51
  The congregation of trees separates this house from the
• 16:53
  rest of the world, making you feel like you're well and truly
• 16:55
  alone. Sometimes it feels like you're
• 16:56
  on an entirely different planet, ostracised from civilization.
• 17:00
  The whole area has a menace, menacing sorrowful aura and I
• 17:03
  effing love it. Now this Cliff is something that
• 17:07
  keeps coming back up and I was like oh this is going to like be
• 17:11
  a point of like, you know the setting for a lot of action at
• 17:14
  the end of the book or something like that.
• 17:17
  No it's it's barely relevant at all.
• 17:20
  Coupled with the looming storm in the background, Parsons
• 17:22
  manner looked like a scene out of a horror film.
• 17:24
  I suck my bottom lip between my teeth, unable to stop the smile
• 17:28
  from forming on my face. I love that I can't explain why
• 17:31
  but I do F what my mother says. I'm living here.
• 17:35
  You don't need to tell us over and over and over again.
• 17:37
  Once was enough. But that's the thing in this
• 17:40
  book, so much repetition and page filler.
• 17:42
  Like these two books did not need to be 1300 pages.
• 17:46
  They could have been 500 between them.
• 17:48
  You know, if that. So Adi's a writer.
• 17:51
  She's doing a signing in a bookshop and we know she's super
• 17:54
  successful because hordes of people to show up.
• 17:57
  At least 30. It's not that I'm not excited, I
• 18:00
  just tend to get incredibly awkward during book signings.
• 18:03
  I'm not a natural when it comes to social interactions.
• 18:05
  I'm the type to stare dead in your face with a frozen smile
• 18:08
  after being asked a question while my brain processes the
• 18:10
  fact that I didn't even hear the question.
• 18:12
  It's usually because my heart is stomping too loud in my ears.
• 18:16
  Addie is relatable. She's just like me and you.
• 18:18
  She has social anxiety too, but the difference is everyone finds
• 18:22
  it super hot when she does it. I carefully write out her name
• 18:25
  and a quick appreciation note. My signature is sloppy but that
• 18:28
  pretty much represents the entirety of my existence.
• 18:31
  Can a romance romance novel just have a capable protagonist for
• 18:37
  once please. Like just someone who is a
• 18:39
  normal functioning adult and not some oh I'm just a clumsy messy
• 18:44
  ditsy little girl for once. And also this, this apparent
• 18:48
  sloppiness like never comes up again.
• 18:51
  She's not sloppy. We never see any evidence of her
• 18:53
  being sloppy. We're told she is in like the
• 18:56
  1st 10 pages. She has ketchup stains in her
• 18:59
  car and she writes A sloppy signature but then it's never
• 19:04
  relevant again. While she is at the book signing
• 19:07
  she feels someone watching her but it's different.
• 19:10
  Someone is staring at me. But that's an effing stupid
• 19:13
  thought because everyone is staring at me.
• 19:16
  I try to ignore it and give the next reader a big bomb smile,
• 19:21
  but there's so much swearing in this book I'm having to censor
• 19:25
  all of it and it doesn't always make sense.
• 19:27
  But just bear with me. The feeling only intensifies
• 19:30
  until it feels like bees are buzzing beneath the beneath the
• 19:33
  surface of my skin while the torch is being held to my flesh.
• 19:36
  It's it's unlike anything I've felt before.
• 19:39
  The hairs on the back of my neck rise and I feel the apples of my
• 19:42
  cheeks heating to a bright red. So I guess this is how we're
• 19:47
  going to justify stalking and harassment throughout this book?
• 19:50
  Because they're soul mates and it's different to regular
• 19:54
  stalking or something. It feels different.
• 19:58
  Yes, this is how she tries to justify it.
• 20:02
  My gaze hooks on a lone person standing in the very back, and
• 20:05
  man, the crowd shrouds the majority of his body, only bits
• 20:09
  of his face peeking through the gaps between people's heads.
• 20:12
  But what I do see has my hands stilling mid right?
• 20:15
  His eyes 1, so dark and bottomless it feels like staring
• 20:18
  into a well, and the other an ice blue so light it's nearly
• 20:22
  white, reminding me of a husky's eyes.
• 20:25
  A scar slashes straight down through the discoloured eye as
• 20:28
  if it didn't already demand attention.
• 20:32
  And this is the first meeting between her and her stalker.
• 20:34
  And don't worry, we see this from his perspective too.
• 20:38
  It still makes no sense why we'll get there.
• 20:43
  Next up, she goes and gets drunk with her friend Dyer, who says
• 20:45
  she needs to have more sex and that she clearly has offers.
• 20:48
  Because you've had plenty of opportunities.
• 20:51
  You just don't take them. You're a hot 26 year old woman
• 20:54
  with freckles and a great pair of breasts and a bum to die for.
• 21:01
  The men are out here waiting. I shrug, deflecting again.
• 21:04
  Dyer isn't exactly wrong, at least about having some options.
• 21:08
  I'm just not interested in any of them.
• 21:09
  They all bore me. This book is exhausting to read.
• 21:13
  And also Addie very clearly has an alcohol problem.
• 21:16
  Like the amount of her just getting casually drunk all of
• 21:19
  the time is concerning. So Addie at this point
• 21:24
  apparently hasn't had sex in a year.
• 21:26
  So her friend sends the cringiest text messages to some
• 21:29
  random guy in Addie's phone and he's like, sure, I'll come over
• 21:32
  and have sex with you. And then we get these like,
• 21:35
  horrific lines, like F Addy, I've missed you.
• 21:38
  Grayson breathes into my neck, humping me against the wall.
• 21:41
  My tailbone is going to be bruised in the morning.
• 21:44
  I roll my eyes while he slurps at my neck again, groaning when
• 21:48
  he rolls his penis into the apex of my thighs.
• 21:53
  I can't deal with this nonsense, but hey, at least this is
• 21:56
  consensual, unlike most other things in the book.
• 22:00
  Anyway, they're interrupted by someone banging angrily on the
• 22:02
  front door, but when she opens it, there's no one there.
• 22:06
  Oh, how spooky. There's someone watching me.
• 22:09
  I can feel it. I'm as sure of it as I am about
• 22:12
  the existence of gravity. The writing, the guy she's with
• 22:18
  is like Oh well let's have sex anyway.
• 22:20
  And she's like uh Nah someone just banged on my door don't be
• 22:23
  silly. And then he calls her a bitch
• 22:25
  and swears a lot. There are 36 uses of bitch in
• 22:28
  this book and six of them are in the 1st chapter alone.
• 22:32
  He says you're such a bitch Addie, all you do is give me
• 22:34
  blue balls and I'm sick of it. I'm done with you and this
• 22:37
  creepy effing house. He seeds pointing a finger at me
• 22:41
  and you're a bum hole. Get the F out of my house,
• 22:43
  Grayson. His eyes widen with shock 1st
• 22:46
  and then narrow into thin slits. Brimming with fury.
• 22:49
  He turns, cooks his arm back, and sends his first flying into
• 22:52
  the drywall. A gasp is ripped from my throat
• 22:54
  when half of his arm disappears, my mouth parting in both shock
• 22:58
  and disbelief. Since I'm not getting yours, I
• 23:01
  thought I'd create my own hole to get into tonight.
• 23:03
  Fix that, bitch. He spits, still supporting only
• 23:07
  one sock and an armful of clothes.
• 23:09
  He storms out. Every man in this book is
• 23:11
  terrible. Other than Addie's dad, every
• 23:15
  man is horrific. Every single.
• 23:18
  There's not a good man in this book.
• 23:20
  Even this guy who like is just a regular normal guy.
• 23:24
  Even he's an abusive piece of crap.
• 23:26
  You don't do this just because she said she didn't want to have
• 23:28
  sex right now. You don't punch holes in
• 23:29
  people's walls like no. This chapter ends with a diary
• 23:33
  entry from 1944, and we find out later these are written by
• 23:36
  Addie's great grandmother, Gigi. She says there's a strange man
• 23:40
  outside my window. I don't know who he is or what
• 23:42
  he wants from me, but I think he knows me.
• 23:44
  He watches me through the windows when John's not home,
• 23:47
  and he wears a top hat on his head, concealing his face from
• 23:49
  me. I try to approach him, but when
• 23:51
  I do, he runs away. I'm very afraid of this strange
• 23:53
  man, but my God, I'm also intrigued.
• 23:56
  Am I also intrigued? I thought more would come of
• 23:59
  these diary entries, but it turns out they're actually kind
• 24:03
  of pretty useless because, like, we read them, but they tell us
• 24:09
  stuff that we've already read about in the text.
• 24:12
  Like it? I'll tell you when we get there.
• 24:15
  Point is they're pointless and annoying and I also just hate
• 24:17
  that whole secondary story from the past because it's.
• 24:22
  Anyway chapter 2 is written from the stalkers perspective and
• 24:25
  he's busy torturing someone to try and get some information out
• 24:28
  of them about something vague at 1st and then it turns out he's
• 24:32
  like hunting sex traffickers and paedophiles and that's his job
• 24:36
  and we're supposed to think he's a good person because he he
• 24:38
  kills rapists despite being a rapist himself?
• 24:42
  Make it make sense. So oh God, and he oh, it's like
• 24:46
  he's written like an edgy 15 year old boy who just learned
• 24:51
  how to like code a website with HTML like, and he now thinks
• 24:54
  he's a master hacker. That's, that's his entire tone
• 24:57
  for these two books. Sometimes it sucks being the
• 25:00
  hacker and the enforcer. I really effing enjoy hurting
• 25:04
  people. But tonight I have no goddamn
• 25:06
  patience for this whiny bum hole.
• 25:08
  And normally I have the patience of a St.
• 25:11
  I'd already cut off one of his ears along with ripping off 10
• 25:14
  of his fingernails. Severed both Achilles heels and
• 25:16
  a couple of stab wounds in specific locations that won't
• 25:19
  allow the effort to bleed out too quickly and too many broken
• 25:23
  bones to count. Penis head won't be getting up
• 25:26
  and walking out of here, that's for damn sure.
• 25:29
  It's just unnecessary, isn't it? So it turns out the guy that
• 25:32
  he's torturing is giving him information about some guy
• 25:34
  involved in sex trafficking children and is himself a child
• 25:37
  rapist. So our creepy stalker man kills
• 25:41
  him. I can't be too mad about that,
• 25:43
  but it just I feel like the graphic descriptions of the
• 25:46
  torture were unnecessary and the way stalker man gets off to the
• 25:50
  torture and violence is weird as hell.
• 25:54
  Like, he has some problems. There's also some bits where
• 25:57
  he's just like oddly apathetic and he's more grossed out by the
• 26:01
  sounds of torture rather than what he's doing to another human
• 26:04
  being, you know? Very odd.
• 26:07
  Like I say, it feels like it's written by a teenager trying to
• 26:09
  be edgy and this man is supposed to be like 30 something and he
• 26:13
  sounds like a teenager himself. I sorry this is gross.
• 26:16
  Get ready for this. I slide my knife from the eye
• 26:18
  socket, the suction noise threatening to ruin any dinner
• 26:21
  plans I had in the next several hours, which is annoying because
• 26:24
  I'm hungry. While I do enjoy myself a good
• 26:26
  torture session, I'm definitely not a penis head that gets off
• 26:30
  on the sounds that accompany it. The gurgling, slurping and other
• 26:32
  weird noises bodies make when enduring extreme pain and
• 26:35
  foreign objects being plunged into them is not a soundtrack
• 26:38
  I'd ever want to fall asleep to. And for now, the worst part?
• 26:41
  Dismembering it into bits and pieces and disposing of them
• 26:44
  properly. I don't trust other people to do
• 26:46
  it for me, so I'm stuck with the tedious, messy job.
• 26:48
  I sigh. What is that saying?
• 26:50
  If you want it done right, do it yourself?
• 26:52
  So afterwards he goes to get a burger, and on the way he passes
• 26:54
  the bookshop where Addie was doing the the book signing
• 26:57
  earlier. And this is where he just
• 27:00
  becomes obsessed with her from like a single glance.
• 27:02
  I spare it the bookshop a single glance before moving on.
• 27:05
  I don't care about fiction books.
• 27:06
  I only read the ones that are going to teach me something,
• 27:09
  particularly about computer science and hacking.
• 27:11
  By now, there's nothing those books can teach me anymore.
• 27:14
  I've mastered and then surpassed it.
• 27:16
  He's actually insufferable. He's the word.
• 27:19
  Like, all these characters are the worst.
• 27:21
  So he sees Addie through the window and instantly he's all
• 27:25
  like, I mean, she's perfect and so obsessed.
• 27:27
  It's really annoying to read. Get ready to cringe, OK?
• 27:32
  Before me is a picture of an author that's hosting a book
• 27:34
  signing. She's effing incredible.
• 27:38
  Long WAVY cinnamon hair brushed over dainty shoulders.
• 27:42
  Creamy ivory skin with freckles dotting her nose and cheeks.
• 27:46
  Light and sporadic without overwhelming her innocent face.
• 27:50
  Her eyes are what draw me in. Sultry, slanted eyes, the type
• 27:54
  that always looks seductive without trying.
• 27:56
  They're nearly the same colour as her hair, a brown so light
• 27:59
  it's unusual. One look from this girl and any
• 28:02
  man would be on their knees. Her lips are pouty and pink,
• 28:05
  stretched into a radiant smile with straight white teeth.
• 28:08
  I note the name below the picture.
• 28:10
  Adeline Riley. A beautiful name fit for a
• 28:13
  goddess. She.
• 28:14
  I hate this bit. She doesn't have that plastic
• 28:17
  beauty you see lining the magazine rack, though she could
• 28:19
  easily make it on one of those covers without Photoshop and
• 28:22
  surgery. Her features are natural.
• 28:24
  I've seen a lot of beautiful women in my life.
• 28:26
  Effed a lot too. But something about her
• 28:28
  captivates me. It feels like a hurricane is at
• 28:31
  my back, pushing me towards her and leaving no room for
• 28:34
  resistance. My feet are carrying me into the
• 28:36
  bookstore, my black boots soaking the welcome mat at the
• 28:39
  entrance. Did we really need to compare
• 28:42
  her to other women like that and put other women down with her?
• 28:45
  Well, her beauty is natural. Everyone else is just plastic
• 28:48
  and fake. Like, can we not?
• 28:50
  This book was written in like 2021 or something like, so not
• 28:54
  even that long ago. Like, let's not go back to that
• 28:57
  stupid 90s pitting women against women thing.
• 29:00
  Please. Let's, let's just not do it.
• 29:03
  Yeah, right, he says. Oxygen, words, coherent
• 29:07
  thoughts, All that poop escapes me when I get my first look at
• 29:10
  Adaline Riley in the flesh poop. She's even more exquisite in
• 29:15
  person. The sign of her has my knees
• 29:17
  weakening and my pulse racing. I don't know if God really
• 29:20
  exists. I don't know if mankind has ever
• 29:22
  walked on the moon, nor do I know if parallel universes
• 29:25
  exist. But what I do know is that I
• 29:27
  just found the meaning of life sitting behind a desk.
• 29:30
  Sorry. Sitting behind a table with an
• 29:32
  awkward smile on her face. I feel like sometimes when you
• 29:37
  replace the swear words with like the actual words they are
• 29:41
  like it kind of just makes you realise how silly it sounds to
• 29:45
  you. Use some of them in the moment
• 29:47
  it just sorry anyway, but yeah I I think it's reading stuff like
• 29:53
  this in books that makes me think that any kind of romance
• 29:57
  book even if this was healthy and it's not I just I think it's
• 30:01
  maybe not for me because I don't find this kind of thing
• 30:03
  appealing or romantic editing me here and I just have to jump in
• 30:07
  and say like I. Think I worked this wrong?
• 30:08
  It's not. I'm against like romance in
• 30:11
  books because I think if it is written well and kind of like
• 30:15
  it's realistic, but you know, and aspirational, it could be
• 30:19
  really lovely. So earlier this year I read The
• 30:21
  Binding by I think it's Bridget Collins, and I'll pop a picture
• 30:24
  on screen. And that is a book that relies
• 30:28
  very heavily on the romance elements.
• 30:30
  And I thought it was absolutely lovely.
• 30:32
  And I loved the slow build of the relationship between the
• 30:34
  couple and I thought it was really, really lovely.
• 30:36
  And I was really rooting for them and I felt very invested in
• 30:38
  them. So I kind of like romance when
• 30:40
  it's done well. You know, I just don't like the
• 30:43
  obsessive lust being portrayed as love.
• 30:47
  That's what I don't like. I think, you know, like, I
• 30:50
  absolutely believe in attraction at first sight.
• 30:52
  You know, I think you can look at someone and be like, wow, OK,
• 30:54
  I'm, I'm really interested in getting to know them more,
• 30:58
  whether that's physically or socially or whatever.
• 31:01
  And you can be like, wow. But this idea that like, you see
• 31:04
  a person you think is hot and they've just given you the
• 31:07
  meaning of life, you're calling them a goddess like it, it's
• 31:11
  getting obsessive. It's giving love bombing, it's
• 31:13
  giving he loves the idea of you and not the real you.
• 31:16
  And I just find that whole thing really unhealthy and not
• 31:18
  romantic and not not sexy. You know, I just, I get the ick
• 31:22
  from that sort of thing. I, I went on a date a few months
• 31:25
  back with this guy and we've gone really well.
• 31:27
  And I thought, I thought it was great.
• 31:29
  And then a couple of hours in he told me that he thought he was
• 31:32
  falling in love with me. And then he got quite drunk and
• 31:35
  he he actually said that he thinks he loves me.
• 31:37
  And I was like mate, you've known me for like 3 hours.
• 31:40
  Like no, no you don't. And it just, it massively gave
• 31:45
  me the ick straight away. And I was like, no, can't, can't
• 31:48
  do that. So that's the vibes I'm getting
• 31:50
  here. I'm just like, it feels so
• 31:53
  surface level. And like he's actually incapable
• 31:55
  of having genuine emotions and feelings.
• 31:58
  If he thinks that this instant lust is love and the meaning of
• 32:02
  life, you know, it's just ick no F.
• 32:05
  Her voice is pure smoke, the kind you only really hear in
• 32:09
  porn videos. I suck in my bottom lip, biting
• 32:11
  back a groan. Like, shut up.
• 32:13
  That's not a compliment and that's not normal.
• 32:16
  Like, so apparently HT Carlton, who wrote this book, is a woman.
• 32:20
  There are photos of her online. There's videos of her of her
• 32:23
  online. You know, even still, after all
• 32:25
  this time, I underestimate you guys sometimes and how seriously
• 32:31
  you take Zeta Natty. And yeah, I find it really hard
• 32:34
  to believe this wasn't actually written by some porn obsessed
• 32:37
  misogynistic man who's never met a woman before in his life.
• 32:40
  It it literally befuddles my mind that this was written by a
• 32:44
  woman. Something inexplicably dark
• 32:46
  arises in my chest. It's black and evil and cruel.
• 32:49
  Dangerous even. All I want to do is break her,
• 32:53
  shatter her into pieces, and then arrange those pieces to fit
• 32:57
  against my own. I don't care if they don't fit,
• 32:59
  I'll effing make them. And I know I'm about to do
• 33:02
  something bad. I know I'm going to cross lines
• 33:04
  that I will never be able to come back from.
• 33:06
  But there's not an ounce of me that gives an F because I'm
• 33:09
  obsessed, I'm addicted, and I will gladly cross every single
• 33:12
  line if it means making this girl mine.
• 33:15
  If it means forcing her to be mine.
• 33:18
  So there we go. It's unhealthy, It's creepy as
• 33:21
  hell. That's terrifying, right?
• 33:23
  That's not sexy. That's not sexy at all.
• 33:25
  That's the opposite of sexy. That's like my vagina just
• 33:28
  drying up and shrivelling up and closing for life.
• 33:31
  There's going to be a seal over it that is unbreakable after
• 33:34
  reading this. No matter.
• 33:38
  She won't be able to escape me now.
• 33:40
  I've just found myself a little mouse and I won't stop until
• 33:43
  I've trapped her. This is not romantic escapism.
• 33:47
  This is like an actual fear that I and other women live with
• 33:50
  every single day. Stalking and violence against
• 33:53
  women is such a common thing, it ruins so many lives.
• 33:57
  I don't see what's appealing about it at all.
• 33:59
  I don't see what's romantic or sexy.
• 34:02
  The chapter ends with another diary entry from the grandma,
• 34:04
  which is basically the same as the first one, so we won't go
• 34:06
  over it. In chapter 3, Addie finds a
• 34:08
  hidden safe in her house, which she breaks into casually, as you
• 34:13
  do I guess, and she finds a bunch of journals written by her
• 34:15
  great grandmother Genevieve or Gigi, which are what we've been
• 34:19
  reading the excerpts from between chapters.
• 34:21
  She falls asleep between the journals, but we don't know
• 34:23
  what's in them yet because she hasn't told us.
• 34:25
  But when she wakes up, she hears her front door slam and thinks
• 34:28
  someone was in her house. They were.
• 34:31
  It was creepy stalker man. And he's left a single red rose
• 34:34
  in her kitchen. But it's OK because he cut the
• 34:36
  thorns because he cut the thorns from the stem to stop it hurting
• 34:41
  her. So I mean, at least he put like
• 34:45
  an iota of thought into it before invading her home,
• 34:48
  breaking in, violating her privacy, you know?
• 34:51
  How thoughtful. Instead of calling the police,
• 34:53
  she decides to storm around the house with a knife, which is
• 34:56
  just stupid, isn't it? Called the police, she says.
• 35:00
  And then to have the audacity to leave me a flower like an effing
• 35:02
  weirdo. They may have made the Rose
• 35:05
  powerless by clipping its thorns, but I will gladly show
• 35:07
  them a rose is still effing deadly when it's shoved down
• 35:10
  their throat. Oh look, it's a metaphor for her
• 35:13
  character in the book. How clever.
• 35:16
  Like genuinely, that's that's her character arc in book 2.
• 35:19
  She she has her thorns clipped and then she shoves it down
• 35:24
  their throat. You'll see Adi tells her friend
• 35:30
  Dyer about the person breaking in and we get another info dump.
• 35:34
  It's half of it's what we already know.
• 35:36
  The rest is about Dyer. I dropped out of college after a
• 35:39
  year and pursued my writing career while Dyer got a degree
• 35:42
  in computer science. Somehow she wormed her way into
• 35:44
  some hacker group and is pretty much a vigilante for the people
• 35:48
  exposing the government's secrets to the public.
• 35:50
  She's the biggest conspiracy theorist I've ever met, but even
• 35:53
  I can admit the poop she finds is disturbing and has too much
• 35:57
  evidence to be considered a theory anymore.
• 36:00
  Like is anyone in this world just average and normal?
• 36:02
  Like not some super high elite expert master hacker in whatever
• 36:08
  field they're in? I just just someone normal would
• 36:11
  be nice, please. Yeah, back to the grandma and
• 36:16
  Stalkerman walks into her house and then just stands there and
• 36:20
  yeah, whatever. He's so beautiful.
• 36:24
  Piercing blue eyes, a strong jawline.
• 36:26
  And big, so very big. He approached me, still refusing
• 36:29
  to speak. He caressed my face with his
• 36:31
  fingers so gently. He circled around me, letting
• 36:34
  his fingers drift across my skin.
• 36:36
  I shivered beneath his touch, and he smiled.
• 36:38
  His smiled, his smile made my heart stop in my chest.
• 36:42
  And then he left. I walked out without a word.
• 36:44
  I almost pleaded for him to come back, but I stopped myself.
• 36:47
  He'll be back again. This is not normal.
• 36:50
  It's creepy and weird as hell. In chapter 4, Diya comes over to
• 36:55
  help Addie clean out some of her dead grandma's stuff from the
• 36:58
  house. And while she's there, Creepy
• 37:00
  guy breaks in again, leaves another note, drinks a glass of
• 37:03
  her whiskey, but never mind, they just get on with clearing
• 37:06
  the house anyway, which is weird.
• 37:08
  And and then, then there's some confusion about like, what is
• 37:11
  happening here, right? Because so they're out in the
• 37:14
  middle of nowhere. You can only get to this house
• 37:16
  via car via a long windy road, right?
• 37:19
  Because middle of nowhere surrounded by cliffs and a
• 37:21
  forest and this one Rd in and out.
• 37:25
  And she says in this passage that they took several trips to
• 37:28
  Goodwill to donate a bunch of stuff, but they were also
• 37:32
  drinking alcohol all day. Like literally from the moment
• 37:35
  Dia got there, they're drinking alcohol.
• 37:37
  They were drinking before the stalker broke in.
• 37:39
  They had a few more mixed drinks before Addie told her about the
• 37:42
  stalker, and then they had a few more drinks afterwards.
• 37:46
  So it's safe to say they were pretty drunk all day.
• 37:48
  So how did they get to Goodwill to donate these boxes?
