“Choose to live, bella. Choose me.“

My song for Does it hurt: The Night We Met by Lord Huron

Does it Hurt is tragic, beautiful, unnerving and breathtaking.

It is also very dark but it never feels exaggerated or wrong. It’s a darkness that is alluring and frightening - it draws you in until it becomes difficult to separate yourself from the story.

I was devoured by the cat-and-mouse-series and I have drowned in Does it Hurt.

And the things this book made me feel - I’ve never come upon an author who was so good at dragging me through such a wide spectrum of emotions in the matter of mere sentences.

Enzo is a force (and him speaking Italian only made me crumble faster), but so is Sawyer. Both are intense - and very relatable without ever having experienced anything remotely close to what they have. Once again, the layers put into these characters, the little twists and perfectly painted imperfections, the back stories, the development and emotional structures are so detailed and stringent that at times it’s hard to remember they are not “real” but created from the mind of one single person.

H.D. Carlton is a genius.
There’s no other way to put it.

Though she asked not to compare this to Haunting Adeline I can’t help but use the comparison as a reason for how amazing this book was!
To me, it is incredible how anyone can build one story of such quality and moral dissection with characters as amazingly structured and captured. That H.D. Carlton now did it a second time only shows how amazing and talented an author she is and I honestly hope she never stops writing.