Raw - Belle Aurora

*** Strange, difficult to classify, perhaps a missed opportunity

I have mixed feelings towards this book. I was drawn by the plot that seemed full of suspense, but then after a start that seemed to fulfil the promises of the description, the novel has slipped to the déjà vu like a thousand others of its genre, apart from the ending, thankfully.

For simplicity, let’s start with what I liked of the book.

The basic idea was really interesting and with great potential. A woman who falls in love with her stalker. Such an idea would intrigue anyone.

The absence of the classic happy ending was a winning choice which allowed the book to recover a couple of points lost on the way, along with the pressure of events in the last chapters that were everything but predictable.

All this is well seasoned with ambiguous characters who remain such until the end and a considerable care of the correctness of the text (I just noticed a typo in the whole book, which means that there are probably very few).

But let’s get to what I didn’t like, and unfortunately there’s much of it.

I found the style of the author very repetitive. 90% of periods begins with a -ing form, followed by other secondary clauses and the main clause at the end. All of those periods are structured like this. In addition, the speaking attribution is almost always put before the dialogue (a quite obsolete practice and that should always be used sparingly), in addition to being used much more than necessary.

This made the reading of the book difficult enough, almost annoying. I tried to start reading another book by the same author, but, in front of the endless repeating of this structure, I gave up.

I had trouble seeing the difference between the two main characters in the way they are shown. Often in the parts from the point of view of Twitch the same unusual words and expressions of Lexi are used, and vice versa. Occasionally I noticed errors in the point of view, creating a bit of confusion.

Moreover, the book is full of unusual expressions repeated several times, so as to make the repetitions really evident.

The use of the double point of view, considering the above problems, does not improve the situation. I know it is a custom of many books of this genre, but I think it’s a bad habit that tends to bring out all those problems that create confusion regarding the use of point of views.

While the main characters are fairly characterised, the secondary ones tend a bit to be two-dimensional.

Speaking of the plot, I found the sudden change of behaviour of Twitch unrealistic and here and there are some small inconsistencies in the story concerning some of its fundamental aspects. The book in general shows a bit too many clichés, especially in the first part.

The erotic element is sometimes forced. Some sex scenes are entirely useless and don’t advance the action.

As I said before, the psychological theme behind the story has great potential, but it is not exploited. In my opinion, there has been little willingness on the part of the author to do some research on this type of “unhealthy” relationships and the result is that some passages bring down the suspension of disbelief.

It’s really a shame, because I think it is a missed opportunity for the author to write a book that narrates about a sick love story, able to attract a vast range of readers. What a pity.

RAWon Amazon.