• 37:52
  Were they, were they driving drunk?
• 37:54
  Because that's just very irresponsible.
• 37:57
  Or the author is just not bothering to think through the
• 38:01
  things she's writing. I just it annoys me it was at
• 38:04
  this point like 4 chapters and it took me this long to notice
• 38:08
  and the chapters were either labelled as the manipulator or
• 38:11
  the shadow depending on depending on whose perspective
• 38:13
  it was written from. Addie is annoying as hell and
• 38:16
  stupid but I don't understand why she's called the manipulator
• 38:20
  and it feels kind of victim blamey if I'm being honest.
• 38:23
  The creepy stalker being a mere shadow feels like it's kind of
• 38:27
  downplaying the seriousness of what he's done and will continue
• 38:30
  to do, but here we are. There is one moment later in
• 38:33
  this book where we kind of find out why Adi is called the
• 38:36
  manipulator, but it doesn't hold up because none of her actions
• 38:40
  in this or the second book make her a manipulator.
• 38:43
  She's not manipulate. She doesn't manipulate anyone.
• 38:46
  I don't I don't understand it. In chapter 5, she finally,
• 38:50
  finally, finally makes a police report, but they don't take her
• 38:52
  seriously. That is the most realistic thing
• 38:55
  about these two books. Seriously, the stalking is not
• 38:59
  taken seriously by the police at all in any country around the
• 39:02
  world. So that is the one realistic
• 39:06
  thing happening. And of course the stalking
• 39:09
  escalates. He starts leaving flowers in
• 39:11
  more places, including inside her locked car.
• 39:14
  Like later in the chapter, Addie's mum visits her and Addie
• 39:17
  is unnecessarily rude to her the entire time.
• 39:20
  And it ends with her mum saying do you want to know why Parsons
• 39:23
  manager deserves to be torn down, Addie?
• 39:25
  She asks, her tone dripping with condescension.
• 39:27
  She sounds like she's about to school me and suddenly I feel
• 39:29
  very wary. Why?
• 39:31
  I asked quietly. Because a lot of people died in
• 39:34
  this house. And then we get the revelation
• 39:37
  that the great grandmother whose journals she's been reading was
• 39:40
  murdered in this house, and no one knows who did it.
• 39:43
  But Addie thinks immediately it must have been her stalker.
• 39:46
  Gigi fell in love with her stalker, the very man who must
• 39:48
  have killed her eventually. And now I have one of my very
• 39:51
  own. The only silver lining is that I
• 39:53
  would never be so stupid as to fall in love with him.
• 39:56
  Doubt you are stupid enough to do it and this author is stupid
• 39:59
  enough to write it. The next diary entry is from
• 40:02
  about a month and 1/2 after the stalker started stalking the
• 40:07
  grandmother and he kisses her. It's I'm just fed up of it.
• 40:12
  Also, his name's Ronaldo. We get that.
• 40:14
  And the grandmother tries to justify cheating on her husband
• 40:18
  because reasons again, can we not?
• 40:21
  It's very Colleen Hoover. And then chapter 6 is back to
• 40:24
  the Stalkers chapter The Shadow. And in this chapter we find out
• 40:28
  that as well as a master hacker and torturer, he is also a
• 40:31
  perfectly skilled sniper who can take down 12 men like they're
• 40:34
  nothing. How how hot and sexy is that?
• 40:40
  Don't we just love a cold hearted murderer ladies?
• 40:43
  No, or at least I don't. We find out he is called Z and
• 40:48
  he runs the organisation Z. And then we get another info
• 40:52
  dump. I created an entire organisation
• 40:55
  built solely on ending human trafficking.
• 40:57
  I started out as a hacker, exposing the truths of our
• 40:59
  corrupt government. And then as I became more aware
• 41:02
  of their true nature, the depravity of their sickness, it
• 41:06
  turned into personally snuffing out every single one of these
• 41:09
  sick bastards, starting from the bottom up.
• 41:12
  Terminate all the worker bees and the queen is left vulnerable
• 41:15
  and weak. But I couldn't be both of them
• 41:18
  hacker and a mercenary. And what I really enjoy doing is
• 41:21
  being the one to put the bullet in their heads myself.
• 41:24
  So I created my org Z from the ground up, recruiting a team of
• 41:29
  hackers to help mercenaries with their jobs, get into the rings,
• 41:32
  kill them all and get the victims out safely.
• 41:35
  I I can't keep doing that voice. I can't Painful.
• 41:38
  And I I stationed my mate. Yeah, I stationed my mercenaries
• 41:42
  in high rate trafficking areas and assigned them their very own
• 41:45
  team of hackers. Now Z has become so big that
• 41:48
  there are teams in every state and several outside of the
• 41:50
  country as well now as I was doing a stupid voice there but
• 41:54
  Oh my God, you should hear the voice they use for the audiobook
• 41:57
  version of this. It is the cringiest thing I've
• 42:00
  ever heard and people like take clips from it and use it as like
• 42:04
  audio for TikTok videos and it's so bad.
• 42:07
  It's so damn cringy. I'm going to try and put a clip
• 42:10
  in if I can but I don't know if it's going to get copyright
• 42:13
  claimed but it's just, it's so funny.
• 42:15
  It's so, so funny. I stalk her because I'm fucking
• 42:19
  addicted. I'm fascinated with every move
• 42:22
  she makes, every word that comes from her pretty pink mouth.
• 42:27
  Back to the actual content, and don't get me wrong, I hate human
• 42:30
  trafficking as much as any sane person right?
• 42:32
  And I would not be sad if the people responsive for it maybe
• 42:36
  ended up dead. But surely we can see that I
• 42:40
  really enjoy putting a bullet in their heads.
• 42:42
  Is a massive red flag. Is a massive red flag for anyone
• 42:45
  to say yeah, can we just agree on that?
• 42:49
  Enjoying hurting and killing people, even bad people, is not
• 42:52
  normal or healthy and I feel nothing but disgust for this
• 42:55
  character. Just because he does some good
• 42:57
  things in his life and stops some harm, that doesn't negate
• 43:02
  the other harmful things that he does, namely the stalking, rape,
• 43:07
  and violence against women. So blah blah blah.
• 43:10
  He kills a bunch of men, rescues a bunch of kids, end of chapter.
• 43:15
  We are currently 14% of the way through the first book and it is
• 43:18
  so damn boring. I am not even slightly invested
• 43:21
  in these characters or this story.
• 43:24
  And I think, I think one of the things that really bothers me is
• 43:27
  this whole, like, human trafficking story, right?
• 43:30
  We're just told that creepy stalker man is just so capable.
• 43:34
  He's a master hacker. He's the best in his field,
• 43:36
  everything he does. And he's taking down all these
• 43:38
  bad guys. But there's never any stakes
• 43:40
  because, like, we know he's going to take them down and he's
• 43:43
  going to do it easily. It's just a matter of time
• 43:45
  before he gets to everyone. Like, there's no actual, like,
• 43:48
  real threat because we know he's going to do it because he's so
• 43:50
  damn great and perfect at everything.
• 43:52
  And he just does everything easily and never fails.
• 43:55
  So, yeah, in the next chapter, Addie goes out and gets drunk
• 44:00
  again. That's the third time in this
• 44:01
  book she's been off her face drunk already.
• 44:03
  And she meets some men at a bar and immediately, like, everyone
• 44:06
  is so totally into her, including the one who calls her
• 44:08
  beautiful. And she replies to being called
• 44:12
  beautiful with why. Thank you.
• 44:14
  I respond sweetly. Social situations nearly send me
• 44:17
  into hibernation, but I've always been skilled at flirting.
• 44:20
  Too bad most times I can't stand to do it.
• 44:22
  Men have a unique way of killing my mood every time I come within
• 44:25
  10 feet of them. We get it, you're not like the
• 44:28
  other girls. You hate men.
• 44:31
  She ends up in this weird VIP section of this bar with a bunch
• 44:35
  of creepy men who she says are super hot and that's when she
• 44:39
  gets a creep from her creepy stalker Z.
• 44:43
  The text is from an unknown number saying sneaking off with
• 44:45
  random men. Little mouse.
• 44:46
  If I catch his hands anywhere near you, they'll end up in your
• 44:49
  mailbox. By morning.
• 44:50
  My heart stills in my chest. For the first time, he has
• 44:53
  actually communicated with me outside of an ominous note.
• 44:56
  My eyes snap up towards the balcony.
• 44:58
  No one can see us from here, we're too far back from the
• 45:01
  railing. But yet someone is clearly
• 45:03
  watching me. But how?
• 45:06
  Obviously she has major anxiety and genuine believes if she does
• 45:09
  anything with any of these men they're going to end up dead.
• 45:11
  It is horrible. But then she's like yes great,
• 45:14
  I'll go home with one. Anyway.
• 45:18
  The next chapter is just the sex scene with some of the worst
• 45:20
  dialogue I've ever read, including and oh it's so bad.
• 45:24
  Listen to this. And again, this is one of the
• 45:25
  few consensual sex scenes in the book.
• 45:28
  F baby, that's it, let me hear you sing now.
• 45:32
  Long Husky moans are drawn from my throat, singing for him just
• 45:36
  the way he asked. You sing so pretty.
• 45:38
  He whispers in my ears, a sharp nip full of his words.
• 45:42
  Oh. I moan, my breathing erratic and
• 45:44
  breathless, my breathing erratic and breathless.
• 45:50
  Do you sing pretty when you come, Addie?
• 45:52
  He asks in a dark whisper. Such a pretty bird.
• 45:56
  He murmurs. You've left a mess on my hand,
• 45:59
  Daddy. It'd be rude not to clean it up.
• 46:02
  You don't want to get your vagina eaten, or vulva rather
• 46:08
  eaten under the stars. He asks incredulously, looking
• 46:12
  at me as if I've grown a second head.
• 46:14
  It's so damn cringy and I hate it.
• 46:19
  Like it's it's actually laughably bad and the writing
• 46:22
  does not get any better anyway, so thankfully for us they are
• 46:28
  interrupted by banging on her front door again and random guy
• 46:31
  she's brought home who's called like Archibald but he says call
• 46:34
  me Arch. I hate being called Archie.
• 46:36
  But then they call him Archie for the rest of the book.
• 46:38
  Anyway, he goes out to see who is outside and Addie says the
• 46:43
  situation turns me on as just as much as it terrifies me, I need
• 46:47
  to check myself into a mental hospital if I survive the night.
• 46:51
  Oh shut up. No it doesn't.
• 46:53
  It's it's genuinely scary. There's nothing to be turned it
• 46:57
  stop it. I wish you would check yourself
• 46:59
  into a hospital. And then the book ends there.
• 47:01
  That'd be a great happy ending. So she follows the guy outside
• 47:05
  but her stalker has literally kidnapped him and cut off his
• 47:08
  foot and left it as a gift for her on her doorstep.
• 47:11
  This is insane behaviour. He kidnapped a stranger, cut off
• 47:15
  his foot and left it for her. So she calls the police and when
• 47:21
  they arrive, they're like, well, he's probably dead, but it's not
• 47:25
  really a big deal because it turns out he was a criminal.
• 47:28
  The Talaveras, which is the family, are known criminals.
• 47:32
  Policeman informs me nothing's been proven, never any
• 47:36
  sufficient evidence, but they deal in cocaine primarily.
• 47:39
  Allegedly. He tacks on at the end side
• 47:41
  eyeing me. Domestic violence by his ex-wife
• 47:43
  several times. And he's gotten out of those
• 47:45
  charges unscathed of course, but he's known to be a very violent
• 47:48
  man. I turn my head and cover my face
• 47:51
  with my hands. Sheriff Walters Pats my back
• 47:54
  awkwardly, assuming I'm crying, but my eyes are as dry as the
• 47:56
  Sahara desert, just like my vagina reading this book.
• 48:00
  And I'm too angry to cry. Angry at myself for being so
• 48:03
  stupid and taking a random man home.
• 48:05
  Angry for getting that man killed.
• 48:07
  A man that is connected to a dangerous family.
• 48:11
  The policeman says I'll look into it.
• 48:13
  But Adeline you must understand if the Talaveras find out you
• 48:16
  have a stalker, they might might place blame.
• 48:19
  I rear back completely baffled that a cop is warning me that a
• 48:22
  criminal family could come after me.
• 48:24
  But he's never been 1 to sugarcoat or hide truths.
• 48:27
  Look at that victim blaming again.
• 48:29
  That's a theme in this book. In the stalkers chapter we get
• 48:33
  him justifying the murder again. The second I saw them together
• 48:37
  it. Took all of my control.
• 48:39
  To not storm into that club and drag her bum out of there
• 48:42
  because not only was another man trying to lay claim to my girl,
• 48:45
  but Archibald Talavera is an effing psychopath.
• 48:49
  A real 1 like you. Then he beat his ex-wife to a
• 48:53
  bloody pulp on several occasions and made her life a living hell
• 48:56
  when she finally decided to divorce his bum.
• 48:59
  The woman is still in a psychiatric hospital receiving
• 49:02
  treatment for severe PTSD. He literally broke the woman,
• 49:06
  and while she spends her days trying to heal from his abuse,
• 49:08
  he spends his nights in clubs picking out a different woman to
• 49:11
  take home. And F.
• 49:12
  Last I heard, he's not a nice F either.
• 49:15
  His form of rough play isn't pleasurable by any means.
• 49:18
  When the woman walks away with a bloody nose and busted lip.
• 49:21
  The bum hole deserves to die and I'm happy to get the effing
• 49:25
  honour, so I'm not saying he's a good.
• 49:28
  Guy, but again. Can we stop trying to justify
• 49:30
  literal torture and murder please?
• 49:32
  Like the Oh my God the irony of this man Z complaining about
• 49:37
  another man being rough and mistreating women.
• 49:40
  The irony of that is not lost on me.
• 49:42
  Like just just you wait and see. But he has no regrets.
• 49:47
  Because can't have my little. Mouse thinking there aren't
• 49:49
  consequences for letting another man touch what's mine.
• 49:53
  She'll find out soon enough that I don't make idle threats.
• 49:56
  I hate this book. I hate this man.
• 49:58
  This is not sexy. Threats are not sexy.
• 50:02
  War Followers is just several pages.
• 50:03
  Of him. Describing kidnapping, torturing
• 50:05
  and killing this man in graphic detail.
• 50:07
  And again, some of this writing is so damn bad it's laughable.
• 50:11
  He's been running his mouth. Since the moment.
• 50:13
  He awoke and it's been grinding my gears into dust.
• 50:17
  He throws out empty threats like bullets, but instead they're
• 50:20
  paper in the wind. None of them make an impact.
• 50:23
  In fact, they don't land anywhere near me.
• 50:26
  What was going to be a fairly slow death is now going to be
• 50:28
  the slowest death to to ever happen since the dawn of
• 50:31
  humanity. He squirms like a worm on a
• 50:34
  hook, and I can tell by the panicked look on his face that
• 50:37
  he has that feeling, the sinking feeling that his life is
• 50:41
  bouncing on the edge and I'm about to effing spa to kick him
• 50:44
  off. She.
• 50:47
  Got paid to write this anyway in regards to Addy.
• 50:55
  He really does think a lot of himself.
• 50:57
  What he doesn't know is that the minute I.
• 50:59
  Properly. Introduce myself to Adeline
• 51:01
  Riley. She won't be able to think of
• 51:02
  anyone else. I will devour her from the
• 51:05
  inside out until every intake of breath will only stoke the
• 51:08
  inferno I've created inside her. Like oxygen feeding the fire, I
• 51:12
  will consume every inch of her sweet little body until she will
• 51:15
  think of nothing else but how to get me deeper inside of her.
• 51:19
  She'll fear me at first, but the fear will only ignite her and
• 51:22
  I'll be all too effing happy to deliver the pain when she gets
• 51:26
  too close to the flame. So one, this isn't healthy or
• 51:29
  normal, and two, do you have to swear so much like normal people
• 51:33
  do not swear this often in their day-to-day life, right?
• 51:37
  Right. It, it feels so unnatural and
• 51:39
  again, it feels like it's written by a teenager trying to
• 51:41
  be edgy. Don't worry, I'll get, I'll do
• 51:43
  some swear counts for you in a bit, We'll come back to that.
• 51:46
  So during the torture they're really trying to set up soon to
• 51:50
  be dead Archibald as a bad guy because he hurts women and says
• 51:53
  things like that. Doesn't matter.
• 51:55
  He snaps back. She's the wife and I make the
• 51:57
  money. If I feel like buying a stripper
• 51:59
  for a night, that's my God damn right.
• 52:02
  All she ever did was sit at home on her lazy bum and spend my
• 52:06
  money. I nod, accepting his answer for
• 52:08
  what it is. Would you have hurt Addie?
• 52:11
  I ask after a pregnant pause. He scoffs.
• 52:14
  I would have effed her. Like how I would have effed her,
• 52:17
  how I liked to F if she ends up with a couple of bruises, So
• 52:20
  what? Bitches like that poop, they
• 52:22
  like it rough. And again, the hypocrisy and the
• 52:27
  irony is not lost on me. So.
• 52:30
  So Archie is a bad guy for thinking women like it rough and
• 52:32
  hurting them, but when Z does it later in the book, that's hot
• 52:37
  apparently. Oh, but.
• 52:38
  Sorry, sorry. Apparently it's different
• 52:40
  because Archie wouldn't know how to have proper rough sex if he
• 52:44
  was giving an effing manual for it.
• 52:46
  He hurts women because he enjoys it.
• 52:49
  He doesn't know how to push women to the edge of pain and
• 52:51
  pleasure, balancing the two and making them desperate for more.
• 52:54
  He just hurts them. And by the time he's done, the
• 52:58
  girl is thoroughly bruised and traumatised, maybe even
• 53:00
  bleeding, and he's walking away with a satisfied smirk on his
• 53:04
  face as if he was the first man to prove a woman orgasming isn't
• 53:08
  actually a myth. Wow, again, it's.
• 53:14
  Not lost on me because. Creepy stalker man literally
• 53:18
  walks away from Addie later leaving her bruised and bleeding
• 53:22
  and traumatised after raping her.
• 53:24
  But apparently it's somehow different.
• 53:28
  Sure. OK, back to.
• 53:30
  Addie's chapter and her hacker friend Dyer says or has hacked
• 53:36
  into Archer's known enemies systems, their cameras, phones,
• 53:39
  laptops and the GPS on their cars.
• 53:42
  Just like we suspected, they had no connection to Archer's
• 53:44
  disappearance. Sure she did love.
• 53:48
  Sure, she also Dyer offers to set up security cameras around
• 53:55
  Addie's house, but not before Mr Stalker sends Addie a box with
• 53:59
  Archie's severed hands in it. Lovely.
• 54:03
  What a catch. And of course he.
• 54:06
  Threatens her with a note saying.
• 54:08
  While I will enjoy punishing you for every time you call the
• 54:11
  police, let's hold off this time.
• 54:13
  Wouldn't want to have to hurt them next little mouse.
• 54:16
  So typical abuse tactic. Make them too scared to tell
• 54:20
  anyone or get help. It's disgusting so.
• 54:24
  Best friend Dyer disposes of the.
• 54:26
  Hands by going and like burying them in a forest somewhere
• 54:28
  rather than them calling the police like that's a criminal
• 54:32
  act in itself it's destroying evidence.
• 54:33
  But anyway, very stupid. And the rest of Archer's family
• 54:38
  show up dead as well. We are 22% of the way into this
• 54:42
  book and Z, our creepy stalker man has already killed 20
• 54:47
  people, not including all the people he killed before the book
• 54:50
  even started. So please, please tell me why
• 54:53
  women are writing reviews about this book and his character
• 54:55
  saying things like 5 stars reading this book is not enough.
• 54:59
  I need to F Zaid. That's his name, by the way, but
• 55:02
  we'll get there. She's also categorised this book
• 55:06
  in her own. Her own little category called A
• 55:11
  Tear Just Went Down My Leg. Anyway, back in the book world,
• 55:17
  Addie hears a noise upstairs and someone has taken one of her
• 55:20
  great grandmother's journals out of a chest of drawers and left
• 55:23
  it open on the floor to the one like one of the last entries
• 55:25
  that she wrote in it, just before she was murdered.
• 55:28
  She was scared. She thought someone was after
• 55:31
  her, and she, Addie, thinks it was the ghost of her great
• 55:34
  grandmother who put it there. Yeah.
• 55:36
  And she says there's no way this book could have ended up on the
• 55:39
  floor, yet it did. I don't know if it was Nana's
• 55:42
  doing or Gigi's, but someone wanted me to read these entries.
• 55:46
  Do they want me to find the person who killed Gigi?
• 55:48
  God, I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to
• 55:50
  solve a murder in the 40s with such underwhelming technology.
• 55:54
  Is her murderer even still alive?
• 55:57
  And this is so stupid, right? I know this is a book called
• 55:59
  Haunting Adeline, but there's been no evidence of anything
• 56:03
  supernatural existing so far in this book.
• 56:06
  And so now, 20 something percent of the way in, suddenly ghosts
• 56:08
  show up. And we're just taught to accept
• 56:12
  that this is a haunted house. And there are ghosts in the
• 56:14
  house. And there's one other appearance
• 56:16
  of a ghost. And then they're relegated to
• 56:18
  like, oh, yeah, the house is haunted and there are ghosts.
• 56:21
  And these are real, but they have no impact on the plot.
• 56:25
  I I don't get. Why it's in here?
• 56:28
  It makes no sense and it's really stupid and I was so so
• 56:31
  confused. I I.
• 56:40
  So because best friend Daya is also a master.
• 56:42
  Hacker who can basically perform any magic trick as long as she
• 56:45
  has a computer in front of her. Addie casually asks her to hack
• 56:48
  into the police database and download the files about her
• 56:50
  great grandmother's murder. And so of course she can do that
• 56:53
  no problem. It'll just take 30 seconds.
• 56:55
  Boom, done. Here are your files.
• 56:59
  So they look at crime scene photos but nothing is helpful.
• 57:02
  And then that night, Mr Stalker breaks into her house again and
• 57:05
  she wakes up to the sound of footsteps in her hallway.
• 57:07
  But he doesn't enter her room. Instead, he leaves the house and
• 57:10
  as she's watching him out of the window, it feels like an
• 57:13
  eternity passes. But I imagine it's only been
• 57:15
  seconds before I see movement. An audible cry leaves my lips
• 57:19
  when a large man saunters off the steps and walks out onto my
• 57:22
  driveway. He is wearing all black with a
• 57:24
  deep hood settled over his head. He's tall, very tall, but not
• 57:28
  bulky. Even beneath his clothing I can
• 57:31
  tell his body is effing lethal. Lean but packed with muscle.
• 57:36
  His hoodie clings to his body, showing.
• 57:37
  Off his broad. Shoulders, thick arms and
• 57:39
  trimmed waist. God, he could crush me if he
• 57:42
  wanted to. His hands look big enough to
• 57:45
  cover the entirety of my face or wrap around my neck.
• 57:48
  Would he do it to cause pain or pleasure?
• 57:50
  Does my shadow want to hurt me or love me?
• 57:53
  Like why would you ask that? He's been stalking you.
• 57:55
  That's not normal. Stop it.
• 57:57
  Apparently he's been managing to avoid the security cameras too,
• 58:00
  because remember, he is a master hacker and he can totally do
• 58:03
  that. It is master hacker.
• 58:06
  He comes back again a few nights later and she's going to call
• 58:08
  the police, but then he threatens her again, so of
• 58:10
  course she storms out of the house to confront him, which is
• 58:13
  insane behaviour. Crazy times.
• 58:17
  Growling under my breath, I storm to my door, unlock it and
• 58:20
  whip it open. He turns his head to face me and
• 58:22
  for a moment I almost develop a brain and run back inside.
• 58:25
  Stealing my spine, I angrily stomp down the steps and charged
• 58:28
  towards him. Hey bum hole, if you don't get
• 58:31
  off my property I will call the cops.
• 58:33
  Why haven't you called them already?
• 58:34
  MMM, why? Later I'll ask God why she made
• 58:37
  me this way, but right now all I can do is plant two of my hands
• 58:40
  on his chest and push when I get close enough.
• 58:43
  I don't allow myself to register the defined muscles under its
• 58:45
  hoodie because only psychos would focus on that right now.
• 58:49
  The behemoth of a man doesn't move back an inch, nor does he
• 58:52
  speak or react or do anything. Harsh.
• 58:56
  Angry breaths huff from my nose like a ball as I glare at the
• 58:59
  hooded man. I can't see much of his face
• 59:01
  except the bottom half, but I can feel his eyes burning into
• 59:04
  me. Soon my body will smoulder until
• 59:07
  there's nothing left but ashes dancing in the cold wind.
• 59:10
  Sorry you shouldn't laugh, but it's, it's bad.
• 59:14
  What do you want from me? I hiss, curling my fingers into
• 59:16
  fists only to abate the shaking. My whole body has begun to
• 59:20
  vibrate from anger and fear, but also from something else,
• 59:23
  something so disturbing I refuse to put a name to it.
• 59:26
  He doesn't answer, but he does grin, a slow, sinful twist of
• 59:30
  his lips that sends sparks scattering down my spine.
• 59:33
  With deliberation, his tongue darts out and licks his bottom
• 59:36
  lip. My eyes zero in on the movement,
• 59:38
  the ACT primal, animalistic and effing terrifying.
• 59:42
  And then he just walks away. Mate, I would.
• 59:46
  Literally move to another country.
• 59:47
  If this was happening to me, like just get away from him,
• 59:50
  stop this nonsense, surely I wouldn't be so stupid to
• 59:54
  confront a psychopath, the very psychopath that cut off a man's
• 59:57
  hands and left them on my doorstep.
• 59:59
  But that's precisely what I did. And he did nothing in return
• 1:00:02
  except lick his lips at me like he plans to feast on me.
• 1:00:07
  Wait for that this next. Line.
• 1:00:08
  This is so bad. Oh no, what if I have the second
• 1:00:12
  coming of Geoffrey Dahmer stalking me?
• 1:00:16
  It's so stupid. This was published.
• 1:00:19
  People have given this book 5 stars heart.
• 1:00:24
  Back in my throat, I turn and rush back inside.
• 1:00:27
  Feeling like Lucifer's hands and nipping at my bum cheeks when I
• 1:00:31
  shut the door. Sorry.
• 1:00:32
  When I shut and lock the door behind me, I look back at the
• 1:00:35
  rocking chair I was sitting in to see the knife laying
• 1:00:37
  haphazardly on the floor next to the foot store.
• 1:00:41
  Oh, the poor. Writing is almost.
• 1:00:43
  As offensive as the plot, let's be honest.
• 1:00:48
  God's sake. OK, couple of days later stalker
• 1:00:52
  man is back. Again, it's it's so boring and
• 1:00:56
  repetitive. This, oh half of this should not
• 1:01:00
  have been in the book. Honestly, this book didn't need
• 1:01:02
  to be written at all, let's be real.
• 1:01:04
  My heart lobs around in my chest, pumping erratically.
• 1:01:08
  A low heat sparks in the pit of my stomach, my mouth drying as
• 1:01:11
  the burn descends between my thighs.
• 1:01:13
  I'm glued to the chair, panting from the heady mix of fear and
• 1:01:17
  arousal. My cheeks burn from shame, but
• 1:01:19
  the feeling doesn't dissipate. I should close the curtains, do
• 1:01:22
  myself a favour and cut us both off from our silent war.
• 1:01:25
  But for some unknown reason, I can't get myself to move, to
• 1:01:28
  pick up the phone, to call the police, to do anything that
• 1:01:30
  would classify me as intelligent and having common sense.
• 1:01:35
  Can you just shut up? No one would feel arousal from
• 1:01:37
  being stalked. Like, doesn't make sense.
• 1:01:40
  And she really starts doubling down on the ghosting at this
• 1:01:43
  point, right? Whatever ghosts haunt these
• 1:01:45
  walls are no longer relevant. Not when there's something much
• 1:01:48
  more dangerous haunting the grounds.
• 1:01:50
  As if the ghosts hurt me. Light footsteps sound from above
• 1:01:53
  me. I turn my head and lift my eyes
• 1:01:55
  to the ceiling, tracking the phantom footsteps until they
• 1:01:57
  fade away. So we really are just shoving
• 1:02:00
  the ghosting in here, even though it is of no consequence
• 1:02:03
  in either book. Go surreal.
• 1:02:05
  And one lives in the attic, apparently.
• 1:02:07
  Next up, she has another book signing and we finally learn why
• 1:02:10
  her chapters are titled The Manipulator.
• 1:02:12
  And it's stupid as hell. What do you call yourself?
• 1:02:15
  Dire asks, quirking a brow at me.
• 1:02:17
  I sigh. A master manipulator?
• 1:02:23
  Why? I roll my eyes.
• 1:02:26
  Because I manipulate people's emotions with my words when they
• 1:02:29
  read my book. I grouse.
• 1:02:32
  Exactly so. That's all you do.
• 1:02:35
  Except your mouth has the words instead of your fingers.
• 1:02:38
  Fake it till you make it, baby. This is so stupid.
• 1:02:41
  This is so stupid. I can't deal with it.
• 1:02:44
  I love my career as a professional manipulator.
• 1:02:46
  I'm fortunate to do what I do. I, I, I'm sorry, but no.
• 1:02:50
  I've never heard of an author call themselves a professional
• 1:02:52
  manipulator. I just think it's weird as hell
• 1:02:55
  and it says a lot about the author writing this book and it
• 1:02:57
  leaves me kind of concerned. And this is this is the only
• 1:03:01
  reference in the entire book to her being a manipulator.
• 1:03:04
  She says she manipulates people's feelings in her books
• 1:03:07
  and that's why she is a manipulator.
• 1:03:09
  But but we never see her like writing these books.
• 1:03:13
  We never see the reader's reactions to her books.
• 1:03:16
  We never see her actually manipulate anyone in real life.
• 1:03:19
  We never like there's no manipulation that she does
• 1:03:22
  throughout this whole book. So I don't understand why it's
• 1:03:25
  in here. It makes no sense anyway, blah
• 1:03:29
  blah. Blah, creepy stalker.
• 1:03:31
  Man has broken in again when she gets home, so Dyer calls the
• 1:03:33
  police for her, and then she goes to spend the night at
• 1:03:36
  Dyer's house, which is described as This is so funny.
• 1:03:40
  Her house would be fairly empty if it weren't for the furniture
• 1:03:43
  and the thousands of computers everywhere.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah, my house would also be fairly empty if it wasn't for
• 1:03:50
  the furniture. So funny, anyway.
• 1:03:55
  She takes her work. Seriously.
• 1:03:56
  And while she. Doesn't talk much about her job.
• 1:03:58
  I know she deals with some pretty heavy matters.
• 1:04:00
  She's mentioned before that she deals with the dark web and
• 1:04:03
  human trafficking, and that alone is enough to give someone
• 1:04:05
  night terrors. Apparently her boss is strict
• 1:04:08
  with keeping her details, so with keeping the details
• 1:04:11
  confidential. But there's been times where
• 1:04:13
  Daya has looked more haunted than Parsons Manor.
• 1:04:16
  So at this point I was like, oh clearly she works for say 8
• 1:04:18
  doesn't she? And yes, yes she does.
• 1:04:23
  We all saw it coming. It's obvious anyway, Stalkerman.
• 1:04:27
  'S aide has followed. Her to Dyer's house and he's
• 1:04:29
  watching her through the window there.
• 1:04:31
  This this is getting ridiculous. Like does he not have anything
• 1:04:34
  better to do? Like get a hobby, learn to
• 1:04:37
  paint, join a choir? I don't know, just like, find
• 1:04:41
  something better to do with your time, you know?
• 1:04:43
  Oh, and the great grandma's diary entries were also
• 1:04:45
  continuing in between the chapters.
• 1:04:47
  By the way. It's all.
• 1:04:48
  Oh, we had sex. Oh, I really love him.
• 1:04:50
  Oh, I can't wait to see him again.
• 1:04:51
  My damn husband is boring in comparison.
• 1:04:53
  And that just repeats over and over and over again, not really
• 1:04:57
  adding anything to the story. OK, I'm filming on a second day
• 1:05:00
  now, and if you listen to the audio only, you might not be
• 1:05:03
  able to see if I got my little Co host with me.
• 1:05:05
  My little Cubie bear. She's sat next to me having a
• 1:05:07
  grumble on you babes. Yeah, bless her, the older she
• 1:05:11
  gets, the more like snorty and grumbly she gets with her
• 1:05:14
  breathing. She just, you can't help it.
• 1:05:16
  Kenya Bubba, it's just who you are.
• 1:05:18
  I know, but you're such a good girl, aren't you?
• 1:05:21
  You're such a Kimberly. She's 12 1/2 now.
• 1:05:23
  I can't. Oh, OK.
• 1:05:25
  Speaking of 12, we are moving on to chapter 12 next.
• 1:05:29
  And this is from the stalkers perspective again.
• 1:05:32
  And I know I should probably call him like Zaid or Z or his
• 1:05:35
  name or something, but I like seeing who he is, you know?
• 1:05:38
  Creepy stalker man. Isn't that right?
• 1:05:41
  Coops. Yeah, sleepy girl, you tired?
• 1:05:47
  I love you. Love you.
• 1:05:51
  Isn't this chapter we get an info dump about where he.
• 1:05:54
  Gets all his money from big corporations.
• 1:05:56
  Pay me an ungodly amount of money to hack into their rival
• 1:05:59
  systems for whatever BS reason. Whether it be because they're
• 1:06:02
  competing and want to know what the other is cooking up or
• 1:06:05
  because they have a lawsuit against another one and are
• 1:06:07
  trying to find information. I don't give an F what their
• 1:06:09
  problems are with each other, it's only my concern that they
• 1:06:12
  get what they what they hired me for.
• 1:06:14
  In the end. Some wealthy gets left over and
• 1:06:16
  my clients make a massive profit from it and I collect interest
• 1:06:18
  on it. It's dirty and I've never been
• 1:06:21
  in the business of keeping my hands clean and it allows me to
• 1:06:23
  dedicate my life to end in human trafficking.
• 1:06:26
  So apparently he's worth millions, which is very
• 1:06:28
  convenient, isn't it? And I'm really sorry but can
• 1:06:31
  this book series please stop trying to sell me on the idea
• 1:06:34
  that this guy is a good guy because he wants to end human
• 1:06:37
  trafficking by like getting off on murdering people?
• 1:06:41
  And when he's a literal stalker who is harassing and raping a
• 1:06:46
  woman repeatedly at the same time, you can't just write off
• 1:06:49
  literal crimes because he's doing some other good stuff in
• 1:06:52
  his life. It's like, Oh well yes I got a 7
• 1:06:54
  year old child hooked on heroin but it's OK because on the
• 1:06:56
  weekends I volunteer at a homeless shelter or yes I kick
• 1:06:59
  small puppies for fun, but I'm not a bad guy because on
• 1:07:02
  Wednesday evenings I litter pick for three hours.
• 1:07:05
  It just doesn't make sense, does it?
• 1:07:06
  COO COO no, you agree with me. Don't you see it doesn't work
• 1:07:13
  anyway? Creepy Stalker Man is busy
• 1:07:15
  trying to track down groups of men performing satanic rituals
• 1:07:18
  involving drinking the blood of virgin children on camera.
• 1:07:21
  Because Yep, that's a common thing in this universe,
• 1:07:25
  apparently. He brags about how he's killed
• 1:07:28
  hundreds of people at this point and how he can't and how in his
• 1:07:32
  words he can't stomach people hurting women and children for
• 1:07:35
  their own sick pleasure, but he's fine with him inflicting
• 1:07:39
  suffering on a woman for his own sick pleasure.
• 1:07:42
  It the hypocrisy. Just I can't deal with it.
• 1:07:48
  And it only gets worse throughout the entire book
• 1:07:49
  series. Wait until the 2nd book, right?
• 1:07:52
  There are men who are villainised for doing the exact
• 1:07:55
  same things to Addie as he does and yet somehow it's different
• 1:08:01
  just because it's him doing it and he's hotter than the other
• 1:08:03
  guys. It's so offensive.
• 1:08:06
  Oh, anyway, This is why he tells us.
• 1:08:09
  Two of my employees. Installed security cameras out
• 1:08:12
  at his house unknowingly to keep their boss out.
• 1:08:15
  I basically invented these systems so I'm more than capable
• 1:08:17
  of disarming them with a click of my phone.
• 1:08:20
  Magic phones, magic technology. It's a big part of these books.
• 1:08:23
  I just picked her locks to get in and then reverse pick them
• 1:08:26
  after I left. The only predator I'll allow in
• 1:08:28
  her house is myself. Despite her poop locks, I'd
• 1:08:31
  never leave her vulnerable. I was relieved when she
• 1:08:34
  installed the security system, even if it was meant to keep me
• 1:08:36
  out. Breaking past those barriers is
• 1:08:38
  just another lesson to teach. Eventually she'll learn.
• 1:08:41
  She can't shut me out any more than she can F other men.
• 1:08:44
  So there we go. That's pretty much proof that
• 1:08:47
  Dyer works for him, except it's not confirmed until like 400
• 1:08:50
  pages later. Because this also likes to drag
• 1:08:52
  things out for the sake of it, doesn't she?
• 1:08:56
  I'm really tired of this. Like, I guess you could call it
• 1:08:58
  a trope in fiction, but this this occurrence in fiction of a
• 1:09:02
  man being like, I'm going to hurt a woman to show her that
• 1:09:05
  other men could be dangerous, but then I'm going to save her
• 1:09:08
  from the danger that I inflicted her to, to show her how big and
• 1:09:11
  strong I am. It's like, if you're doing that,
• 1:09:13
  you are the danger. You know, it's like all these
• 1:09:15
  like manosphere creators who are like, women need men for
• 1:09:18
  protection. It's like protection from who?
• 1:09:20
  From you. You can't just cause a problem
• 1:09:23
  and then be like, I need anyone to sell it.
• 1:09:25
  You need us. Like that's abuse, mate.
• 1:09:28
  Literally, that's abuse, he says.
• 1:09:31
  In the beginning, I tried so hard to forget her.
• 1:09:33
  I tried to run, but I couldn't get her out of my mind.
• 1:09:35
  I went home from that bookstore and attempted to talk myself
• 1:09:38
  down, but it seemed the more I struggled to convince the beast
• 1:09:41
  inside me to leave her alone, the more it raged.
• 1:09:44
  And the second I started to look into her life, digging up
• 1:09:46
  anything I could find, the obsession only grew.
• 1:09:48
  She became an inoperable brain tumour that plagues every waking
• 1:09:52
  moment of my life. Sometimes it feels like if I
• 1:09:54
  tried to cut her out of me anyway, I wouldn't survive it.
• 1:09:58
  Good. Maybe you shouldn't survive Just
• 1:10:00
  saying in the next chapter Addie starts seeing literal.
• 1:10:04
  Ghosts. Like actual ghosts, they just,
• 1:10:07
  they just shoehorn into this book for like no good reason.
• 1:10:09
  And it's silly isn't it? It's so silly it's I.
• 1:10:13
  I don't understand why the author did this.
• 1:10:15
  OK. I'm walking down my dimly lit
• 1:10:17
  hallway towards my room when a flash of movement catches my
• 1:10:20
  eye. I freeze my finger pressing the
• 1:10:22
  red button when I see what looks like a woman disappearing
• 1:10:25
  through the attic door. A smile falls on my face before
• 1:10:27
  I can stop it. In all the years I've been in
• 1:10:29
  this house, I've only seen her. I've only seen an apparition a
• 1:10:33
  few times. More often I've heard voices,
• 1:10:35
  footsteps, door slam, and felt the freezing draughts, but
• 1:10:38
  rarely anything visual. But I know what I just saw.
• 1:10:41
  A woman in a white dress with tight blonde curls.
• 1:10:44
  I didn't see her face, but there's a distinct feeling that
• 1:10:46
  it was Gigi nearly dropping my phone.
• 1:10:48
  Rushing after her, I run down the hall and swing the epic door
• 1:10:50
  open. It's pitch black leading up the
• 1:10:52
  stairs and there's that nervous tickle in the back of my brain
• 1:10:55
  but it doesn't stop me. And so I'm sorry.
• 1:10:58
  You've been seeing ghosts in this house like your entire life
• 1:11:01
  but you didn't think to mention it before now.
• 1:11:03
  Ghosts are real in this universe and you didn't think to confirm
• 1:11:06
  it until now? We are 1/4 of the way through
• 1:11:10
  this book and suddenly ghosts appear.
• 1:11:12
  Anyway, this is the one and only time a ghost has anything to do
• 1:11:15
  with the plot. We we just suddenly learn ghosts
• 1:11:17
  exists. She follows 1 into the attic and
• 1:11:21
  then finds some hidden notes, one from a person saying they
• 1:11:23
  helped cover up her murder and another from the grandmother's
• 1:11:27
  diary saying that someone was coming for her.
• 1:11:29
  It's not really all that interesting, but it's there.
• 1:11:31
  And this is the only thing a ghost ever does in this story
• 1:11:34
  that like, moves the plot along. Other than this, there's just
• 1:11:37
  like casual mentions of like OOP, the ghosts are walking
• 1:11:40
  around tonight. OOP, this is a haunted house,
• 1:11:43
  but they don't do anything. There's no significance to the
• 1:11:45
  plot. So I don't understand why she
• 1:11:46
  put them in here because there's no reason for them.
• 1:11:49
  There's no reason for ghosts to exist in this world.
• 1:11:52
  I thought we were going to have something where, like, I don't
• 1:11:54
  know, Addie gets attacked in the house and then one of the ghosts
• 1:11:56
  saves her by like dropping a bookcase on him or something.
• 1:11:59
  But no, none of that. The ghosts have literally no
• 1:12:02
  point. It's like they're built up and
• 1:12:04
  put in here for no reason. It's very frustrating.
• 1:12:08
  This book is just so blah blah blah.
• 1:12:13
  Zaid stalks her. Some more.
• 1:12:15
  Dyer tries to track the phone number he's been texting her
• 1:12:17
  from, but she can't. Addie gets drunk again.
• 1:12:20
  Then Dyer puts a special block on Addie's phone so he can't
• 1:12:22
  hack it anymore. But of course he invented the
• 1:12:24
  software so he can hack it. Pointless page filler.
• 1:12:30
  There's some really weird stuff. With Addie saying she loves
• 1:12:32
  Halloween and horror films in haunted houses because I just
• 1:12:35
  get off on being scared. I think that's a step up from
• 1:12:38
  being a psycho. But the therapist disagreed.
• 1:12:41
  I love it. Which is why having a stalker is
• 1:12:42
  the worst thing in the world for someone like me.
• 1:12:44
  I'm susceptible to enjoying the fear a bit too much.
• 1:12:47
  My love for horror is going to get me killed one day.
• 1:12:49
  It's like I was meant to be haunted.
• 1:12:51
  Little Mouse, that name is going to haunt me.
• 1:12:53
  I'm not pray I'm not. This book is so stupid.
• 1:12:58
  You know, I would like to. Read though a.
• 1:13:00
  Book from the perspective of Addie's therapist.
• 1:13:03
  Like see what a sane person thinks of her.
• 1:13:06
  Oh. I'd read the hell out of that.
• 1:13:08
  So Creepy Stalkerman sends her some more creepy texts and then
• 1:13:11
  she has to come and find him because he's hiding.
• 1:13:13
  Hiding, because he's hiding in her house somewhere.
• 1:13:17
  She starts looking for him, knife in hand instead of calling
• 1:13:19
  the police, which is stupid as hell.
• 1:13:21
  And then she finds him standing in her bedroom with a knife in
• 1:13:24
  his hand too, and she tells him. You wanted me to come find you,
• 1:13:27
  Kitty cat, so I did. So take off your effing hood and
• 1:13:31
  show me your face. I demand, my voice rising
• 1:13:33
  alongside my anger. I can't deal with how bad this
• 1:13:36
  writing is. I really can't.
• 1:13:38
  I showed a couple of friends extracts from this book and none
• 1:13:41
  of them could believe it was actually written by an adult.
• 1:13:43
  It was. It was quite funny.
• 1:13:45
  So she sees his face properly for the first time and realises
• 1:13:48
  that he is the guy from the bookshop and she calls his
• 1:13:50
  appearance devastating. His right?
• 1:13:54
  Eye darker than the midnight sky and the other.
• 1:13:56
  The exact opposite. Oh, is this written by Taylor
• 1:13:59
  Swift? His left eye is so bleached of
• 1:14:01
  colour it's nearly white. The scar starting from the
• 1:14:04
  middle of his forehead, slashing straight down through his white
• 1:14:06
  eye to the middle of his cheek is something I haven't been able
• 1:14:08
  to forget since I saw him in the bookstore.
• 1:14:10
  Despite the ugly scar, it only serves to heighten his utter
• 1:14:14
  beauty. A jawline so sharp he could cut
• 1:14:16
  diamonds with it. A straight aristocratic nose,
• 1:14:19
  full lips and short black hair just long enough to run your
• 1:14:23
  hands through. This is wrong, so wrong.
• 1:14:26
  I shouldn't be attracted to a stalker.
• 1:14:28
  No you shouldn't end of book. I wish.
• 1:14:33
  Like I'm sorry but I I really hate this idea of he's so hot
• 1:14:36
  you can get get away with anything nonsense because that's
• 1:14:39
  what these books seem to spread like look at this TikTok video I
• 1:14:43
  found and tell me. This isn't incredibly.
• 1:14:45
  Concerning if one of your friends was saying this, you
• 1:14:49
  would get her to go see a therapist immediately, but
• 1:14:51
  you're telling me that if this man right here, This man right
• 1:14:54
  here. Was following you around,
• 1:14:56
  peeking in your windows, leaving your thornless roses on your
• 1:14:59
  fucking counter that you wouldn't let him in.
• 1:15:01
  And you know, no, you're fucking lying.
• 1:15:05
  You're fucking lying. You would not be.
• 1:15:06
  Calling the cops on him? OK, you'd be leaving your door
• 1:15:09
  unlocked. She tries to stab him and he
• 1:15:12
  just grabs a knife like by. The blade, so he's like, cutting
• 1:15:15
  his own hand. I scowl and plant my hands in
• 1:15:18
  his chest, ignoring the pure steel beneath his flesh, and
• 1:15:21
  attempt to push him away, but he resists the force, his lip
• 1:15:23
  curling into a snarl. Tears rim my lids as frustration
• 1:15:27
  grows. Please, just leave.
• 1:15:29
  I, I don't want you here. I don't want you just leave me
• 1:15:31
  alone. I beg.
• 1:15:33
  I feel like she's been pretty clear with what she wants there,
• 1:15:36
  right? There's no ambiguity.
• 1:15:38
  Let's just let's just say that it feels like reaching a hand
• 1:15:41
  inside my chest, yanking out my. Pride and throwing it onto the.
• 1:15:44
  Floor but I don't give an F about my pride in this moment.
• 1:15:46
  I just want this man to effing leave.
• 1:15:50
  So there's a lot of scenes like this of her begging.
• 1:15:52
  For him to go. And leave her alone.
• 1:15:54
  And I actually found myself feeling really damn anxious and
• 1:15:58
  while reading it. And I don't know how anyone can
• 1:16:01
  read about a woman being this distressed and not also feel
• 1:16:07
  anxious and come out of it still thinking the man causing these
• 1:16:11
  feelings is in any way attractive.
• 1:16:14
  I have a few reviews for you to read to contrast with what I was
• 1:16:20
  feeling. I feel dirty that I enjoyed this
• 1:16:23
  book. It was good.
• 1:16:26
  I feel even worse that I fall in loved with Zaid.
• 1:16:29
  Did you realise how bully that's written?
• 1:16:31
  But the sentiment is there no shame in my game.
• 1:16:35
  I need him. I need Zaid biblically is just
• 1:16:40
  amazing like I. I can't explain the feeling it
• 1:16:45
  was so. Freaking good.
• 1:16:46
  The spice of this? Book is something I've never
• 1:16:50
  experienced. There.
• 1:16:52
  Is it? It's a little messed up, I won't
• 1:16:55
  even lie. The first initial like really
• 1:16:58
  spicy sort of scene we get from this book.
• 1:17:01
  It's one of the most fucked up things I've ever read, but I was
• 1:17:07
  sitting there with my jaw just like unhinged.
• 1:17:10
  Like why is this? So like why?
• 1:17:15
  Why am I attracted to this? I don't know but it was so good
• 1:17:19
  y'all. I will just never understand
• 1:17:22
  these women and it makes. Me feel.
• 1:17:24
  Like I am both concerned for them and also like I would never
• 1:17:28
  want to be in the same room with them because I wouldn't feel
• 1:17:31
  safe, you know? So he makes her play this messed
• 1:17:34
  up game of hide and seek and then chases her down and it's
• 1:17:36
  again, it's horrible to read. This is just a straight up like
• 1:17:42
  terrorising scene that. Accumulates in.
• 1:17:46
  Rape. It's horrifying and anxiety
• 1:17:49
  inducing and yet it's written with the intention to sex.
• 1:17:53
  And yet it's written with the intention to sexually stimulate
• 1:17:55
  the reader. That bothers me.
• 1:18:01
  I like you scared. He whispers.
• 1:18:02
  Sending shivers down my spine. I like you, begging and
• 1:18:05
  pleading, crying out for God to save you.
• 1:18:07
  I feel the touch of his hand on my face and I flinch away.
• 1:18:10
  His fingers slightly trace over my cheekbones to my hair,
• 1:18:13
  tucking the loose strands behind my ears.
• 1:18:15
  I like you, trembling beneath my touch uncontrollably.
• 1:18:18
  You're sick. I snap, doing just that.
• 1:18:20
  I'm shaking from head to toe and I can't seem to stop.
• 1:18:24
  And when he catches her, he immediately threatens to rape
• 1:18:26
  her, which results in Addy saying it only infuriates me
• 1:18:29
  more that he finds my lack of consent is so inconsequential,
• 1:18:34
  so worthless. Let's just make that very clear.
• 1:18:38
  My lack of consent. She's laying it out for us.
• 1:18:41
  She is not consenting to any of this.
• 1:18:44
  So then he bites her, like physically bites her with his
• 1:18:47
  teeth all over her neck and body as punishment.
• 1:18:51
  And in response, she tries to get away with by like biting him
• 1:18:54
  back on the face and he responds by choking her.
• 1:18:57
  This is horrible to read, so please be warned.
• 1:19:00
  His hand wraps around my throat, pushing me back while he rips
• 1:19:03
  his face away. My head thumps against the wall,
• 1:19:05
  a dull throb radiating from the spot.
• 1:19:07
  He's squeezing tightly. But I don't care.
• 1:19:09
  I feel justified if he kills me here and now, at least I can say
• 1:19:13
  I left one last mark on him. I've said it before in videos,
• 1:19:16
  but if a man escalates to choking you for any reason,
• 1:19:19
  especially as punishment as it's labelled here, because they're
• 1:19:23
  angry with you as he is here because they want to hurt you.
• 1:19:26
  Like whatever the reason, if a man chokes you, he is more
• 1:19:30
  likely to kill you at some point.
• 1:19:32
  That's just a statistical fact. I've got plenty of other videos
• 1:19:35
  talking about it if you want to check them out, but it just, it
• 1:19:38
  really really bothers me. So Moses scene is absolutely.
• 1:19:42
  Horrifying to read, but then, like, the seriousness of it all.
• 1:19:45
  Not. Not that the author's taking it
• 1:19:46
  seriously. She thinks it's just sexy little
• 1:19:48
  fun, you know? Oh, we'd love a good rape, don't
• 1:19:50
  we? All of that, like seriousness,
• 1:19:54
  is undercut by absolutely stupid lines like this.
• 1:19:58
  Before I can react, he's lifting me up and tossing me over a
• 1:20:00
  shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
• 1:20:02
  Effer. I snap, banging my fist against
• 1:20:04
  his back. I am not a potato.
• 1:20:07
  The next chapter is absolutely horrific because this.
• 1:20:10
  Is a whole chapter. Of a rape scene and he says that
• 1:20:14
  the bruises he's left by biting her mark her as his like she's
• 1:20:18
  an object for a possession. And he then proceeds to rape her
• 1:20:22
  with a gun. A loaded gun as in the barrel of
• 1:20:25
  it goes inside her against her will.
• 1:20:29
  She literally cries the whole time.
• 1:20:31
  She begs him to. Stop.
• 1:20:33
  It is sickening to read. It is just a very, very graphic
• 1:20:36
  rape scene that takes place over several pages.
• 1:20:39
  But it's justified in the end by the author because, well, she
• 1:20:43
  got wet while he did it and then she orgasms during the rape.
• 1:20:47
  So it can't have been real rape, can it?
• 1:20:50
  And again, this is something I've said before in plenty of
• 1:20:52
  videos. Plenty of people orgasm during
• 1:20:54
  rape. It's a physiological reaction.
• 1:20:57
  It is an involuntary response of the body.
• 1:20:59
  It does not mean that the person wanted it or that the rape is
• 1:21:02
  somehow justified or OK, because that happened afterwards.
• 1:21:06
  She literally says my body is full of rage, humiliation and
• 1:21:09
  shame. I know this but it's like my
• 1:21:11
  brain can't process those emotions so it's choosing to
• 1:21:14
  feel nothing at all. Is this what trauma does?
• 1:21:17
  Knowing you've been violated but your body chooses to go numb
• 1:21:20
  instead? Yes, that's exactly what trauma
• 1:21:22
  does. What we're reading here is a
• 1:21:24
  traumatised woman who readers are now seeing as like, peak
• 1:21:29
  sexual fantasy, and I find that sickening.
• 1:21:31
  Zaid, our MMC, is definitely unhinged, but he's also patient.
• 1:21:35
  Protective and genuinely wants Adeline to reclaim her power.
• 1:21:38
  I really loved this couple. OK, so for those of you
• 1:21:41
  listening to audio only at the minute.
• 1:21:43
  I am playing a series of Tiktok videos with one woman saying I
• 1:21:46
  should not be feeling this way while she's actively like
• 1:21:49
  swooning over a caption saying the gun scene.
• 1:21:53
  There's another woman saying how psychotic can I be?
• 1:21:56
  You enjoyed the gun scene in haunting Adeline with her
• 1:21:58
  caption saying people found it traumatic in the book.
• 1:22:01
  But I was smiling when I read that part.
• 1:22:03
  And then finally, there's one other woman who is like showing
• 1:22:06
  that she can't put down the book when you finally get to the gun
• 1:22:10
  scene. And then in the comments there's
• 1:22:12
  a woman saying, Yep, my same reaction.
• 1:22:14
  Then I was like, why did I like that ha ha ha.
• 1:22:16
  And then the original poster says right, let's look at some
• 1:22:20
  other reviews. Zay can stalk me any day.
• 1:22:22
  Literally one of my all time favourite book series.
• 1:22:25
  I went into this not knowing what to expect and came out of
• 1:22:27
  it completely enchanted. This might be for everyone due
• 1:22:30
  to the content slash trigger warnings, but if you do pick up
• 1:22:32
  this book I promise it'll be for the best.
• 1:22:35
  Well F now I want a stalker to fall in love with and have like
• 1:22:39
  8 new possible kinks. Just goddamn great.
• 1:22:43
  So unhinged and yet so sexy. I'm definitely questioning all
• 1:22:46
  my morals and I'm sorry but if this is your response to reading
• 1:22:50
  even just one graphic rape scene, never mind the multiple
• 1:22:54
  that go on throughout this book. These are graphic traumatic rape
• 1:22:57
  scenes where the the victim says she's traumatised.
• 1:23:01
  She has a trauma response. Like she literally says I am not
• 1:23:05
  consenting. She says no, she cries, she begs
• 1:23:07
  him to stop. If you read that and your
• 1:23:10
  response is so sexy, I want a stalker too.
• 1:23:14
  I want this to happen to me then I'm sorry but there is something
• 1:23:17
  wrong with you. You need some sort of therapy.
• 1:23:20
  This isn't kink shaming. This is me saying I think I
• 1:23:23
  think you need therapy. Like and you are not safe to be
• 1:23:28
  around other victims of rape because it's like you'd likely
• 1:23:31
  just invalidate their experiences.
• 1:23:33
  Like I just, I, if you find this sexy, I don't feel safe around
• 1:23:38
  you and I'm concerned about your mental health and well-being.
• 1:23:41
  You know? Addie drinks an entire cup of
• 1:23:44
  wine. Wine cures everything.
• 1:23:45
  For a little while, anger, trauma.
• 1:23:47
  But now with a glass of wine absent rage causes my hands to
• 1:23:50
  tremble with the reminder of how he left me on the floor, tossing
• 1:23:53
  a rose on me like discarded trash and then leaving.
• 1:23:56
  I had never felt more debased as a human until that moment, never
• 1:23:59
  more humiliated. This is a traumatised woman.
• 1:24:03
  This is not sexy. This is not romance and you
• 1:24:06
  can't convince me that it is. How can this rapist as a
• 1:24:09
  character be like I'm a good person?
• 1:24:11
  I'm saving women from sex trafficking, which is why it's
• 1:24:14
  totally OK that I just roped a woman myself.
• 1:24:17
  I don't get it. In a complete tone shift, acting
• 1:24:20
  like nothing happened, Addie then goes back to looking into
• 1:24:22
  her great grandmother's murder and she thinks that her stalker
• 1:24:25
  turned lover was working for a mob boss in the 40s.
• 1:24:28
  So that's fun, Whatever. Then Addie and Dia go out for
• 1:24:33
  lunch and the dead guy, Archibald, his friend called
• 1:24:36
  Max, I think it is, shows up. And it's like, hmm, I think I
• 1:24:41
  need to blame you for his murder, Addie.
• 1:24:43
  And it's just like, how much more like trauma and suffering
• 1:24:46
  does this author want to pile onto one woman?
• 1:24:49
  Actually, a lot more. Wait till we get to book 2.
• 1:24:51
  It's horrific. This is just not fun to read at
• 1:24:54
  all. In the next chapter, creepy
• 1:24:55
  stalker man watches her from her bedroom closet and says a bunch
• 1:24:58
  of really gross objectifying stuff about her and her body.
• 1:25:01
  He claims he's in love with her, but he literally knows nothing
• 1:25:04
  about her or her personality or her values.
• 1:25:06
  So it's not love, it's just creepy obsessive lust.
• 1:25:10
  And can we just please stop getting them confused again?
• 1:25:12
  I don't understand why lust is portrayed as love in these
• 1:25:16
  romance novels. Surely if you actually wanted to
• 1:25:18
  read romance, you'd want to read like an actual love story of
• 1:25:21
  people developing real feelings and not just like all
• 1:25:25
  superficial lust? Because if it's just superficial
• 1:25:28
  lust then you're just reading porn.
• 1:25:31
  It's not. Can we stop labelling it as
• 1:25:32
  romance? You know I'm anyway.
• 1:25:37
  Apparently he says his plan is I'm going to.
• 1:25:39
  Make her fall in love with every single effed up part of me.
• 1:25:42
  I want this girl to see me at my most depraved.
• 1:25:45
  I want her to experience the true darkness residing in my
• 1:25:47
  soul. When you make someone fall in
• 1:25:49
  love with the darkest parts of you, there's nothing you can do
• 1:25:51
  that will scare them away. They will be forever yours.
• 1:25:55
  Sorry. They will be yours forever
• 1:25:56
  because they already love all the effed up bits and pieces of
• 1:25:59
  you. And I have never heard anything
• 1:26:00
  more stupid or pathetic. Rapists really are insecure
• 1:26:05
  little brats, aren't they? So he leaves her house after,
• 1:26:08
  you know, stalking her because she's finally asleep now and he
• 1:26:11
  has nothing else to do. So I guess he should go and do
• 1:26:13
  some work. And he gets a work call from his
• 1:26:15
  employee Jay, who wants him to go and hang out with some
• 1:26:18
  corrupt politicians to see if he can find out any information.
• 1:26:21
  And stalker creep has the nerve to say to him, FJ you want me to
• 1:26:26
  mingle with a bunch of rapists I can hack into their cameras?
• 1:26:30
  Mate, you are a rapist. Don't pretend you're above them.
• 1:26:33
  Literally 10 pages ago you were raping a woman yourself.
• 1:26:37
  Like you don't get to be like, uh, no, I don't hang around with
• 1:26:39
  rapists when you are a rapist. In the next chapter he sends her
• 1:26:43
  more creepy text messages which she feels weirdly into because
• 1:26:47
  apparently now they have some sort of weird like Stockholm
• 1:26:49
  syndrome trauma bond thing going on.
• 1:26:52
  And then he threatens to. And I can't believe I'm saying
• 1:26:54
  these words because it oh, it makes me feel so uncomfortable.
• 1:26:59
  He. Threatens to bite.
• 1:27:00
  Her clitoris I the first time I read.
• 1:27:06
  This actively like recoiled in. Disgust and I can feel it
• 1:27:09
  happening again. Now I just no no reading
• 1:27:14
  sentences. Like that make me never.
• 1:27:16
  Want to leave the house again? I already have enough trouble
• 1:27:18
  with that. Anxiety is a pain.
• 1:27:22
  We then get yet another right scene because I hate this book.
• 1:27:27
  I hate this book we get. Another rape scene with a bit of
• 1:27:30
  torture. Mixed into basically he breaks
• 1:27:32
  into her house and he ties her up while she is sleeping and
• 1:27:37
  this includes taping her mouth. He like ties her up to the
• 1:27:39
  headboard, tapes over her mouth and then attacks and rapes her
• 1:27:44
  in her sleep. I mean, she wakes up, but yeah,
• 1:27:47
  horrible. Once again, it is very.
• 1:27:50
  Clear that she does not. Want to be in this situation.
• 1:27:53
  There is no ambiguity here. There is just 0 consent.
• 1:27:57
  Let me go, I shout beneath the tape.
• 1:27:59
  But the words are. Muffled and indistinguishable
• 1:28:02
  panic sends my mind into a complete tailspin.
• 1:28:05
  I no longer think rationally. My body goes into survival mode
• 1:28:08
  and I fight against his hold with all the strength I can
• 1:28:10
  muster, but it's useless. He's too big, too heavy, too
• 1:28:14
  effing imposing. I scream with frustration,
• 1:28:16
  attempting to book him off. He laughs at my attempt, the
• 1:28:19
  rich sound of his amusement sending ice down my spine.
• 1:28:23
  Keep peeing me off, Addy. I do enjoy hurting you.
• 1:28:26
  It's music to my ears when I hear you cry.
• 1:28:28
  I struggle against him, muffled curse words spilling from my
• 1:28:31
  taped mouth. Again, I won't go into details
• 1:28:34
  and read out like the actual graphic rape, but it's in the
• 1:28:37
  pages and afterwards she blames herself for its saying.
• 1:28:41
  Self hatred wars against the hatred for him.
• 1:28:44
  I did this to myself, I know I did.
• 1:28:46
  I instigated him, pushed against him when he warned me what would
• 1:28:49
  happen. Which is just victim blaming
• 1:28:52
  nonsense from the author. Of course sometimes actual
• 1:28:54
  victims blame themselves, but it's absolutely not their fault.
• 1:28:58
  And yet the author wants us to believe that it is Adi's fault.
• 1:29:00
  She asks for this and no one ever has to be raped.
• 1:29:04
  This is followed by pages and pages of graphic rape that
• 1:29:06
  again, made me feel so sick and anxious.
• 1:29:09
  These scenes are so dragged out and so long and so like.
• 1:29:13
  They detail every single action of the rape.
• 1:29:18
  Every time she screams and. Says no and cries every time he
• 1:29:22
  laughs at her for that. It's really, really
• 1:29:25
  uncomfortable to read. And the fact that the author
• 1:29:27
  wrote these with the intention of sexually.
• 1:29:32
  Arousing the reader is. Just something I find
• 1:29:36
  disgusting. I've always.
• 1:29:38
  Said I do think. There is a place for because I'm
• 1:29:41
  not saying, you know, no fictional character should ever
• 1:29:43
  be raped. We should never talk about rape
• 1:29:45
  and fiction. That's not what I'm saying.
• 1:29:47
  But intention matters if you have a book where a character
• 1:29:52
  was raped. And it's to show.
• 1:29:54
  Hey, look, rape is terrible. These are the effects of it.
• 1:29:57
  This is how like, people respond to it and react and so on.
• 1:30:02
  Then the intention there to show rape is bad.
• 1:30:04
  If you write a graphic rape scene with the intention of
• 1:30:07
  sexually arousing your reader because you want them to find
• 1:30:09
  rape sexy, then that is incredibly problematic and
• 1:30:13
  something that I'm never going to stop calling out.
• 1:30:15
  You know, the intention matters. And not just the intention of
• 1:30:18
  the author, but like what they intend the response to be from
• 1:30:22
  the reader. Is it discussed or is it
• 1:30:24
  arousal? In this book, she writes it with
• 1:30:26
  the intent of arousal. And that's where the problem
• 1:30:29
  lies. I I have sadly.
• 1:30:33
  Read a lot of rate scenes in. Books.
• 1:30:35
  Now while reviewing these terrible books for videos I
• 1:30:39
  think the Harrow fair ones were some of the 1st and then the
• 1:30:44
  Penelope Douglas ones. Like I've I've read a lot for
• 1:30:47
  these videos. But I do think these books
• 1:30:51
  Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline have the most disgusting
• 1:30:55
  and graphic and anxiety inducing rape scenes of any abuse porn I
• 1:31:00
  have had the displeasure of reading.
• 1:31:02
  I actually think this author is quite sick.
• 1:31:05
  Again, the rape scene ends in orgasm, so the author tries to
• 1:31:08
  justify it as not real rape. And yet Adi says I'll never
• 1:31:13
  recover, not when my soul has been ripped from my body and
• 1:31:16
  dragged down to hell. I feel so deeply that I found
• 1:31:19
  myself in the devil's lair, being feasted on from the dark
• 1:31:22
  God himself. The writing is bad.
• 1:31:25
  But I mean like, this just proves she's pretty damn
• 1:31:27
  traumatised, right? Can we stop glamorising that?
• 1:31:31
  Like how? How did this get published?
• 1:31:33
  Who? Who reads this drivel?
• 1:31:34
  And takes it seriously. It's beyond me and again, more
• 1:31:38
  more victim blaming and he says I let everything happen again
• 1:31:43
  with the gun and now this. Why do I keep letting it happen?
• 1:31:46
  He's forcing himself on me. We both know that.
• 1:31:49
  Again, that's not ambiguous. That just proves it's rape.
• 1:31:52
  You're reading rape and getting aroused by it.
• 1:31:54
  That's the problem. But I mean not you watching
• 1:31:58
  this, but the people who. Gave this book.
• 1:32:00
  Five stars and fell in love with Sade.
• 1:32:03
  That's what they're doing, but. In the end, he had me.
• 1:32:06
  Wanting it just as much as he did, he had me nearly begging
• 1:32:10
  for it. Whether it was his gun effing me
• 1:32:12
  or his tongue. My legs fell open by the time it
• 1:32:15
  was over. And this is such a dangerous
• 1:32:17
  thing to write and put out into the world.
• 1:32:19
  It is perpetuating all the myths around rape that are actively
• 1:32:23
  harming thousands of women every single day and stopping them
• 1:32:27
  from getting any kind of justice.
• 1:32:28
  And it is sickening. Back to the diary entries.
• 1:32:31
  And Great Grandma has had an argument with her drunk husband.
• 1:32:34
  Well, several of them. He's accused her of having an
• 1:32:36
  affair, which she's denied. Except she is having an affair,
• 1:32:39
  so she doesn't really have the moral high ground here.
• 1:32:41
  I really hate cheating plots. I do.
• 1:32:43
  But then it also turns out that he's been drinking more and has
• 1:32:45
  a gambling problem and she fears he might hurt her one day, so
• 1:32:50
  that's not great. I hate domestic violence too.
• 1:32:55
  Back in Rapist Man's chapter and he.
• 1:32:57
  Admits that he knows. He is raping her, he admits this
• 1:33:00
  so he he is a self admitted rapist and women still lust
• 1:33:05
  after him. Please stop, stop.
• 1:33:10
  I don't regret it. Not any more than when I stuck a
• 1:33:12
  gun in. Her C word and made her cum.
• 1:33:16
  I'd know how effed up that is to take something without consent.
• 1:33:21
  Spelling it out there again to take something without consent.
• 1:33:25
  I know that's what I'm fighting against every day.
• 1:33:28
  She still hasn't given it to me yet, but she will.
• 1:33:31
  She still hasn't given him consent.
• 1:33:32
  He knows this, but she will. So you're going to coerce her
• 1:33:36
  into it? If you have to coerce her into
• 1:33:38
  giving consent, it's not real consent.
• 1:33:40
  He's submitting to rape. That's what this is.
• 1:33:43
  Her actions speak an entirely different language than her
• 1:33:46
  words, a language filled with desires and pleas.
• 1:33:49
  She just hasn't learned to translate it yet, Doesn't make
• 1:33:52
  it right, nor does it justify it.
• 1:33:55
  But I can't make myself regret tasting something so effing
• 1:33:58
  sweet, so effing perfect, even if she didn't want to want it,
• 1:34:02
  because that's what that was. And stop, this is just this
• 1:34:06
  character is completely irredeemable, and because she's
• 1:34:09
  writing it, so is the author. Can we stop pretending that if,
• 1:34:12
  like, the body involuntarily reacts one way, then it doesn't
• 1:34:15
  matter what someone's words are saying?
• 1:34:17
  Like, oh, look at the body, not the word.
• 1:34:19
  Like, no, no, that is a massive, really, really harmful myth
• 1:34:24
  around rape. And it needs to stop.
• 1:34:27
  If a person says no, they mean no.
• 1:34:30
  He then goes on to try and justify his stalking, saying I
• 1:34:33
  stalk her because I'm effing addicted.
• 1:34:35
  I'm fascinated with every move she makes, every word that comes
• 1:34:38
  from her pretty pink mouth. And now I'm addicted to her
• 1:34:40
  scent, her taste, and the way she sounds when she's scared for
• 1:34:43
  her life just as much as I'm addicted to the way she sounds
• 1:34:46
  when she's begging for more. It's not something I can
• 1:34:49
  explain. When I saw her I effing nearly
• 1:34:52
  fell to my knees with need. And I will have her, but not
• 1:34:55
  because I'm psychotic and illusional.
• 1:34:57
  Doubt I'm not going to make a goddamn shrine of her and
• 1:35:01
  convince myself that we were destined to be together by the
• 1:35:04
  gods or whatever weird crap people believe these days.
• 1:35:08
  I'll have her because she's the first thing that made me feel.
• 1:35:10
  Something good in. So long and I've become obsessed
• 1:35:13
  with keeping it. I don't have very many something
• 1:35:16
  goods in my life and I don't care if it makes me selfish for
• 1:35:19
  wanting to hold onto it. It's just pathetic isn't it?
• 1:35:21
  It is selfish. You are psychotic and
• 1:35:24
  delusional. It's ridiculous.
• 1:35:27
  Just because you're miserable with your life that doesn't mean
• 1:35:29
  you get to torture someone just so you can feel something.
• 1:35:32
  Your needs don't trump hers. The only way I'll be able to
• 1:35:35
  truly keep her is if she sees me at my worst.
• 1:35:38
  This is so stupid. I would rather just off myself
• 1:35:41
  than trick Addie into loving me as a good man just to break both
• 1:35:44
  our hearts when she realises I'm not a good man at all.
• 1:35:47
  Or you could just try and be a decent person.
• 1:35:50
  If you're genuinely a bad man and you are because you're a
• 1:35:53
  rapist, then you don't deserve someone's like love and time and
• 1:35:57
  attention like this. You don't deserve the love of
• 1:36:00
  the woman you've repeatedly raped.
• 1:36:02
  It's that simple. Addie literally says to him, why
• 1:36:06
  can't you just be decent? And not.
• 1:36:07
  Feel the need to stalk me because then I wouldn't be true
• 1:36:10
  to myself. Little mouse.
• 1:36:12
  I love that I scare you. I love that you tried to run
• 1:36:14
  from me. The push and pull, the cat and
• 1:36:17
  mouse game. I effing love it and I think a
• 1:36:19
  part of you does too. This is not healthy or normal or
• 1:36:23
  fun to read at all. It's pathetic.
• 1:36:26
  He ends the chapter by bragging that he's been deleting the
• 1:36:28
  records of her filing police reports against him and says
• 1:36:31
  that he's using the system to his advantage because not that
• 1:36:35
  stalking cases are ever taken seriously anyways, which is why
• 1:36:38
  so many women end up murdered. I hate that he just casually
• 1:36:43
  throws us in here because this is such a huge problem.
• 1:36:46
  As I said earlier, in the UK, one in five women over the age
• 1:36:49
  of 16 have experienced stalking, although it's actually estimated
• 1:36:53
  to be so much higher because so much of it goes unreported.
• 1:36:57
  The number of women who die at the hands of their stalkers
• 1:37:00
  because the police don't take it seriously, or at least are hurt
• 1:37:02
  at the hands of their stalkers or terrorised or traumatised
• 1:37:06
  because the police don't take it seriously.
• 1:37:08
  It's so scarily high. And this book acknowledges that.
• 1:37:13
  And then it's like, yeah, but I'm going to use this to our
• 1:37:15
  advantage and make it hot and sexy.
• 1:37:18
  Can we please stop? Glamorising other people.
• 1:37:22
  'S real life trauma. I don't know why that's so
• 1:37:26
  controversial. It's so distasteful to use this
• 1:37:29
  fact that puts millions of women in real danger to romanticise
• 1:37:33
  his crimes. And I know I always get comments
• 1:37:36
  when I moan about these like abuse porn books that Oh well,
• 1:37:41
  the people reading it know the difference between fiction and
• 1:37:43
  reality and it's not real so it doesn't affect people.
• 1:37:45
  Except, as I said in the introduction, we know for a fact
• 1:37:48
  that reading fiction can influence our view of the world
• 1:37:52
  and how people see and treat each other.
• 1:37:53
  You know, we know that it can help us understand people's
• 1:37:56
  experiences and feel more empathetic towards people and so
• 1:37:59
  on. So why would we assume that it
• 1:38:01
  can't do the opposite too and make us less empathetic towards
• 1:38:04
  people and their suffering if they're constantly reading this
• 1:38:07
  stuff which normalises and excuses abuse and when I read
• 1:38:12
  the reviews some of them make. Me genuinely concerned.
• 1:38:14
  For people you know. God, it's me.
• 1:38:16
  Can we please manifest my own Zaid Meadows?
• 1:38:19
  I knew this book was going to ruin me, especially my love life
• 1:38:22
  and make me question my morals. Jesus F in Christ.
• 1:38:25
  I just love how Roman's novels keep getting progressively
• 1:38:27
  disturbing and we keep progressingly obsessing over it.
• 1:38:30
  Do I or do I not want to stalker is the question now.
• 1:38:34
  Zaid Meadows. In real life we'd all probably
• 1:38:36
  call the cops on him and get the ick so quickly it's not even
• 1:38:39
  funny. In this book though, yes yes
• 1:38:41
  yes. He's the typical case of a
• 1:38:43
  character not just being good or bad, white or black, but having
• 1:38:46
  depth and a whole personality. Red flags.
• 1:38:48
  Absolutely toxic, definitely psychotic an effing 100%.
• 1:38:53
  I saw a TikTok one stating that if a guy like him came up in
• 1:38:56
  real life he wouldn't be so successful with his love life
• 1:38:58
  because realistically no girl wants a guy like that.
• 1:39:01
  But as a book boyfriend, he's worth every second of
• 1:39:03
  fantasising. I actually tested that theory
• 1:39:06
  during my reading. I imagined the alarming toxic
• 1:39:08
  red flag scenes happening to me in real life and being
• 1:39:11
  completely honest with myself, asking myself how I would react
• 1:39:14
  in that situation. Would I let that slide or would
• 1:39:17
  I get the ick? The key is to being really
• 1:39:20
  honest with yourself whether you'd like behaviour like that
• 1:39:22
  in reality. 99% of the haunting Adeline fans wouldn't want the
• 1:39:26
  Zaid Meadows. In reality, I researched those
• 1:39:28
  opinions on Reddit, quotev, TikTok, anywhere.
• 1:39:32
  As for me, let's put it this way, something is definitely
• 1:39:35
  wrong with me. Yeah, so she's saying she does
• 1:39:38
  want a rapist stalker in real life.
• 1:39:41
  Who knew I had a thing for possessive men with two
• 1:39:43
  coloured? Eyes.
• 1:39:44
  What does? That say about me honestly that
• 1:39:46
  I have good taste, especially if that man has said, Lord have
• 1:39:49
  mercy was this good. This had my heart racing.
• 1:39:52
  I devoured this like no one's business.
• 1:39:54
  So so so good. I'm so jealous of Adeline.
• 1:39:57
  I want to have a man like Zaid. Literally exactly him.
• 1:40:00
  He's so beautiful inside and out, and the way he brings
• 1:40:04
  things out in Addie that she's never knew she needed before
• 1:40:07
  just had me melting. You cannot convince me that
• 1:40:10
  these responses are healthy and normal, and that these people
• 1:40:13
  aren't being affected in some way by reading this harmful
• 1:40:16
  nonsense. And we have other examples too.
• 1:40:19
  One of the things I found after I'd actually written this script
• 1:40:23
  is the. A dark romance book convention
• 1:40:28
  at an event for HD Carlton. This woman, she had one of her
• 1:40:32
  friends come along who is apparently a male musician, and
• 1:40:35
  he was sexually assaulted by a number of women who were fans of
• 1:40:39
  HD Carlton and read the stuff. And you had people being like,
• 1:40:43
  oh, see, these people are ruining the dark romance
• 1:40:45
  community. We're not all like this rude.
• 1:40:47
  And I'm like, but surely you can see that it's having this effect
• 1:40:50
  on some people. Surely you can see that it is
• 1:40:53
  causing harm. Like I don't care that it's not
• 1:40:57
  all. Because it could be any.
• 1:41:00
  You know it, This is despicable. This happened at centres in
• 1:41:06
  Stardust Over. The weekend and HP Carlton
• 1:41:07
  posted this on her Instagram story and it's absolutely wild.
• 1:41:11
  It crosses every possible boundary of respect and consent
• 1:41:15
  and the fact that those are adults makes us even crazier.
• 1:41:19
  And as if the book talk community is not getting already
• 1:41:22
  enough backlash as is, especially the spicy book talk
• 1:41:26
  dark romance community. Weirdos like this are why dark
• 1:41:30
  romance readers. Will never.
• 1:41:32
  Be able to just live in peace. The main argument that we
• 1:41:34
  consistently use as to why dark romance isn't hurting anyone is
• 1:41:39
  that we can separate fiction and reality.
• 1:41:42
  That is the whole point of dark romance, when there are people
• 1:41:45
  from our space that go out and actively contradict that by
• 1:41:50
  partaking in behaviour like this, the whole genre is
• 1:41:55
  reflected negatively. These people are so desperate
• 1:41:58
  for a wired moment that they're committing crimes and actually
• 1:42:02
  hurting real people. Not even just dark romance
• 1:42:06
  readers that are affected by things like this, because
• 1:42:09
  romance readers in general are then are lumped into this group
• 1:42:12
  of people that don't understand respect.
• 1:42:16
  Look at the. Hockey guy drama that was
• 1:42:18
  happened not long ago like this is just a repeated offence that
• 1:42:21
  keeps happening in the bookish space only.
• 1:42:24
  I just hope that this man is OK. And he can.
• 1:42:28
  Heal from this and these weirdos that, like, typically assaulted
• 1:42:32
  him. But then also that people can
• 1:42:35
  understand that this is a small minority of people and that we
• 1:42:38
  don't all behave or feel this way about real people and that
• 1:42:43
  we can separate fiction and reality.
• 1:42:46
  And that is the point of reading.
• 1:42:48
  So many people tell me that I just need to lighten up and stop
• 1:42:51
  taking this so seriously when it's just fiction, but I can't.
• 1:42:55
  You know, I think when you do the kind of work that I do and
• 1:42:58
  you're constantly advocating for actual victims of rape and
• 1:43:01
  reading their accounts of what happened, and you've had some
• 1:43:04
  personal experiences that I've had too.
• 1:43:06
  It's impossible to just switch off your brain and pretend that
• 1:43:09
  this is mindless entertainment, because it's not.
• 1:43:13
  So Roxanne Grey edited a collection of essays called.
• 1:43:15
  Not that bad. Dispatches from rape culture.
• 1:43:18
  And when you've read some of the essays in there by some of those
• 1:43:20
  women who have been raped and assaulted, you hear them
• 1:43:23
  expressing so many of the same sentiments that fictional Adi
• 1:43:26
  expressed in this book. And it's impossible to, you
• 1:43:30
  know, read those essays and feel so much empathy and pain for
• 1:43:34
  them. And you feel the anxiety that
• 1:43:38
  they felt. And then you read the exact same
• 1:43:40
  things in a fiction setting, and you're supposed to be sexually
• 1:43:42
  aroused by it. I'm like, I'm sorry, but these
• 1:43:45
  are the same words on the page. I can't have different
• 1:43:50
  reactions. They both make me feel anxiety
• 1:43:54
  and disgust and sorrow, you know?
• 1:43:59
  So in one of the essays in that book, Vanessa Metier, for
• 1:44:04
  example, wrote I didn't want him to touch me, but he still did.
• 1:44:08
  I told myself it wasn't rape because we were in a
• 1:44:10
  relationship. It wasn't rape because I still
• 1:44:12
  loved him. It wasn't rape because I didn't
• 1:44:14
  fight him off. It wasn't rape because I stayed
• 1:44:16
  with him after. It didn't matter that I kept
• 1:44:18
  whispering no, no, no. It didn't matter that I sobbed
• 1:44:20
  the entire time. In another essay in that
• 1:44:23
  collection, Stacey Mayfowls writes I said the word no 16
• 1:44:26
  times. I don't know that I truly
• 1:44:28
  remember exactly how many times I said no, especially given the
• 1:44:31
  circumstances. The passage of time blots out
• 1:44:33
  any kind of vivid detail memory, and the world fills you with
• 1:44:37
  doubt of the legitimacy of your own story.
• 1:44:40
  But for whatever reason, that's the number I repeat in my head.
• 1:44:43
  It's the number I used when I finally started talking about
• 1:44:45
  what happened to me. It's the number that I could
• 1:44:47
  told counsellors and psychiatrist and whispered to
• 1:44:50
  close friends in quiet, covert moments.
• 1:44:52
  What I remember I was face down when he pinned down my wrists,
• 1:44:55
  one at each side of my body. His hands were strong and large
• 1:44:58
  and rough, but they were before the moment that he held me down,
• 1:45:02
  hands that I wanted to touch me. I start to panic.
• 1:45:05
  He was too heavy, having at least £50 on me.
• 1:45:07
  I couldn't breathe. Noah became a meaningless word
• 1:45:10
  while I was under him. It evolved into a plea or prayer
• 1:45:13
  instead of an instruction as intended.
• 1:45:15
  And then, in all the futility, it was nothing but a cry, a
• 1:45:18
  feral squeal with no one to witness it in the dark.
• 1:45:21
  There was no one to call out to, no one to help me.
• 1:45:24
  But I cried the word nonetheless, just as I've been
• 1:45:27
  taught to. These accounts are horrifying to
• 1:45:30
  read as. They should be.
• 1:45:32
  And I don't understand how people can basically read the
• 1:45:34
  same events, the same words, the same responses and be like,
• 1:45:39
  well, I can masturbate to this one, but I'm shocked by this
• 1:45:41
  one. Like just because one is fiction
• 1:45:44
  and one is real life, I don't understand why your reactions
• 1:45:48
  are so different. You know the acts you picture
• 1:45:52
  when you read these accounts are the same.
• 1:45:55
  Surely the empathy you should feel for the narrator, whether
• 1:45:57
  real or fictional, is the same, isn't it?
• 1:46:01
  I don't understand how you can just turn your brain off and be
• 1:46:04
  like, well I'm going to find it hot in this situation.
• 1:46:07
  And you mean like I don't get it Because even if the accounts in
• 1:46:12
  haunting Adeline. Are.
• 1:46:13
  Fictional. There are still thousands,
• 1:46:16
  millions of women out there who this has happened to, that it
• 1:46:20
  isn't fiction for them, you know?
• 1:46:22
  And I just feel like when you have that knowledge and you read
• 1:46:25
  this account, even if this one is fictional, you know, it's not
• 1:46:30
  fictional in other cases, like, so when you read those words, I
• 1:46:33
  don't understand how you can possibly find it enjoyable or
• 1:46:37
  sexy. It just doesn't make sense to
• 1:46:39
  me. In that same book edited by
• 1:46:42
  Roxanne Gay, Gabriel Union writes rape is a wound that
• 1:46:45
  throbs long after it heals, and for some of us, the throbbing
• 1:46:48
  gets too loud. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
• 1:46:51
  is very real and chips away at the soul and sanity of so many
• 1:46:55
  of us who have survived sexual assault.
• 1:46:57
  My compassion for victims of sexual assault is something that
• 1:47:00
  I cannot control. It spills out of me like an
• 1:47:02
  instinct rather than a choice. It pushes me to speak when I run
• 1:47:05
  and run away from the platform, when I'm scared, confused,
• 1:47:08
  ashamed. I remember this part of myself
• 1:47:10
  and must reach out to anyone who will listen, other survivors or
• 1:47:14
  even potential perpetrators. And I think this sums up kind of
• 1:47:18
  how I feel. I can't just not have compassion
• 1:47:21
  for a victim of rape. I just, I can't not feel angry
• 1:47:24
  at a rapist, even if they are fictional, because this happens
• 1:47:27
  so often in the real world and it destroys lies.
• 1:47:30
  It is not just harmless fun. There was one video I saw, I
• 1:47:34
  think it's part of a YouTube review where a woman said that
• 1:47:37
  she really enjoyed these books and she recognised that it's
• 1:47:40
  probably because she was from a place like a position of
• 1:47:42
  privilege where Careful Angel. She said it was probably because
• 1:47:47
  she was from a position of privilege where she'd never
• 1:47:48
  experienced these things herself and so that allowed her to enjoy
• 1:47:52
  them. And I'm like, I just feel like
• 1:47:54
  even if you've like I, on the one hand, I commend her for
• 1:47:58
  recognising that and recognising that privilege, but on the
• 1:48:00
  other, that doesn't mean that it's OK that you're sexually
• 1:48:04
  aroused by this stuff. Like I feel like if you can
• 1:48:08
  recognise. Oh, I've never.
• 1:48:09
  Experienced this so I can't relate then maybe go and speak
• 1:48:14
  to actual victims maybe go listen to them listen to
• 1:48:18
  survivors stories and accounts and the things that they went
• 1:48:21
  through and have some empathy for them and make sure that you
• 1:48:23
  understand where they're coming from because because I feel like
• 1:48:26
  anyone who's actually listened to a real victim isn't going to
• 1:48:29
  get aroused at the thought of that rape.
• 1:48:32
  You know what I mean? I have gotten to a place where
• 1:48:36
  I. Am legitimately like.
• 1:48:39
  Scared, nervous to bring up, show or talk about a certain
• 1:48:43
  series that I liked, I enjoyed and I don't feel bad about it.
• 1:48:49
  And I have just like kind of stopped talking about it on this
• 1:48:54
  and other platforms because of the backlash that I get for
• 1:48:57
  talking about it. And I feel like that's not fair.
• 1:49:00
  I feel kind of like upset by it because I should be able to say
• 1:49:05
  and like what I like, especially when it comes to a fictional
• 1:49:11
  story. I am going to tell you what it
• 1:49:12
  is. Obviously I read, I enjoyed,
• 1:49:15
  would read again, would tell my friends to read Haunting and
• 1:49:19
  hunting Adeline and I don't understand every single time I
• 1:49:23
  talk about it. I even will like now when I
• 1:49:26
  bring it up in my videos, when I show it, I'll like have a little
• 1:49:28
  disclaimer like please leave me alone.
• 1:49:31
  Let me talk about it and they will still come for me.
• 1:49:33
  The level of upset people are that I like this book and like
• 1:49:39
  getting personally mad at me as a person is a little wild to me.
• 1:49:44
  I don't understand. Sure, I'm probably a level of
• 1:49:49
  privileged because that subject matter does not trigger me.
• 1:49:52
  That's why is that wrong? I don't understand why the
• 1:49:58
  people that it is for are like shamed about it.
• 1:50:01
  The general consensus that I get is I'm not allowed to like it
• 1:50:04
  and I'm a bad person for liking it.
• 1:50:06
  And I think that that's dumb. I don't like that for all I have
• 1:50:10
  to say. Things like context and intent
• 1:50:12
  matter, because of course they do.
• 1:50:14
  I just think when you look at certain content and it's exactly
• 1:50:17
  the same, I'm not sure how you can necessarily separate it.
• 1:50:22
  Like if I read you 10 passages now and half were.
• 1:50:24
  From real. Life accounts of rapes and half
• 1:50:27
  were from dark Roman and half were from dark romance novels,
• 1:50:31
  abuse porn and the content was exactly the same between them
• 1:50:35
  because they are like how would you know which ones to be
• 1:50:38
  aroused by and which ones to be disgusted by?
• 1:50:41
  The average person wouldn't, I think you'd be disgusted by all
• 1:50:44
  of them. So I just that's, that's what I
• 1:50:47
  mean, that's what I can't turn off.
• 1:50:49
  Just because you're. Telling me you're aroused by
• 1:50:51
  this, this doesn't mean I can stop being disgusted by it, you
• 1:50:54
  know? I'm so sorry.
• 1:50:56
  Could be a little bit crumbly today, aren't you?
• 1:50:58
  Babe, do you want to? Tell me Rob, OK, Right.
• 1:51:02
  Sorry that was a rant that that. Was quite a rant.
• 1:51:05
  And let's get back to this book, because we are only 44% of the
• 1:51:08
  way through the first book. This book did not need to be
• 1:51:11
  nearly 600 pages long. So much of it is just repetitive
• 1:51:14
  and gross. And we have a whole second book
• 1:51:16
  to get through as well. The next chapter, stalker man
• 1:51:19
  goes and threatens Max. The threat?
• 1:51:20
  The friend of Archie, that guy he killed because he's been
• 1:51:24
  questioning Addie and Dyer call pages of boring penis measuring
• 1:51:29
  between unbearable men. Let's move on.
• 1:51:33
  Then he goes to this members club to stalk the child killing
• 1:51:36
  politicians. You know, the ones who did the
• 1:51:38
  cult sacrifice thing. And this is no ordinary members
• 1:51:42
  club. This is a members club that
• 1:51:43
  exists purely to abuse women. Women in scantily clad clothing
• 1:51:48
  roam the room delivering drinks and pretending to laugh at their
• 1:51:51
  lame jokes. And what the F 10 feet from me,
• 1:51:54
  a woman stands at a poker bar, holding her holding out her bare
• 1:51:59
  arm while a bum hole stubs out his.
• 1:52:01
  Very lit cigar. On her skin.
• 1:52:03
  My face drops when I see that bum hole is Mark effing
• 1:52:06
  Steinberg. God damn it.
• 1:52:08
  Smoke sizzles from her flesh, but she doesn't move an inch.
• 1:52:11
  In fact, she doesn't even flinch.
• 1:52:13
  As I get closer, I notice she has a blank look on her face,
• 1:52:16
  much like the Hostess that greeted me.
• 1:52:18
  The smell of burnt flesh fills the area.
• 1:52:20
  One penis head even waves his hand in front of his nose
• 1:52:23
  dramatically, as if it's her fault.
• 1:52:25
  It smells. She drops her arm and just
• 1:52:27
  stands there, a glazed look in her eye.
• 1:52:30
  After closer inspection, I notice that the entirety of her
• 1:52:33
  arm is covered in burned scars, old and fresh, all in different
• 1:52:36
  stages of healing and plenty of fresh burns from tonight.
• 1:52:39
  Mark chews her away and she robotically turns and walks off,
• 1:52:42
  as if she didn't just have a cigar stubbed out on her flesh.
• 1:52:45
  She's drugged. After I look around at the
• 1:52:47
  women, I realise they all, they all are.
• 1:52:50
  Not only does it keep them compliant, but they probably
• 1:52:52
  won't remember the majority of the poop that goes down in here.
• 1:52:56
  I honestly think based on scenes like this.
• 1:52:59
  And the second book. This also just gets off writing
• 1:53:01
  about the abuse of women in general, and I find that gross
• 1:53:04
  as hell. It just feels unnecessary.
• 1:53:08
  There's a whole bunch of bragging about Zaid.
• 1:53:10
  It's this master poker player too, apparently.
• 1:53:12
  So apparently he's a master everything.
• 1:53:14
  He is a master hacker and a master sniper, master murderer,
• 1:53:20
  master rapist. Now he's a master poker, but
• 1:53:23
  like, is there anything he can't do?
• 1:53:24
  Oh, I'm just, I'm fed up. Actually, no, one thing he can't
• 1:53:28
  do is apparently stop himself raping women.
• 1:53:30
  So there's not. Oh, there's so much nonsense in
• 1:53:32
  this chapter too, right? I slip out the Bluetooth
• 1:53:34
  earpiece I had hidden deep in my inner suit pocket.
• 1:53:37
  All of my jackets have a special lead lining in them that
• 1:53:39
  deflects radiation. I mean, I can walk through
• 1:53:42
  anybody scanner without the devices being detected.
• 1:53:46
  There's someone who gets shot at a lot.
• 1:53:47
  This seems dangerous. Right, that's like.
• 1:53:49
  Lead poisoning waiting to happen, right?
• 1:53:52
  Am I wrong? I Anyway, he decides to rescue
• 1:53:55
  one single woman out of 10s at this club and he's like, oh I'm
• 1:53:59
  such a hero, despite the fact he's just leaving all the others
• 1:54:02
  there. But yeah, whatever.
• 1:54:05
  There's another diary entry and the great grandmother's husband
• 1:54:07
  is still drunk all the time, starts being abusive, smashing
• 1:54:10
  things up, shouting at her a lot.
• 1:54:12
  We're meant to think he's the big bad villain.
• 1:54:14
  Now The next chapter is back to Addie and she's talking with Dia
• 1:54:18
  about creepy stalker man. I don't even know his name.
• 1:54:22
  I groan, my voice muffled by my hands.
• 1:54:25
  They've been glued to my face ever since I got here and I
• 1:54:27
  confess, tea broken again. I haven't gotten around to what
• 1:54:30
  happened yet. There's not an ounce of courage
• 1:54:32
  in my bones. She's been patiently waiting,
• 1:54:34
  knowing that I'm holding something back, something
• 1:54:36
  terrible and shameful and I and something I can't stop effing
• 1:54:39
  thinking about. You effed him, didn't you?
• 1:54:41
  She asked calmly. My eyes bulge and I unglue my
• 1:54:44
  hands from my face so I can pin her with a glare.
• 1:54:46
  No, I did not F him. I snarl as if she's suggesting
• 1:54:49
  something insane and I didn't come really damn close to it.
• 1:54:53
  I can feel the blood riding in my cheeks and my left eye
• 1:54:56
  twitches. F diagnose.
• 1:54:58
  That's my tell you did. She burst, standing up from her
• 1:55:00
  chair and looking down at me with shock.
• 1:55:02
  I didn't, I promise. I rush out, grabbing her hand.
• 1:55:05
  But something did happen. Bitch, what the F?
• 1:55:08
  She shouts. She leans in closer and
• 1:55:11
  unreadable emotion flowing her eyes.
• 1:55:13
  Was it consensual? And this is where I get tripped
• 1:55:15
  up. Because it wasn't.
• 1:55:17
  But had he kept going, had he stripped his clothes from his
• 1:55:20
  body and effed me, I can't say with absolute certainty I would
• 1:55:23
  have stopped him, or that I would have wanted to see it
• 1:55:26
  wasn't consensual. So it's rape.
• 1:55:28
  There it is. If I was dire, I'd be
• 1:55:30
  encouraging my friend to go to the police, get a rape kit done,
• 1:55:33
  see a therapist, do whatever she needed, right?
• 1:55:36
  But no, not in this stupid book. I put my hands on hers.
• 1:55:40
  Dire I. Well.
• 1:55:42
  It wasn't consensual at first. I say the last part like a
• 1:55:45
  question. Embarrassed.
• 1:55:50
  That I'm even admitting something like that?
• 1:55:52
  She blinks. At first, she echoes.
• 1:55:54
  Meaning what? He was that good he changed your
• 1:55:57
  mind? My hands cover my face, but she
• 1:55:59
  forces them away, nearly bumping her nose into mine as she
• 1:56:02
  intently waits for an answer. You have such pretty eyes, I
• 1:56:05
  tell her. She snarls.
• 1:56:07
  Spills slut. Can we not?
• 1:56:11
  I close my eyes with a. Resigned sigh.
• 1:56:13
  That man ate the. Soul out of my body and I don't
• 1:56:15
  think I've gotten it back yet. Like I'm sorry but your friend
• 1:56:18
  just told you she was raped and your response is to call her a
• 1:56:20
  slut? Can we just not please?
• 1:56:24
  I groan. Diet.
• 1:56:25
  I don't know what to do. He didn't.
• 1:56:27
  Hurt me, but he. Did He definitely forced himself
• 1:56:29
  on me, but I would have let him go further if he'd tried.
• 1:56:31
  I'm so awfully confused and I feel dirty and wrong, but when
• 1:56:34
  it was happening it felt. I trail off with another groan.
• 1:56:37
  This time I just banged my head against the granite countertop.
• 1:56:40
  Really good. She fills in amazing out of this
• 1:56:42
  world. All of the above.
• 1:56:44
  I confess I've never come so hard in my life.
• 1:56:47
  I'll keep saying it. Orgasms don't stop something
• 1:56:50
  being rape and I'm absolutely sick of books pretending that it
• 1:56:52
  does. This whole interaction is so
• 1:56:54
  anger inducing to read. Are you angry too?
• 1:56:59
  Yes, but. Also a little happy idea.
• 1:57:00
  Scratches, right? And the conversation ends
• 1:57:03
  abruptly with I sit up and bring Gigi's journal back towards me.
• 1:57:08
  Any who, let's focus on finding out what happened to my great
• 1:57:11
  grandmother. I hate this book.
• 1:57:14
  Absolutely hate it. OK, I had some lunch.
• 1:57:16
  Where were we? Right?
• 1:57:18
  The grandmother's notebooks. And no, not the grandmother's
• 1:57:20
  notebooks. The great grandmother's murder
• 1:57:23
  investigation. Addie is thinking it must be the
• 1:57:25
  stalker who killed her, even though, like, none of the
• 1:57:28
  evidence actually points to that.
• 1:57:29
  And then Dia says, Addie, I love you and I'm going to say this
• 1:57:32
  with all my love but don't project.
• 1:57:35
  I'm starting to get the feeling that you want Ronaldo to be the
• 1:57:37
  killer because in your head that will criminalise your stalker
• 1:57:40
  too. Please tell me that's not why
• 1:57:43
  you're seeking justice for Gigi, because you're looking for a
• 1:57:46
  reason to hate your stalker when in actuality you don't.
• 1:57:50
  I'm sorry, but what the hell. Like she.
• 1:57:53
  Doesn't need. An excuse or a reason to?
• 1:57:54
  Criminalise it. He's already a.
• 1:57:56
  Criminal he's already a rapist. I just I can't deal with this
• 1:57:59
  nonsense. I don't know how many more times
• 1:58:01
  I can say it every time. I don't think this book series
• 1:58:03
  can get worse. It does anyway.
• 1:58:06
  Diet found a photo of the guy who could be Ronaldo, the great
• 1:58:10
  grandmother's stalker and Addie gets drunk again and she she
• 1:58:13
  definitely has some sort of drinking problem let's be
• 1:58:15
  honest. And it's it's not taken
• 1:58:17
  seriously in this book series at all, but the amount she gets
• 1:58:19
  drunk in such a short space of time is just very, very odd.
• 1:58:27
  Again, it's kind of written. The whole relationship with
• 1:58:29
  alcohol in this. Book is written like a
• 1:58:32
  teenager's writing it who's never had a drink before, but
• 1:58:34
  they think alcohol makes you cool.
• 1:58:36
  You get really drunk every time and it's it's weird, I'm drunk.
• 1:58:42
  I ended up drinking two more margaritas and.
• 1:58:43
  Diya had the bright. Idea to take more tequila shots.
• 1:58:46
  My world spins as I stumble up the stairs, a giggling diet on
• 1:58:49
  my heels. We're both on all fours, our
• 1:58:51
  hands planted on The Dirty wooden floors so we don't fall.
• 1:58:54
  Bitch, why did you make me drink this much?
• 1:58:56
  I asked, giggling harder when I almost topple sideways.
• 1:58:59
  I felt it was a pro, Harper. A pro Appropriate while we're
• 1:59:03
  investigating a murder. She stutters, her voice wobbly
• 1:59:06
  and filled with giggles. I really don't care anyway.
• 1:59:10
  While she's drunk and completely out of it, Mr Stalker man.
• 1:59:12
  Shows up and is. Aggressive again for God knows
• 1:59:15
  what reason, I squeak when I see his hand flying towards my face
• 1:59:18
  from my peripheral. The alcohol is sucked away, all
• 1:59:21
  reflexes, so when his hand grabs my hair roughly, I can do
• 1:59:24
  nothing to stop it. This is assault.
• 1:59:26
  And it's even worse that he's doing it while she's
• 1:59:28
  incapacitated because she's drunk and vulnerable, this man.
• 1:59:35
  We learn his name is Zaid and he's so.
• 1:59:37
  Pathetic in the process. That's the only name that will
• 1:59:40
  ever leave your lips from now on.
• 1:59:41
  Especially when you're making that little P word feel good.
• 1:59:47
  And when? I'm making that.
• 1:59:48
  P word feel good, then you can call me God.
• 1:59:52
  He says he won't assault her tonight, but only because she
• 1:59:54
  might puke. On him.
• 1:59:55
  Not because she's clearly so drunk she would be unable to
• 1:59:58
  consent at all. And you know, because assault is
• 2:00:00
  bad. He doesn't care about that, he
• 2:00:01
  just doesn't want to get puke on him.
• 2:00:03
  You going to assault me again? Is it going to be you forcing
• 2:00:06
  your penis in my mouth this time?
• 2:00:07
  I spit at him, narrowing my eyes in thin, hateful slits.
• 2:00:11
  I thought about it. He admits in a contemplative
• 2:00:13
  murmur. I would love to see you swallow
• 2:00:15
  my penis tonight. There's a butt, and in my
• 2:00:17
  drunken state I'm almost offended.
• 2:00:19
  I quirk A brow, but even I know that it doesn't have the same
• 2:00:22
  effect as him doing it. But you're still inebriated and
• 2:00:25
  you'd vomit all over my penis the second it touched the back
• 2:00:28
  of your throat. OK now I'm really offended.
• 2:00:31
  My mouth pops open in shock. I would not you bum hole.
• 2:00:34
  I scum away from him but he reinforces his hold in my hair
• 2:00:37
  and keeps me still. Always effing forcing me like
• 2:00:41
  I'm just. I'm not really into super vulgar
• 2:00:43
  language like. This.
• 2:00:44
  I just don't really like it, it feels.
• 2:00:45
  Cringey to me, but I know that's just a personal preference.
• 2:00:49
  It's the content of what he's saying that's objectively
• 2:00:51
  horrifying, but how it's all being said as well.
• 2:00:53
  It's just not very pleasant to my ears, and the council
• 2:00:57
  swearing is a bit ridiculous. I did search up how many swear
• 2:01:00
  words are in this book at various times in the first book
• 2:01:04
  alone, so that is about 580 pages.
• 2:01:07
  There are 611 instances of F words and variations of F words,
• 2:01:13
  which is more than one per page. It feels unnecessary.
• 2:01:16
  There are 124 S words, 8C words and 36 bitches.
• 2:01:22
  I just feel like when you have to include that much swearing in
• 2:01:25
  your novel, it is a sign that you are a poor writer who
• 2:01:28
  doesn't know to who doesn't know how to express yourself
• 2:01:31
  properly. And then regardless of what he
• 2:01:34
  said, he assaults her anyway. Again, I'm not going to read out
• 2:01:36
  the scene because it is disturbing, but once again it
• 2:01:39
  involves him physically forcing her, grabbing her, pushing her
• 2:01:43
  around, hurting her, her repeatedly saying no and
• 2:01:47
  realising at one point this man could easily kill me.
• 2:01:50
  It's just horrifying to read. It's yet another completely
• 2:01:54
  graphic violent rape scene that is played for thrills.
• 2:01:58
  Like I say, I've never felt so sick or anxious while.
• 2:02:01
  Reading one of these books. Before and it's horrifying and
• 2:02:04
  I'm going to come back to talk about trigger warnings here
• 2:02:06
  again because. I knew.
• 2:02:08
  Going into this that it was going to be bad because I mean
• 2:02:11
  that's why so many people requested a review in the 1st
• 2:02:13
  place, right? So at least I was a little
• 2:02:14
  prepared when I went in. But imagine if you didn't know
• 2:02:17
  what this book was about at all and all you had was that silly
• 2:02:20
  little warning at the front being like oh it contains, you
• 2:02:22
  know, dubious consent. Oh sorry no it didn't even say
• 2:02:26
  dubious consent did it? It said consensual non consent.
• 2:02:30
  Like it, the one in the copy that I had just straight up said
• 2:02:34
  CNC, which is not what this is. Like imagine if that's all
• 2:02:37
  you've got and you prepare yourself for like some
• 2:02:39
  role-playing scenes or whatever, and instead you're hit with
• 2:02:42
  pages upon pages, hundreds of pages in total of graphic
• 2:02:46
  violent rape. I think the least the order
• 2:02:48
  could do is be honest about what she's writing about and label it
• 2:02:52
  as rape, which it is. So the audience is actually
• 2:02:54
  prepared. Now, the Amazon listing for this
• 2:02:56
  book does not contain any content warnings, but it does
• 2:02:59
  say go to the author's website to see content warnings.
• 2:03:01
  So I did. And I admit the list on there
• 2:03:04
  was longer than the list in the actual book.
• 2:03:06
  And it lists things like explicit sexual situations,
• 2:03:09
  mentions of child death, human trafficking, child trafficking,
• 2:03:12
  graphic violence, child sacrifice, and stalking.
• 2:03:15
  But this still isn't enough, because where is the mention of
• 2:03:18
  graphic rape scenes? Graphic violence is likely in
• 2:03:21
  reference to all the torture and shooty shooty scenes and so on.
• 2:03:24
  But that doesn't warn you that you're going to spend half the
• 2:03:26
  book watching a woman be repeatedly violently raped over
• 2:03:29
  and over again and have that rape excused and glorified over
• 2:03:32
  and over again. I just feel, as content warnings
• 2:03:34
  go, this is not enough. And The thing is, she's willing
• 2:03:38
  to label rape as rape at times because the trigger one is for
• 2:03:41
  the second book in the series, which we will get to include
• 2:03:44
  sexual assault, graphic rape, human trafficking, slave trade,
• 2:03:47
  graphic violence, grooming, physical and mental abuse,
• 2:03:50
  severe PTSD, kidnapping, psychological abuse, and
• 2:03:53
  explicit sexual situations. So she can warn people that
• 2:03:57
  there's rape in the second book, but she refuses to warn people
• 2:04:00
  that there's rape in the first book.
• 2:04:01
  And the reason for that is because of the person doing the
• 2:04:04
  raping. When it's said doing the raping,
• 2:04:06
  she won't warn people of it and she tries to condone it and
• 2:04:09
  excuse it. When it's other men doing the
• 2:04:11
  raping, then she's like, oh, I better warn the reader just in
• 2:04:13
  case. I have a real problem with that.
• 2:04:19
  But back to haunting Adeline. Let's talk.
• 2:04:21
  About this some more we are finally.
• 2:04:22
  Halfway through the first book and great grandma is worried
• 2:04:25
  because both John her husband, and Ronaldo, her stalker turned
• 2:04:28
  lover have anger issues and she's like, oh I don't know who
• 2:04:32
  to stay with. They're both angry and violent
• 2:04:34
  and terrible people but I love them both so I have to pick one.
• 2:04:38
  And can we just normalise walking away from angry men
• 2:04:40
  please? Like don't feel like you have to
• 2:04:42
  pick one or the other. Just leave.
• 2:04:44
  It's not that hard. Well, it is that hard but you
• 2:04:45
  know what I mean? Like it's not that hard to just
• 2:04:48
  portray something healthy in a book like people getting out of
• 2:04:51
  abusive relationships, you know? In the next chapter, a creepy
• 2:04:54
  stalker rapist said is spying on Addy at some bar when one of the
• 2:04:57
  creepy cult politicians, Mark, bumps into him.
• 2:05:01
  And it's like, let's go for a drink.
• 2:05:02
  And they happen to go to the same bar that Addy is AT.
• 2:05:05
  And Mark, the child murdering politician, gets drunk and is
• 2:05:07
  all like, oh, look at her. And then Zaid, who is posing as
• 2:05:10
  Zach, is like, no, you can't have her, she's mine.
• 2:05:13
  And then Mark is like, cool, I'll go say hi.
• 2:05:15
  And then when Mark goes to the bathroom, Zaid is like, if
• 2:05:19
  you've never taken me seriously before, then do it now.
• 2:05:21
  Out of line. Her eyes widen.
• 2:05:23
  The severity of my tone. You're going to sit there like a
• 2:05:26
  good little girl and play along until I convince Mark to leave.
• 2:05:30
  Then, and only then, you can pack up your poop and go home.
• 2:05:33
  Do you understand? So she stays.
• 2:05:36
  And in a super convenient twist of events, it turns out that
• 2:05:40
  Mark's grandfather. Was.
• 2:05:43
  Or Mark's father, Mark's father, grandfather, father, father or
• 2:05:50
  grandfather. I can't.
• 2:05:50
  Remember which? One was.
• 2:05:52
  Frank. Who?
• 2:05:54
  Addie's great grandmother's? No, Who was Addie's great
• 2:05:58
  grandfather's best friend until he thought he was the one who
• 2:06:03
  murdered his wife? Apparently after Gigi was
• 2:06:06
  murdered, Frank stopped talking to John and told everyone that
• 2:06:09
  it's because he thought John murdered Gigi.
• 2:06:12
  But in reality, I'm like, well, if you're trying to set up this
• 2:06:15
  murder mystery of like, has John murdered her or has Ronaldo
• 2:06:20
  murdered her? And then you're constantly
• 2:06:21
  throwing Frank randomly into these diary entries, and now
• 2:06:25
  you're introducing his son or grandson.
• 2:06:27
  I'm like, well, clearly Frank did the murdering, right?
• 2:06:29
  It was him. The other two are like a red
• 2:06:31
  herring. Anyway, it's very convenient
• 2:06:35
  that he knows her. And there's like a whole thing.
• 2:06:38
  And so there's this horrible, horrible scene, which is so
• 2:06:42
  unnecessary and inappropriate, where after Mark leaves, Zaid
• 2:06:47
  walks Addie back to her car and then gropes her in public.
• 2:06:51
  And they start going at it in public, but they only stop
• 2:06:54
  because a child says a child, a literal child sees them going at
• 2:07:00
  it in public and says, mummy, are they having sex?
• 2:07:04
  The loud voice of a little girl breaks the shroud of lust.
• 2:07:07
  Addie jerks violently and scrambles back from into her car
• 2:07:10
  to get away from me. Penny, get in the car.
• 2:07:12
  The mother snaps from somewhere behind me.
• 2:07:14
  Addie's rounded eyes drift over my shoulder and whatever she
• 2:07:18
  sees has her face reddening to a concerning colour.
• 2:07:21
  She's panting heavily and flushed from both embarrassment
• 2:07:23
  and desire. I turn my head to the side,
• 2:07:25
  glimpsing over my shoulder to see a blonde woman ushering her
• 2:07:28
  small child into the car. Her own face is red.
• 2:07:30
  She catches me looking and shoots me a scornful glare.
• 2:07:33
  I just smirk and turn back to my trembling little mouse.
• 2:07:36
  This was so unnecessary. Why did the author have to
• 2:07:39
  include a scene of a child watching a sex scene?
• 2:07:44
  Why you didn't need to do this? The next chapter is back to
• 2:07:52
  Addie and Dyer. And Dyer is suddenly like, wait,
• 2:07:56
  is your store Kazi? Is he the man who, like, does
• 2:08:00
  this and this and this? Because I work for him.
• 2:08:02
  And then it's like, oh, my God, I don't know.
• 2:08:04
  I don't think so. Maybe he could be.
• 2:08:06
  Who knows? Yes, yes, it is.
• 2:08:09
  We all saw this coming. Oh my God, that was your thing?
• 2:08:13
  Mark was like to. Addie if you want.
• 2:08:15
  To find out more about your grandmother, then you have to
• 2:08:16
  come to this party I'm hosting. And Addie's like, oh, well, I
• 2:08:19
  guess I have to. And Zadie's like, no, he's a
• 2:08:21
  dangerous man. And she's like, yeah, but my
• 2:08:23
  grandmother. So she goes to this party and
• 2:08:27
  Zaid comes to pick her up because now they're posing as
• 2:08:29
  like, Zach and Addie, who are dating.
• 2:08:32
  And it's several excruciating chapters before they actually
• 2:08:35
  get to this party. It's just all so drawn out and
• 2:08:39
  pointless. And it really, really bothers
• 2:08:41
  me. This book is so much longer than
• 2:08:42
  it has to be. And it's all like, blah, blah,
• 2:08:44
  blah, Zaid looks hot, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:08:46
  She decides she wants to have sex with him.
• 2:08:48
  Oh, no, she's scared of him, but he's hot.
• 2:08:50
  And he's like, you can't ever say no to me.
• 2:08:52
  And she's like, Oh my God, he's evil, but oh, he is kind of hot
• 2:08:55
  and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, shut up.
• 2:08:57
  Same old nonsense that we've read in the last 300 pages.
• 2:08:59
  And it just keeps going to make that's worse.
• 2:09:02
  Out of nowhere, he decides to just choke her with his belt in
• 2:09:05
  the car because he wants to do some power play.
• 2:09:08
  And I'm like, this is literally how people die, can we not?
• 2:09:13
  And Addie says. And Addie says he's evil.
• 2:09:16
  I dangled a. Belt between us like I'm.
• 2:09:18
  Holding a dead snake with the grin still on his smug face, he
• 2:09:21
  grabs it from me and lets my throat go.
• 2:09:23
  Just as I suck in a deep breath, he's wrapping the belt around my
• 2:09:26
  neck, looping it through the buckle and pulling it tight.
• 2:09:29
  My eyes bulge like a fish, the metal biting into my skin as the
• 2:09:33
  belt constricts. This is not hot.
• 2:09:35
  This is not romance. This is how she's going to die
• 2:09:38
  someday, and it could very easily be this day.
• 2:09:40
  If he's not careful, he then orally rapes her with.
• 2:09:45
  His belt around her neck. While she cries, it is another
• 2:09:48
  pages long graphic rape scene. It's gross.
• 2:09:53
  And just as he finishes. And he says I can't.
• 2:09:57
  Breathe, can hardly think anymore.
• 2:09:59
  My lungs are deprived of oxygen, and just when I think I'm going
• 2:10:02
  to black out, he jerks himself out with another grunt,
• 2:10:05
  releasing the belt as he does. I suck in a deep breath,
• 2:10:07
  coughing and hacking as I try to regain everything.
• 2:10:10
  I lost air, morals, even some of my hair, but I didn't lose my
• 2:10:14
  damn dignity, not when I took control of that situation.
• 2:10:17
  That was on my terms, not his. And like, I'm sorry, but did we
• 2:10:20
  read the same passage? Where did you take control?
• 2:10:23
  When, how because what I or was you nearly dying because he had
• 2:10:27
  his belt around your throat and was forcing you while he orally
• 2:10:31
  raped you and you cried? Where is where is that you being
• 2:10:35
  in control at all? Like sorry but what is wrong
• 2:10:37
  with this author? And then they go to the party
• 2:10:40
  and I'm supposed to believe that somehow she doesn't?
• 2:10:42
  Have red Marks and. Bruising around her neck.
• 2:10:44
  She just doesn't. You nearly died, but you don't
• 2:10:48
  have bruising apparently anyway. And the other thing is like, I
• 2:10:52
  don't think people realise how dangerous strangulation and
• 2:10:55
  choking is. Like it can cause so much
• 2:10:59
  internal trauma that. Even when you can't.
• 2:11:01
  See, there's any damage, it can be very, very common for a
• 2:11:04
  person to die from it because it can cause internal damage, which
• 2:11:07
  can lead to a person having a stroke anywhere from between
• 2:11:10
  like an hour to a couple of days after the strangulation has
• 2:11:12
  occurred, the one source says. Only 50% of people.
• 2:11:16
  Who are strangled will have any. Injury to the neck or head that
• 2:11:19
  could be seen. If a person does have injuries,
• 2:11:21
  it tends to be bruising or scratches to their neck.
• 2:11:24
  Some victims might have pinprick bruises on their head, face,
• 2:11:27
  eyes or neck. Other injuries might be seen if
• 2:11:30
  the attack included. Things such as punches.
• 2:11:32
  Slapping or hair pulling. This one did.
• 2:11:36
  Lack of injury does not mean that.
• 2:11:38
  As in lack of visible injury does not mean that the attack
• 2:11:40
  was less serious or less dangerous.
• 2:11:42
  Although it will be easy to get over psychologically.
• 2:11:45
  People have been killed by strangulation without there
• 2:11:48
  being any visible injury. Some dangerous injuries can be
• 2:11:51
  internal, such as damage to the blood vessels in the neck.
• 2:11:54
  This can lead to strokes in the days, weeks or even months after
• 2:11:58
  strangulation. I want to find out more about
• 2:12:00
  that. Or if you've been in that
• 2:12:01
  situation yourself, then there is a document licked.
• 2:12:03
  Then there is a document linked below in my source list for you
• 2:12:06
  to check it out and get some information and also find
• 2:12:08
  resources that can help you. Bearing in mind that this is a
• 2:12:11
  book that glamorises kneeling killing a woman, you should also
• 2:12:14
  know that this is a book which has 359,622 five star reviews on
• 2:12:19
  Goodreads. That is almost 360,000 people
• 2:12:23
  who have no problem seeing a woman be choked to death almost
• 2:12:26
  and repeatedly raped. 360,000 people who I would not feel safe
• 2:12:30
  being around and I looked at the.
• 2:12:34
  Profiles of a lot of these people who've left Five Star.
• 2:12:37
  Reviews. And I admit, obviously I
• 2:12:39
  couldn't look at everyone, but what I did see was shocking
• 2:12:42
  because primarily most of them were women, and most of them
• 2:12:45
  were women who read nothing but porn.
• 2:12:48
  And their profiles were the kinds of women who list all the
• 2:12:51
  types of porn books they like to read.
• 2:12:53
  They list what their kinks are. The only books on the Red List
• 2:12:56
  for the majority of these people leaving five star reviews were
• 2:12:59
  just thousands of porn novels. And just to give you some
• 2:13:02
  examples, one of them says just a girl who lives all shades of
• 2:13:06
  scorching hot smurt, light grey and dark, wishing she had more
• 2:13:09
  time to read my reads. I like my heroes to be of the
• 2:13:12
  OTT alpha whole variety. I'm a sucker for dirty talking
• 2:13:16
  strangers, somophiliacs, daddies, bullies, reverse harems
• 2:13:20
  and forbidden lovers. Slow burns, cliffhangers,
• 2:13:22
  unnecessary long drawn out books and go for the sake of gore and
• 2:13:26
  my triggers. Happily ever after.
• 2:13:27
  A requirement and check out all the many other screenshots I'm
• 2:13:31
  popping on screen now at this point like.
• 2:13:36
  For these people. It's just porn addiction, right?
• 2:13:38
  Like. And they'd become so
• 2:13:49
  desensitised to sexual violence through consuming.
• 2:13:51
  So much porn that they need it to become more and more graphic
• 2:13:55
  and extreme and this is becoming so normalised and it worries me.
• 2:13:59
  Like it genuinely. And don't get me wrong, I'm not
• 2:14:01
  against erotica as a whole. I think if that's what you enjoy
• 2:14:04
  reading and you want to get off to that and it's healthy and
• 2:14:07
  consensual and between adults, then great, you go for it.
• 2:14:10
  I have no problem with that. But I think as with anything in
• 2:14:12
  life, it should be consumed in moderation.
• 2:14:15
  If you're consuming quite literally hundreds of erotic
• 2:14:17
  novels every year and nothing else, that might be the sign
• 2:14:21
  that you have a problem. Why do you need sexual content
• 2:14:24
  in something? To be able to enjoy it?
• 2:14:25
  It's like a certain Rook top creator who I really dislike
• 2:14:29
  because she scares me and I think she's quite nasty and
• 2:14:31
  cruel. Literally has in her BIOS
• 2:14:34
  something like if it doesn't contain smoke, I'm not reading
• 2:14:36
  it. And I'm like, Can you imagine if
• 2:14:39
  people all like especially men said this about any of the
• 2:14:42
  content? Like they they said something
• 2:14:44
  like, I'm only going to watch film and visual media if it
• 2:14:47
  contains porn and sex scenes and they refused to watch anything
• 2:14:50
  that didn't have explicit sex scenes in.
• 2:14:52
  Like, we'd be concerned. Wouldn't be, we'd be concerned,
• 2:14:56
  wouldn't we? Like, oh, do you want to see the
• 2:14:58
  new Batman film? Oh, no, sorry, it doesn't have
• 2:15:00
  sex in it. I'm not interested.
• 2:15:02
  Like you'd be concerned by that, wouldn't you?
• 2:15:05
  So why? Aren't we concerned by women who
• 2:15:08
  read nothing but smut and then when the porn you're consuming
• 2:15:13
  regularly has to be violent and have women degraded in it and
• 2:15:16
  put in danger again and again and again?
• 2:15:19
  I think that is a concerning sign that you're becoming
• 2:15:22
  desensitised to violence against women.
• 2:15:24
  And again, that concerns me. I think if you're someone who
• 2:15:27
  just likes to read and you read a lot of genres and you read the
• 2:15:30
  occasional smutty book and you enjoy it, but it's a healthy,
• 2:15:33
  consensual adult relationship, then I have no problem with
• 2:15:35
  that. I'm never I'm never going to
• 2:15:37
  judge someone for doing that, but if the only thing you're
• 2:15:40
  consuming is pornography and it's violent and degrading
• 2:15:45
  pornography then I think there is an issue there.
• 2:15:49
  A lot of people have said to me that it's anti feminist to be
• 2:15:51
  against something which is mostly consumed by women.
• 2:15:54
  But to me that's massively missing the point.
• 2:15:56
  This isn't about crapping on something women enjoy for the
• 2:15:58
  sake of putting women down. It's about saying damn this
• 2:16:01
  media is really degrading to women and dangerous for women
• 2:16:04
  and I worry about the women who are consuming it and also judge
• 2:16:08
  them a little bit for how much they enjoy seeing other women
• 2:16:11
  degraded. And to me that stands cannot
• 2:16:14
  possibly be anti feminist, but quite the opposite.
• 2:16:19
  The other thing that concerns me is looking at a lot of these
• 2:16:20
  profiles, a lot of people say like, oh, well, you know, it's
• 2:16:23
  adults reading this. It said it's for like over
• 2:16:25
  eighteens and adults can tell the difference between fact and
• 2:16:27
  fishing and meaning. No, that's not what I saw.
• 2:16:30
  Looking at a lot of these profiles, a hell of a lot of
• 2:16:33
  them were very, very young women who started reading these books
• 2:16:36
  at 1516 years old. Some of them, plenty of them,
• 2:16:39
  were still under the age of 18 and I would hate to think what
• 2:16:44
  effect reading books like this will have on their perceptions
• 2:16:46
  of what a healthy relationship should be as they get older.
• 2:16:50
  Plenty of studies have been done that show the effects of violent
• 2:16:54
  pornography in general. Mostly these are centred around
• 2:16:56
  films rather than books, but I would argue that you're likely
• 2:16:59
  to see the same patterns amongst book readers and some studies
• 2:17:02
  doable. Talk about them in a minute.
• 2:17:04
  So in the book Aggression in Pornography, Myths and Realities
• 2:17:07
  by Aaron Shaw and Kimberly Sader, they wrote that greater
• 2:17:11
  exposure to aggressive sexual interactions in pornography has
• 2:17:14
  been linked to more permissive attitudes towards aggression,
• 2:17:17
  coercion and sexual violence towards women, as well as to a
• 2:17:20
  greater proclivity to commit sexual assault.
• 2:17:23
  And you can see this is backed up by at least 5 or 6 different
• 2:17:25
  studies done over many, many years.
• 2:17:28
  Now, like I say, this is primarily talking about the
• 2:17:30
  effects on men. But if studies show that men who
• 2:17:32
  watch porn with sexual violence against women are more likely to
• 2:17:35
  excuse or commit sexual assault, then surely we can argue that
• 2:17:38
  women who read porn with sexual violence against women are also
• 2:17:41
  more likely to excuse or become victims of sexual assault.
• 2:17:45
  Or, as we've seen at the case of the convention with HD,
• 2:17:49
  Carlton's friend also more likely to commit sexual assault
• 2:17:53
  themselves. I mean, obviously more research
• 2:17:55
  would have to be done in this, but I don't think it's.
• 2:17:57
  Unreasonable. To be concerned about this
• 2:17:59
  possibility, especially when studies have been done that show
• 2:18:02
  this can be the case and there are literal anecdotal evidence
• 2:18:07
  of like, you know, HD Carlton's fans going out and sexually
• 2:18:10
  assaulting a man. Do do you know what I mean?
• 2:18:13
  What research has been done found that studies that examined
• 2:18:16
  the effects of aggressive content in pornography on women
• 2:18:19
  found that those who read pornographic materials that
• 2:18:22
  included violence were more likely to blame the victims
• 2:18:25
  rather than the perpetrators of the ACT.
• 2:18:28
  Another 2015 study similarly reported that higher levels of
• 2:18:31
  pornography consumption among women predicted attitudes
• 2:18:34
  supporting sexual violence against women.
• 2:18:37
  And this is not just a new thing either.
• 2:18:39
  These studies were all done between 2000 and what, 2017,
• 2:18:45
  something like that. So over the last like 25 years.
• 2:18:48
  But this goes all the way back to the 80s and 90s as well, when
• 2:18:51
  violent pornography began to kind of greatly increase in
• 2:18:54
  popularity and several studies start to look into it.
• 2:18:57
  So in the book Making Violence Sexy, feminist Views on
• 2:19:00
  Pornography, studies in the 90s found that sexual violence in
• 2:19:04
  the media might lead to attitudes and more accepting of
• 2:19:07
  violence against women through labelling sexual violence as
• 2:19:09
  more as labelling sexual violence more as a sexual rather
• 2:19:13
  than a violent act. Adding to perceptions that
• 2:19:16
  sexual aggression is normative and culturally acceptable.
• 2:19:19
  Changing attributions of responsibility to place more
• 2:19:22
  blame on the victims, elevating possible elevating the positive
• 2:19:26
  value of sexual aggression by associating it with sexual
• 2:19:29
  pleasure and a sense of conquest, and reducing negative
• 2:19:32
  emotional reactions to sexually aggressive acts.
• 2:19:36
  Other studies found that after watching violent pornography,
• 2:19:39
  sexual aggression and abuse was perceived as causing less
• 2:19:41
  suffering for the victims. Male sexual callousness towards
• 2:19:45
  women was significantly enhanced.
• 2:19:47
  For example, there was an increased acceptance of
• 2:19:50
  statements such as a woman doesn't mean no until she slaps
• 2:19:53
  you. A man should find them, fool
• 2:19:55
  them, F them and forget them. And if they're old enough to
• 2:19:57
  bleed, they're old enough to butcher.
• 2:20:00
  It also increased people's likelihood to, and again I
• 2:20:02
  quote, trivialise rape, have sex, callous attitudes and
• 2:20:06
  accept male dominance and intimate relationships.
• 2:20:09
  In regards to specifically. Women.
• 2:20:12
  The studies. In this book found that watching
• 2:20:14
  violent sexual content encouraged females to get into
• 2:20:17
  high rape risk situations. Pornography is more often used
• 2:20:21
  to try to persuade a woman or child to engage in certain acts,
• 2:20:25
  to legitimise the acts, and to undermine their resistance,
• 2:20:28
  refusal, refusal or disclosure of these acts, the book goes on
• 2:20:33
  to say. In a more recent study conducted
• 2:20:34
  in Canada, Charlene Senn found the more pornography women were
• 2:20:38
  exposed to, the more likely they were to have been forced or
• 2:20:41
  coerced into sexual activity they didn't want.
• 2:20:43
  And so on and so on and so on. All these books written between
• 2:20:47
  like 1990 and 2022 all find the same things that that repeated
• 2:20:55
  exposure to violent pornography, whether it be visual or written,
• 2:21:00
  can have negative effects on people and how they view
• 2:21:03
  themselves and other women. Again, sorry, editing me is just
• 2:21:06
  going to jump in here because I want to just make it very clear
• 2:21:08
  that I'm not just like anti porn in general.
• 2:21:11
  That is not the case at all. I think there are plenty of
• 2:21:13
  studies that well, there's studies on both sides that are
• 2:21:16
  like really interesting. I will acknowledge that there is
• 2:21:19
  exploitation and negative aspects about the sex work.
• 2:21:24
  Industry. And the pornography industry,
• 2:21:26
  which can't be ignored. But at the same time, there are
• 2:21:28
  students that have found that having a healthy relationship
• 2:21:31
  with porn can help people feel more confident about themselves,
• 2:21:33
  more comfortable in their sexuality.
• 2:21:35
  Like there are positive aspects to it.
• 2:21:37
  And like, again, I don't think it's all bad.
• 2:21:39
  I'm not going to be against a woman reading erotica in
• 2:21:42
  general. Like that's not what I have a
• 2:21:44
  problem with. I have a problem with the
• 2:21:46
  sexualization, glorification, romanticization and excusing of
• 2:21:52
  violence, especially sexual violence against women.
• 2:21:55
  And that is what has been shown to be dangerous again and again.
• 2:21:58
  So I just want to make that really clear.
• 2:22:01
  But. OK, let's move on before.
• 2:22:02
  I get too upset. Let's go back to this horrific
• 2:22:04
  book. So they're not even at the party
• 2:22:06
  yet, they've just pulled up outside.
• 2:22:08
  They go inside the party. It's a bunch of rich people
• 2:22:11
  doing rich people things and I really do not care about it at
• 2:22:13
  all. We get the whole Eddie is such a
• 2:22:15
  quirky girl with anxiety but she's also messed and
• 2:22:18
  manipulated nonsense again with paragraphs like I.
• 2:22:22
  On the other hand, I'm not a natural.
• 2:22:23
  The social anxiety licks at my nerves, keeping my heart rate
• 2:22:26
  well above a normal pace. I smile at the strangers and
• 2:22:29
  laugh at everything they say, doing what I do best and
• 2:22:31
  manipulate people's emotions with my words.
• 2:22:33
  I pretend they're all avid readers and the words I'm
• 2:22:35
  speaking are printing on blank sheets of paper for their greedy
• 2:22:38
  eyes to consume. And I'm sorry, but you can't
• 2:22:41
  keep calling yourself a master manipulator if we never actually
• 2:22:44
  see you manipulating anyone or any consequences of your
• 2:22:47
  so-called manipulation. It's just nonsense.
• 2:22:53
  It's hollow and. It's meaningless.
• 2:22:57
  So Mark is there, obviously it's his party and we meet.
• 2:22:59
  His wife. Who is called Claire.
• 2:23:03
  And we're meant to feel like Mark is a mean, terrible man.
• 2:23:05
  I mean, he is not. I'm not disagreeing with that.
• 2:23:08
  And because he abuses his wife and she is such a victim because
• 2:23:12
  he's abused her. And I will withhold my judgement
• 2:23:16
  on that, because you'll see. She widens her lips into a
• 2:23:20
  beautiful. Smile and Mark introduces her to
• 2:23:22
  Zaid and. I What irks me is that he
• 2:23:24
  doesn't tell us her name, he just says my wife as if she's
• 2:23:29
  merely A possession and not her own person with.
• 2:23:31
  Her own. Effing identity outside of her
• 2:23:33
  marriage to this wretched man. She's nervous, scared.
• 2:23:37
  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this woman is
• 2:23:39
  abused. My eyes subtly search her body,
• 2:23:41
  but the high neck, long sleeves, and falling dress hide her body.
• 2:23:45
  It's a beautiful dress, but one clearly designed to disguise the
• 2:23:48
  bruises I'm sure is staining her skin beneath the silky fabric.
• 2:23:51
  And yeah, this is awful. But how is it any more awful
• 2:23:54
  than the bruises that Addie currently has all over her body
• 2:23:57
  because Zaid bit her repeatedly during a sexual assault?
• 2:24:01
  What about the bruises that she's going to get on her neck
• 2:24:03
  because he literally just choked her with a belt half an hour
• 2:24:06
  earlier? Why is it bad when this happens
• 2:24:09
  to Claire, but not bad when this happens to Addie?
• 2:24:13
  And just to make this whole interaction even more
• 2:24:15
  insensitive, Zaid and Addie talk, and I'm like, oh, God,
• 2:24:18
  that poor woman. She's being abused.
• 2:24:20
  Yeah. Yeah, she is.
• 2:24:21
  Should we sneak off and have sex?
• 2:24:24
  Oh, I don't know. I don't think I want to.
• 2:24:25
  Well, I want to. Yeah.
• 2:24:27
  OK, then. And then they had this.
• 2:24:30
  Horrific. Scene in like a cinema in the
• 2:24:33
  house where where Zaid calls himself her daddy and she says
• 2:24:39
  are you saying you're my daddy? She sputters out incredulously,
• 2:24:43
  bringing my attention back to her.
• 2:24:45
  That's right baby, and you're my good little girl.
• 2:24:47
  I croon, sliding my tongue up across her lower lip and looking
• 2:24:51
  at her like the things I want to do to this woman, things that
• 2:24:54
  would show her just how insane I can be.
• 2:24:57
  I think it's only fair that in future this book is sold
• 2:24:59
  alongside A puke bucket because I need it if you.
• 2:25:03
  Oh oh I hate this. If you were my little.
• 2:25:06
  Girl, I would worship every inch of your body for as long as our
• 2:25:09
  souls are tethered to this earth.
• 2:25:11
  My tongue would leave no part of you untouched.
• 2:25:14
  I nip at her bottom lip, wriggling, ringing a whimper
• 2:25:18
  from her throat. Untasted.
• 2:25:21
  I murmur, my tongue darting. Out.
• 2:25:24
  Sliding along the seam of her lips.
• 2:25:26
  Let's not he he goes on for pages.
• 2:25:31
  Of this like if you and my little.
• 2:25:32
  Girl, if you and my little girl are making them super sexual and
• 2:25:35
  it's just I'm sorry you can't be Mr Anti Pedo when you're saying
• 2:25:39
  stuff like this and calling the woman you've been raping your
• 2:25:42
  little girl. I hate this.
• 2:25:45
  Anyway, this is the first time in this entire book.
• 2:25:47
  That their sexual. Contact is anywhere close to
• 2:25:49
  consensual, but even even during this it's arguably not because
• 2:25:53
  she still says no a few times and it's very uncomfortable.
• 2:25:57
  So afterwards they go and speak to Mark about the murder and I I
• 2:26:03
  got really confused about people's ages here because it's
• 2:26:05
  kind of implied that like Mark is.
• 2:26:08
  Mark just acts exactly like everyone else and he acts like
• 2:26:10
  Zaid. So I thought they were both like
• 2:26:12
  4 year old men. But it turns out that Zaid is
• 2:26:14
  like 30 something and Mark is like 85.
• 2:26:18
  And I was like wait what? And I only figured it out
• 2:26:20
  because I did the math right. So the book so far made it sound
• 2:26:24
  like Mark is like. 40 or 50? His wife, we know, is in her 40s
• 2:26:28
  and he has like tonnes of energy.
• 2:26:29
  And this was going out drinking and doing whatever and he's
• 2:26:32
  having sex with a bunch of people and he's sacrificing and
• 2:26:34
  murdering children, which, you know, I think takes a lot of
• 2:26:37
  effort, doesn't it? And like, I don't know any 85
• 2:26:39
  year olds who would have the energy to do that, but here we
• 2:26:41
  are. But then he says that the great,
• 2:26:44
  well, the story has the great grandmother dying in 1944, which
• 2:26:48
  was 75 years ago, according to this book.
• 2:26:51
  But then Mark says he remembers her and he was 10 years old when
• 2:26:54
  she died. So that makes him 85 years old.
• 2:26:58
  And it just all feels kind of unbelievable.
• 2:27:01
  I found it very confused. I feel like the author didn't
• 2:27:03
  think this through. Anyway, we find out that Great
• 2:27:06
  Granddad had a gambling problem. And owed a bunch of money.
• 2:27:08
  To the mob boss that Ronaldo worked for.
• 2:27:10
  So he worked off his debts for him.
• 2:27:12
  And in the end Ronaldo stepped in and was like, oh, no, don't
• 2:27:14
  kill him because I'm on affair with his wife.
• 2:27:17
  But I'm not going to say that out loud.
• 2:27:18
  But there's something here, yeah.
• 2:27:20
  And then Mark is in a secret society and there's a video
• 2:27:22
  being leaked of other people in the society sacrificing children
• 2:27:26
  and doing a ritual and whatever. And then we get a time skip
• 2:27:30
  forward and Mr Stalker Man is assaulting Addie again and he
• 2:27:34
  starts to try and teach her self defence but nearly kills her in
• 2:27:36
  the process by choking her again.
• 2:27:38
  It's just and then there's another time skip and then.
• 2:27:43
  Addie and Dia are going to go to the.
• 2:27:45
  Halloween fair with haunted houses called Satan's Affair.
• 2:27:48
  Because of course it is. Because this was written by an
• 2:27:50
  edgy teenager apparently, and they get drunk before they go.
• 2:27:53
  Because of course they do. Because Addie and Dia can't do
• 2:27:56
  anything in this book without being drunk all the time.
• 2:27:59
  Because apparently they have no personalities otherwise.
• 2:28:05
  We are going to get through this book.
• 2:28:06
  We are. We got this while they're at the
• 2:28:08
  fair. Addie and Dia bump into Mark,
• 2:28:10
  his wife, and the three other creeps that he killed the kid
• 2:28:13
  with. I can't remember their names.
• 2:28:15
  It's not really important. They're just like men there.
• 2:28:19
  They don't have personalities of their own or anything.
• 2:28:23
  They're just there and like, I know the author.
• 2:28:27
  Wanted to put everyone. Together at the same time.
• 2:28:29
  So like, action could happen, but do we really really believe
• 2:28:34
  that 485 year old men and one of them's 4 year old wife are going
• 2:28:38
  to a Halloween haunted house together?
• 2:28:43
  I I keep trying to suspend my disbelief for this book, but
• 2:28:49
  then things just keep taking me out of it anyway.
• 2:28:54
  You know the child murdering cult I can believe, but this is
• 2:28:57
  too far. Oh God's sake.
• 2:29:02
  They. Tried to offer us an
• 2:29:04
  explanation. By saying Mark and his partners.
• 2:29:06
  Came here with the intention of stealing a child or two, though
• 2:29:08
  they'd never do the dirt work themselves.
• 2:29:10
  They're public figures and would never risk being caught.
• 2:29:13
  So apparently they've come to a haunted house to say to their
• 2:29:16
  associates, I want that one and that one and that one and that
• 2:29:19
  one, and then apparently they go and kidnap all these children
• 2:29:23
  for them. And what?
• 2:29:24
  I don't believe I got sake anyway.
• 2:29:29
  There's a really bizarre scene in A Haunted.
• 2:29:31
  House where this woman is dressed up as a broken doll.
• 2:29:34
  And then Zaid is silently following Addie and Dyer to
• 2:29:37
  protect them, but they don't know it.
• 2:29:39
  And then the broken doll woman is like, surprise, I'm going to
• 2:29:42
  kill you to Zaid. And then Zaid just leaves the
• 2:29:46
  house and he's like, no, you're not goodbye.
• 2:29:48
  And then he catches up with Mark and the other men and it turns
• 2:29:52
  out, Oh my God, they're not here to capture children.
• 2:29:54
  They're here to kidnap Addy because they've been watching
• 2:29:58
  her for months and she's just so special and perfect that the
• 2:30:01
  entire society wants her and she's the most perfect and
• 2:30:05
  expensive woman on earth and they need her and they're going
• 2:30:07
  to kidnap her. And but then Broken Doll Woman
• 2:30:12
  shows up and it's like, I'm going to kill you all.
• 2:30:14
  And then the chapter ends on a cliffhanger.
• 2:30:17
  Meanwhile, Addy and Dyer are oblivious to all this.
• 2:30:21
  Addie decides to go wandering through the House of Mirrors
• 2:30:23
  alone, and while she's in there, Zaid appears and tries to scare
• 2:30:27
  her. The timeline here was really
• 2:30:28
  confusing to me because I was like, wait, he was just about to
• 2:30:32
  get murdered and now suddenly he's here stalking her and we're
• 2:30:35
  not supposed to ask what happened in that time?
• 2:30:38
  No, no, OK, nevermind then. Anyway, in the House of Mirrors,
• 2:30:43
  which is apparently everyone's. Favourite scene and I just.
• 2:30:45
  Found it so damn stupid and gross and weird.
• 2:30:49
  I just I didn't like. I don't get it.
• 2:30:51
  I don't get it. He's like you need to run or.
• 2:30:55
  I'll have sex with you here in. Public and she's like hmm maybe
• 2:30:58
  I should, maybe I shouldn't and then comes out with stupid lines
• 2:31:01
  like he's such an effing oxymoron contradicting in the
• 2:31:05
  most agonising ways. I mean he is a hypocrite but
• 2:31:10
  this is still a stupid line. He does catch her in the House
• 2:31:14
  of mirrors. And she tells him to stop and.
• 2:31:16
  Explicitly says she does not want to sleep with him.
• 2:31:19
  She says it twice and then he's like Nah, I know your body
• 2:31:23
  better than you do, which made me want to burn this book.
• 2:31:26
  And despite all her literal very outspoken protests, she does
• 2:31:33
  say, and I'll give her this for the first.
• 2:31:37
  Time this moment with. Zaid feels consensual.
• 2:31:41
  I'm not sure if I want that, but what effing sense does that make
• 2:31:45
  to not want it to be consensual? Yeah, there's some sick part of
• 2:31:49
  me that wants him to force this so I can play victim later.
• 2:31:52
  Go on pretending that my P word isn't weeping for him and that
• 2:31:55
  I'm not anticipating the feel of him inside me.
• 2:31:58
  This is such an unhealthy, messed up book.
• 2:32:01
  Go to therapy. And by that I mean Addie and the
• 2:32:04
  author and anyone who enjoys reading this and thinks it's
• 2:32:06
  romance in any way as the scene goes on.
• 2:32:09
  It's horrible to read he. Degrades.
• 2:32:11
  Her He lists out the names of every person she's ever slept
• 2:32:14
  with in her entire life. God knows how he knew them, but
• 2:32:17
  he does, and he threatens to kill them all. 1 by 1.
• 2:32:22
  He shoves her around and when he finally has.
• 2:32:24
  Penetrative. Sex with her, she says it hurts
• 2:32:28
  and she feels like she's literally tearing down there and
• 2:32:31
  she begs him to stop and he won't again.
• 2:32:35
  This is rape. If it was consensual in the 1st
• 2:32:39
  place, that's fine. But then it.
• 2:32:40
  Hurts her and she begs him to stop.
• 2:32:42
  That means she stopped consenting and it's rape.
• 2:32:46
  And apparently this whole rape lasts 2 1/2 hours in a public
• 2:32:52
  fun house. Make it make sense.
• 2:32:56
  Now, apparently, the fun. House has shut and she didn't.
• 2:32:58
  Realise and. There's no staff working there
• 2:33:01
  apparently, and they can just go at it in public.
• 2:33:04
  But I still hate this. The next chapter is Zaid's.
• 2:33:08
  Again. And he's so pathetic, he says.
• 2:33:10
  I don't know how I'm. Supposed to concentrate when I
• 2:33:12
  just found God. Or rather I think I just became
• 2:33:16
  one. Stop it.
• 2:33:19
  Look, I like sex. As much as the next person.
• 2:33:21
  But there really is. More to life than just an
• 2:33:24
  orgasm, you know, Like, get a life, please.
• 2:33:28
  Get some hobbies. Anyway, he goes back to meet the
• 2:33:31
  woman dressed as the doll who he just refers to as Psycho Girl
• 2:33:34
  because apparently this book needs more misogyny.
• 2:33:37
  And that cliffhanger that the last chapter ended on?
• 2:33:40
  Yeah, all the action that happened after that just
• 2:33:41
  happened off page and we get it told to the throwaway line we
• 2:33:45
  get the summary of After our confrontation, the broken doll
• 2:33:48
  and I decided to team up for the time being.
• 2:33:50
  Since Mark decided to take matters into his own hands and
• 2:33:53
  try and kidnap next and enslave my girl, I decided he was no
• 2:33:56
  longer worth keeping alive. The two seconds it took for him
• 2:33:59
  to conspire against Addie was the equivalent of writing his
• 2:34:02
  name in a Death Note. There was no chance of his
• 2:34:05
  survival, so we knocked out the four of them.
• 2:34:07
  The doll said she'd take them somewhere where the guests
• 2:34:10
  wouldn't find them and meet up at midnight to get my answers
• 2:34:13
  and finish them off for good. And This is why I can just say
• 2:34:16
  this book is nothing but mindless porn.
• 2:34:19
  You know there were 12 pages dedicated to them having sex or
• 2:34:23
  him raping her in a hall of mirrors, but this, which seems
• 2:34:28
  pretty essential in a massive part of the supposed plot,
• 2:34:31
  doesn't even get 12 lines and all the actual action happens
• 2:34:35
  off page. This book is just porn.
• 2:34:39
  That is it. The rest of it is like filler.
• 2:34:45
  Zaid is super patronising to. Doll Woman.
• 2:34:47
  Saying things like you're. Effing insane little girl hate
• 2:34:51
  this. And then it turns out they've
• 2:34:53
  got the four. Old men.
• 2:34:54
  Politicians tied up in one of the haunted houses for whatever
• 2:34:57
  reason and doll woman is like, yeah, I do this all the time I
• 2:35:00
  just kill people for funsies He he he he.
• 2:35:04
  And then for some reason, Zaid goes on a rant about how he.
• 2:35:06
  Doesn't care about politics. Saying I don't give 2FS about
• 2:35:10
  politics either, at least not the kind that deals with laws
• 2:35:13
  and regulations. I break those on a daily basis.
• 2:35:16
  The F would I care about what laws are getting passed when
• 2:35:18
  I've never applied them to my life anyway?
• 2:35:21
  And this has spoken like a true privileged straight.
• 2:35:24
  Says white man. Isn't it like how about you
• 2:35:26
  actually care because laws and politics affect other people and
• 2:35:30
  their lives and whether they're able to safely live their lives
• 2:35:33
  or not? No, just because you go brown
• 2:35:37
  breaking laws all the time. That doesn't mean everyone.
• 2:35:39
  Else does and laws aren't that just there for your benefit and
• 2:35:42
  what affects you? How about you stop things about
• 2:35:44
  yourself and care about other people for a change?
• 2:35:46
  Yeah, dull woman calls the bad men demons and starts killing
• 2:35:51
  them, and then Mr Stalker Rapist is patronising and misogynistic
• 2:35:55
  as ever and I just, I hate him. I hate him so much.
• 2:35:57
  Now you're going to stop me from demon slaying?
• 2:35:59
  She shrieks, her voice pitched so high it nearly makes me
• 2:36:02
  cringe. God, effing women.
• 2:36:04
  And they're screeching, little girl.
• 2:36:07
  There are quite a few things you need to get Siri's help for, but
• 2:36:10
  I'd say anger management is top of the list.
• 2:36:13
  Says you. We find out her name is Sybil,
• 2:36:16
  but she prefers to be. Called Sibby.
• 2:36:18
  OK, turns out she's been. Living in the walls of this
• 2:36:24
  haunted house. Fairground place and the only
• 2:36:27
  friend she has are these like hench men who are men she
• 2:36:32
  imagines are around her and with her.
• 2:36:36
  Yeah, there's more torture scenes that just go on for a few
• 2:36:39
  pages and Marks feels about the creepy child sacrificing rituals
• 2:36:45
  where they take place. And apparently Addie is so, so
• 2:36:49
  special and she's been mocked by the society and the creepy cult
• 2:36:53
  slash secret organisation. They've been running this for
• 2:36:56
  ages and whatever. And they want Addie so they can
• 2:36:58
  sell her into sex slavery or use her as a sex slave because she's
• 2:37:02
  worth millions. Because she's the most perfect
• 2:37:04
  woman on earth and no one comes close to her.
• 2:37:07
  And why did they target her? Mark sputters out a wet,
• 2:37:13
  humourless laugh. Why do they target anyone?
• 2:37:15
  If they're young, beautiful and happen to be noticed, they're on
• 2:37:18
  the society's radar. She brought attention to herself
• 2:37:21
  in one way or another. It could have been from her
• 2:37:23
  looks, or you know, how women are these days with the way they
• 2:37:25
  dress. I snatch his hand away and flick
• 2:37:28
  off another nail before he can finish.
• 2:37:29
  Such a stupid effing sentence, as if showing any amount of
• 2:37:33
  skin. It's a goddamn invitation to be
• 2:37:34
  raped and kidnapped. At least that last line was
• 2:37:37
  sensible, so thank you. It's a shame that you've raped
• 2:37:40
  Addie because you said you couldn't resist the way she
• 2:37:43
  looked. So you're still victim blaming
• 2:37:45
  even if you're being a hypocrite now.
• 2:37:50
  So he kills. Them.
• 2:37:53
  And they kind of get. Caught on the way out?
• 2:37:54
  And he lets. Sibby take the blame for the
• 2:37:56
  murders and get arrested by the police.
• 2:37:58
  And then there's there's this like long info dump of tragic
• 2:38:01
  back story for her. Her dad was a cult leader.
• 2:38:04
  Her mother committed suicide. Then Sibby killed her dad who I
• 2:38:07
  think, I'm not sure if it's implied he sexually assaulted
• 2:38:11
  her or not, I'm not sure but she killed her dad and left so
• 2:38:14
  that's fun. He was a cult leader who like
• 2:38:17
  had like 10 billion children within his cult because he was
• 2:38:20
  the only father or like the only person allowed to father kids
• 2:38:23
  with like a tonne of women and whatever.
• 2:38:24
  So she has like a crap tonne of half siblings out there.
• 2:38:27
  But she killed him and left and the cult disbanded and since
• 2:38:30
  then she's just travelled around with this haunted house killing
• 2:38:34
  people. Zaid is on a mission to track
• 2:38:38
  down society and goes to some other members club full of
• 2:38:41
  creepy men and naked drugged women.
• 2:38:43
  Again, just like the last one. And there's, oh, there's so many
• 2:38:47
  of them in this book. Like they're all very samey.
• 2:38:50
  Aren't they? Zaid posing as Zach asked to be
• 2:38:54
  initiated into society and pretends he's into kids and
• 2:38:57
  they're like okay. Next week, end of chapter in
• 2:39:00
  Addie chapter, she decides she definitely doesn't want to be
• 2:39:03
  with Zaid and she tells him this and tries to call the police to
• 2:39:05
  get him out of her house but he stops her and strangles her
• 2:39:08
  again and we get this interaction.
• 2:39:11
  Stop it. I choke attempting to get away
• 2:39:13
  but his grip holds firm, tightening around my throat
• 2:39:16
  until black pinpricks dot my vision and he keeps touching her
• 2:39:20
  without consent and it literally says my body reacts without
• 2:39:23
  permission. This is what happens in rape.
• 2:39:26
  Just because your body is responding this doesn't mean
• 2:39:28
  it's not rape. It is still rape.
• 2:39:30
  It literally says to her that he is allowing her to breathe and
• 2:39:34
  she should be grateful for that. Except he's not, because he's
• 2:39:36
  strangling her. The hand on my throat pulses,
• 2:39:39
  tightening almost to unbearable levels.
• 2:39:41
  I rise on the tip of my toes to decrease the pressure, but he
• 2:39:44
  doesn't let up. Blood rushes to my head and fear
• 2:39:46
  begins to pump through my veins. Just when I think he's not going
• 2:39:49
  to stop, his hand loosens and I greedily suck in precious air,
• 2:39:53
  but he doesn't let me breathe for much longer.
• 2:39:55
  He twists my body around and backs me towards the wall beside
• 2:39:57
  the TV, smiling viciously as I stumble away from him and
• 2:40:00
  towards exactly where he wants me to be.
• 2:40:03
  When I'm a foot away he grabs me and slams me into a wall,
• 2:40:05
  pressing his the entire. His body against mine before I
• 2:40:09
  take another breath, his hand is once more encircling my throat.
• 2:40:12
  His mouth is on mine, just like he said.
• 2:40:14
  I let him consume me. Tears burn the back of my eyes
• 2:40:17
  as his mouth tears my lips apart, feasting on my tongue
• 2:40:20
  without permission. I can't do this.
• 2:40:24
  This is just a salt. I don't know how many times I
• 2:40:26
  have to keep saying it. She manages to knee him in the
• 2:40:30
  groyne and then escape. Out of the house and is running.
• 2:40:32
  Barefoot through the woods like that's around her house, looking
• 2:40:35
  for a spot to hide, but he catches her, pins her to the
• 2:40:39
  ground before there's more back and forth between them of her
• 2:40:42
  going. You kill people, yes, but I want
• 2:40:44
  to have sex with you. I don't want to have sex with
• 2:40:46
  you. Yes, you do.
• 2:40:47
  Because I kill bad people. It's dull, it's repetitive, and
• 2:40:51
  then it's followed by another sexual assault and then after
• 2:40:56
  the sexual assault there is. A penetrative sex.
• 2:40:59
  Scene where she does consent to it.
• 2:41:01
  So I guess there's some grey area there.
• 2:41:04
  I don't know. It's still full of the cringiest
• 2:41:07
  lines I've ever heard. It's oh, it's awful.
• 2:41:09
  It's poorly written. It's it's worse than the sing
• 2:41:11
  for me. A little bird lines and my God
• 2:41:15
  God sake my P word milked him dry and you have 5 seconds
• 2:41:22
  before I rearrange your organs. Who reads this stuff and enjoys
• 2:41:27
  it? This is like.
• 2:41:28
  The least sexy? Thing I've ever read other than
• 2:41:30
  the rape, you know what I mean? This video is exhausting me.
• 2:41:35
  I'm just going to take a break. Here for a moment and just chat
• 2:41:39
  with you for a bit because I do feel the.
• 2:41:41
  Need to apologise sometimes for tripping over my words when I
• 2:41:43
  speak. I do it a hell of a lot.
• 2:41:45
  I have always had issues with like a slight lisp and trouble
• 2:41:50
  pronouncing a lot of words because of all the.
• 2:41:53
  I actually don't know if you guys know this.
• 2:41:54
  I've had tooth issues my whole life and I had my front teeth
• 2:41:58
  taken out when I was a kid and I've still have problems with
• 2:42:01
  them. I have I have feelings in all my
• 2:42:02
  front teeth and so for the. First like.
• 2:42:09
  So between the ages about 2:00 and 9:00, I didn't have front
• 2:42:11
  teeth. Which meant I learned.
• 2:42:12
  To speak without front teeth there.
• 2:42:14
  And then my adult teeth grew in and suddenly I was like, oh God,
• 2:42:17
  like, because that was hard enough.
• 2:42:18
  Like, and if you've ever tried speaking without teeth, but a
• 2:42:20
  lot of the lisps and stuttering and slipping up over words and
• 2:42:27
  then my teeth throw in and suddenly I didn't know how to
• 2:42:29
  put my tongue. And it was like I was kind of
• 2:42:31
  learning to speak all over again in a way.
• 2:42:36
  And it was, it was really hard. And I still had like, it's like
• 2:42:38
  lisp and tripped over words and things like that.
• 2:42:41
  And you would think that by 32 I'd be used to it by now.
• 2:42:45
  But I do, I do find it particularly hard, I think
• 2:42:48
  because I spend so much time alone and it's just me and Kyra
• 2:42:50
  in the house and like most of the time, most days a week.
• 2:42:55
  And I I do, I do struggle with speaking.
• 2:43:00
  Still and I. I still stutter occasionally and
• 2:43:02
  I trip over my words quite a lot and I just struggle to get words
• 2:43:05
  out and I think my brain moves faster than my mouth a lot of
• 2:43:09
  the time and so I struggle with stuff and especially because
• 2:43:12
  I've been having a lot of brain fog recently with all my health.
• 2:43:14
  Issues. And all the chronic pain issues
• 2:43:16
  and everything that that just makes it worse.
• 2:43:19
  So when I'm filming, I have to retake a lot of lines.
• 2:43:26
  I probably cut. Out almost as much video as I
• 2:43:30
  keep in because. It's just me.
• 2:43:32
  Tripping over words and saying the wrong things.
• 2:43:35
  And sometimes I don't always know.
• 2:43:38
  Sometimes I don't always notice I've tripped off over words so
• 2:43:41
  they accidentally keep get kept in the video.
• 2:43:43
  Sometimes there's so many mistakes that I miss a couple
• 2:43:46
  here and there and I can't always cut them out.
• 2:43:48
  But I do do a hell of a lot of editing, like a hell of a lot.
• 2:43:51
  And it takes me absolutely hours because I have so much I need to
• 2:43:53
  cut out because I struggle so much talking.
• 2:43:56
  And so I feel like I need to apologise for the ones that
• 2:43:58
  accidentally get kept in. And I've seen some people saying
• 2:44:02
  online that they think I do 0 editing of my videos at all and
• 2:44:06
  that I keep mistakes in on purpose because I'm lazy.
• 2:44:09
  And I'm like Oh no you should see how much I cut out.
• 2:44:12
  Like I would never intentionally want to keep this stuff in and I
• 2:44:15
  can only apologise for the ones that slip through and get in
• 2:44:18
  there. So that's something I think I
• 2:44:21
  just wanted to say kind of publicly to everyone and
• 2:44:24
  apologise for because like, at the end of the day, I'm human
• 2:44:28
  and I I have my things I struggle with and talking is one
• 2:44:31
  of them, which is ironic because this is my job.
• 2:44:36
  But yeah, I'm sorry that I make mistakes and don't always catch
• 2:44:40
  all of them and can't always correct all of them in time.
• 2:44:42
  And yeah, I'm sorry for that. OK.
• 2:44:45
  I think it's especially like when I'm, when I'm quite
• 2:44:48
  emotional as well, like, and a lot of my topics do make me
• 2:44:51
  emotional. I definitely trip up my words a
• 2:44:55
  lot more there and get a bit more like like stuttery with it,
• 2:44:58
  you know? It's just, I don't know.
• 2:45:01
  Yeah, it's just one of those things, isn't it, I think.
• 2:45:04
  And I have good days. And bad days.
• 2:45:05
  Sometimes I'm absolutely fine and others on my I can't get a
• 2:45:07
  single word out. Anyway, shall we move on?
• 2:45:12
  Yes, let's move on. We are going back to Mr Rapist's
• 2:45:16
  narration next and he complaints that his penis is sore.
• 2:45:21
  Boohoo, poor little Zaid. He hurt his little.
• 2:45:25
  Penis raping women. Oh boohoo, shut up, I hate him.
• 2:45:29
  Get over yourself Mr Rapist. How do you think she feels when
• 2:45:34
  in the fun house scene she literally told you you tore her
• 2:45:37
  labia slash inside of her vagina and you didn't care and carried
• 2:45:41
  on? And now we're supposed to feel
• 2:45:43
  sorry for you because what the tip of your penis is a little
• 2:45:45
  bit sore annoys me? There's a lot of just talking.
• 2:45:51
  Back and forth and Zaid tells Addie and the audience all this
• 2:45:57
  stuff that we already know about his job, she's being targeted,
• 2:46:01
  blah blah blah, he's catching predators, blah blah blah.
• 2:46:05
  None of it's new, it's just page filler.
• 2:46:07
  We didn't need all of this repeated to us because we're
• 2:46:10
  already aware of it and it's all punctuated with needless sexual
• 2:46:14
  references. And like.
• 2:46:16
  Innuendos and like, oh, I'd like to stick my tongue inside your
• 2:46:20
  hole and whatever. Like randomly.
• 2:46:22
  And it's like, it's not you're talking about like child rape.
• 2:46:26
  And then all of a sudden he's like, oh, I'd like to give it to
• 2:46:29
  you, though. And it's like, it's not really
• 2:46:30
  necessary, is it? Anyway, Dyer shows up.
• 2:46:34
  There's more and more repetition.
• 2:46:35
  Yawn. Let's move on.
• 2:46:37
  Then there's this envelope sent to Addie with photos of her
• 2:46:40
  great grandmother and some man. And then there's this letter
• 2:46:43
  from this guy saying he's loved her forever and ever and ever
• 2:46:45
  and how dare she marry another and how dare she have an affair
• 2:46:48
  with someone that isn't him. And it's not signed by anyone,
• 2:46:51
  but it's clearly from the husband's best friend, Frank,
• 2:46:54
  the police guy, The dead guy's dad, Mark's dad.
• 2:47:00
  Or granddad. Or.
• 2:47:00
  Dad, one of them, him, it's from him.
• 2:47:02
  We know it's from him. It's not signed, but we know
• 2:47:05
  it's from him. Dia finds out by doing a.
• 2:47:09
  Reverse image search on her computer.
• 2:47:11
  Because it's that simple that the guy in the photo is Ronaldo,
• 2:47:17
  I think, or something like that. And that one of the other guys
• 2:47:21
  is Frank. And like, they finally realised,
• 2:47:25
  oh, maybe Frank killed her. And it's like, yes, well, of
• 2:47:27
  course he did. We all knew this.
• 2:47:28
  It's not a twist. And they decide to go look for
• 2:47:31
  more evidence in the attic of the house.
• 2:47:33
  But they're both scared of ghosts because ghosts exist in
• 2:47:36
  this book, remember? Even though we haven't seen or
• 2:47:38
  heard from them in hundreds of pages and we don't see them
• 2:47:41
  again, up in the attic, they find a bloody watch, the same
• 2:47:44
  one that Frank had on in the photos of him.
• 2:47:47
  And now they're like, ah, we know it was him.
• 2:47:50
  We found his bloody watch. Now we just need to prove it and
• 2:47:55
  why everyone involved is dead. You have enough.
• 2:47:59
  Evidence to know for yourselves. Just at this point, give it to
• 2:48:02
  the police and let them get on with it, you know, I mean, I
• 2:48:05
  anyway, I'm not investing this story at all.
• 2:48:09
  I'm sorry. Next up, Zaid is off to some.
• 2:48:13
  Cult party where they're going to try.
• 2:48:15
  Him rape and or kill a child as part of his initiation and he's
• 2:48:19
  just playing along with this. Meanwhile he has his men working
• 2:48:24
  for him watching Addy to keep her safe.
• 2:48:26
  His little sidekick Jay says he'll be watching her too and
• 2:48:30
  Zaid warns him not to hit on Addy and Jay says because he's a
• 2:48:33
  decent human being. Just kidding dude.
• 2:48:36
  I like my women willing and Zaid says or narrates.
• 2:48:40
  A wicked smile forms, though the heat in my eyes remains.
• 2:48:44
  Sounds to me like you don't understand a woman's body well
• 2:48:47
  enough to know when it sings for you, even when her mouth tries
• 2:48:51
  to resist. No, you're just a disgusting
• 2:48:54
  rapist. Listen to women at the party
• 2:48:59
  they bring out like a. 6 year old girl and.
• 2:49:01
  Say they're going to eat her like in front of this child.
• 2:49:04
  They're like, come on little girl, we're going to kill and
• 2:49:06
  eat you now. I mean, I get you have to try
• 2:49:10
  and make these characters so evil that they seem worse than
• 2:49:14
  your main character who was a rapist stalker, but but cannibal
• 2:49:22
  child eating, sex trafficker rapists just feels like a bit
• 2:49:27
  too much. It's not even that it's
• 2:49:31
  cannibal. Child eating.
• 2:49:33
  Sex trafficker rapists who secretly control the government.
• 2:49:37
  It just it, it feels unbelievable.
• 2:49:40
  And. Ridiculous.
• 2:49:41
  And like it's undermining the seriousness of it all.
• 2:49:44
  I just, I, I don't know, cut. Back to Addie and they.
• 2:49:50
  Get final proof that. Frank is the killer.
• 2:49:51
  Just like we all knew, and we knew like a third of the way
• 2:49:53
  through the book, and they just dragged this out for too long.
• 2:49:56
  And so Addie and I get drunk to celebrate, because of course
• 2:49:59
  they do. But not before they have another
• 2:50:01
  shock reveal. Addy's grandmother, who was just
• 2:50:03
  16 at the time, helped cover up her own mother's murder and hid
• 2:50:07
  the watch in the attic so Frank wouldn't be blamed for God knows
• 2:50:10
  what reason. I just still don't understand
• 2:50:12
  why she did that. She covered up her own mother's
• 2:50:15
  murder and. They conclude that she.
• 2:50:17
  Must have been forced to do it, but I don't really understand.
• 2:50:21
  And so back to the party and. It's just a few pages.
• 2:50:26
  Of men making rapey jokes about murdering and raping the child
• 2:50:29
  in front of her. And Creepy's aid goes along with
• 2:50:33
  this until he hits a button on his watch and calls in fake FBI
• 2:50:37
  agents to raid the house and capture everyone in it.
• 2:50:40
  Meanwhile, he kidnaps the sorry, rescues the child, and the plan
• 2:50:45
  is to use the fake FBI to fake. Charge all the.
• 2:50:48
  Cult members with drug smuggling charges, but then release them
• 2:50:52
  because there's not enough evidence because they're not
• 2:50:54
  actually drug smugglers, and then Zaid can go back and kill
• 2:50:57
  them all. I don't know why he's not just
• 2:51:00
  killing them now he's. Clearly got the men to do I.
• 2:51:03
  I don't get it. I don't get this stupid plan.
• 2:51:05
  It's convoluted and stupid. This is immediately followed by
• 2:51:11
  him going back to Addy. 'S and.
• 2:51:12
  Contemplating raping her in her sleep, but then she wakes up so
• 2:51:16
  they just have sex again and it's quite boring.
• 2:51:19
  It's all like oh F this, F that. I want to F you, baby.
• 2:51:23
  You like that baby Oh F Addy oh F say it.
• 2:51:26
  Oh yeah, baby you that baby. Shut up, I'm bored, Zaid decides
• 2:51:33
  he wants to adopt. The random 6.
• 2:51:35
  Year old girl that he saved from being eaten, which is ridiculous
• 2:51:39
  because he is a predator and should not be allowed around
• 2:51:41
  children. But then Addie is like, oh, I
• 2:51:43
  don't know if I'm ready for that.
• 2:51:44
  And Zaid's like, whenever you're ready, babe, whenever you're
• 2:51:47
  ready. And then he goes back to the
• 2:51:49
  club for another. Child killing and.
• 2:51:51
  Eating ritual where they have like men in hoods and he's there
• 2:51:56
  ready to be initiated and he's got the knife and he's going to
• 2:51:59
  kill the kid. But then he doesn't kill the
• 2:52:00
  kid. He kills one of the other guys
• 2:52:02
  and then a huge fight breaks out and he's killing everyone he can
• 2:52:05
  and he has inside men, inside the club killing people.
• 2:52:08
  And then suddenly there's a massive explosion that the other
• 2:52:10
  guys did because this was a trap for him and his men.
• 2:52:13
  Then boom, everyone's dying and there's explosions everywhere
• 2:52:17
  and Jay runs in and he's like, no, see, it's a.
• 2:52:22
  Setup we they knew we were coming and you and then someone.
• 2:52:28
  Points a gun. At Zaid and Jay, end of chapter
• 2:52:33
  back to Addie's and she's talking to her mum on the phone
• 2:52:36
  and it turns out that Addie's mum is the one who sent her the
• 2:52:38
  photos because she already knew about the murder and her mum's
• 2:52:41
  role in it. And that's why she wasn't really
• 2:52:43
  friends with her mum because she's like, you covered up your
• 2:52:46
  mum's murder. Why should I be OK with you?
• 2:52:48
  And so then I guess like Addie growing up and being like, Oh my
• 2:52:50
  God, my gran's amazing. This woman who covered up her
• 2:52:52
  mum's murder is so amazing. And then her mum was like, I
• 2:52:55
  don't get it. And that's what caused the rift
• 2:52:57
  in the family. And and so her mum was like, I
• 2:53:02
  just wanted to like cover this all up and stop this being like
• 2:53:06
  a big public thing and never talk about it instead of your
• 2:53:08
  ground. And it's the whole thing of
• 2:53:10
  blah, blah. And Addie's like, oh God, I
• 2:53:11
  understand. I'm going to tell the world
• 2:53:14
  about it. And so she does.
• 2:53:16
  And it's all suddenly like on the news and there's reporters
• 2:53:18
  camped out on her porch and blah, blah blah blah, blah and
• 2:53:21
  whatever. And it, I mean, it doesn't
• 2:53:23
  really seem like it would necessarily be newsworthy
• 2:53:25
  solving a 75 year old murder of a random woman in a tiny town,
• 2:53:28
  but apparently it is. And all the national newspapers
• 2:53:31
  are here and seem to care about it for whatever reason.
• 2:53:34
  And then in the night, she wakes up to a text, apparently from
• 2:53:36
  Daya, being like, I'm really upset.
• 2:53:38
  Can you come over now? So Addie's like, yeah, sure.
• 2:53:40
  And then she calls her and there's no answer.
• 2:53:42
  So she's like, oh, I better go over there.
• 2:53:44
  But on the drive over, her car gets rammed by another car and
• 2:53:49
  run off the road. And then Addie's in a massive
• 2:53:51
  car accident. And it turns out that a couple
• 2:53:54
  of random men who say they're working for Max, who is the
• 2:53:58
  friend of Archie, the guy that she nearly slept with, that
• 2:54:01
  Zayed killed, Max has hired these two men to run her off the
• 2:54:05
  road and kidnap her. And then that's where the book
• 2:54:09
  ends. Zayed is being held at gunpoint
• 2:54:11
  after an explosion in the cult. Addie is kidnapped by two men
• 2:54:15
  working for Max. We're told the book ends on a
• 2:54:19
  cliffhanger. And I'm like this is fine.
• 2:54:22
  So I'm. Fine with the ending here, this
• 2:54:23
  is OK, but what the hell was with the random ghost throughout
• 2:54:26
  the book? They had nothing to do with
• 2:54:27
  anything. Why were they even there?
• 2:54:30
  And that is the end of haunting Adeline.
• 2:54:33
  Book 1 in. The cat and mouse series.
• 2:54:36
  If you'd like to take a break here, I would recommend it.
• 2:54:39
  Because we are going to. Move on to book 2 now hunting
• 2:54:41
  Adeline, which is so disgustingly dark it is
• 2:54:46
  unnecessary torture pawn and I hate it.
• 2:54:50
  All right, lovely people. I was going to make this one big
• 2:54:52
  video. Regime buzz books, but it's
• 2:54:53
  already. Three hours long and this is
• 2:54:55
  kind of exhausting and I got to go big.
• 2:54:57
  Cover up from my. Parents and So what I'm going to
• 2:54:59
  do is I'm going to end this video here today and I'll work
• 2:55:02
  on editing the second part regime second book and it will
• 2:55:05
  be. Out in a day or two.
• 2:55:06
  I'm going to try and get them out as close together as
• 2:55:08
  possible, but I really know exporting this video is going to
• 2:55:12
  be a whole nightmare and I've got a hell of a lot going on in
• 2:55:14
  life at the minute, so I'm going to get out as much contact you
• 2:55:17
  as I possibly can and wouldn't. Work through this.
• 2:55:18
  We're going to do this. But for now, let me know what
• 2:55:20
  you not this first book. I'm so sorry to change my plans
• 2:55:22
  like this to split them up. But I hope you enjoyed this
• 2:55:24
  video and I will see you again very, very soon.
• 2:55:27
  For the second one, I'm going to be as quick as possible with it
• 2:55:29
  as I can be OK? Thank you and I appreciate you
• 2:55:31
  guys. Bye.