Jessica ❥Chatterbooks Book Blog❥'s Reviews > Adrenaline

4.5

Adrenaline is the kind of book that makes you FEEL more than anything. When I finished it, my thoughts and feelings were extremely conflicting and all over the place. Honestly, they still are. I keep going back and forth on so many things that happened and even what I think of the couple themselves.



Whether you love it or hate it, you will have strong emotions regarding the characters and the events that take place. Not all of those emotions are good. I was angry for a lot of this book. I wanted to harm the majority of these characters at one point or ten. I felt heartbroken for some of them. I wished some of them would jump off a cliff. I was aggravated with characters that I felt sorry for and then, felt sorry for the ones that aggravated me.



It's a story that I'll need days and maybe even weeks to dissect and marinate on. Most of the things that happen in Adrenaline are not black and white. I can look at the actions of the hero, heroine, and the other people in their lives (mainly Adam's friends) from different perspectives and find myself feeling like I'm going crazy trying to make decisions about if they were justified in their feelings and subsequent behavior. Every single character is incredibly flawed ....except maybe Raquel. I won't hear any conflicting opinions on that. She's a real one. I love her. Period.



Right or wrong, I had the most sympathy for Adam in this story. I felt the most anger on his behalf, and I understood him more than anyone else. That being said, we didn't see Adam and Katrina's breakup when it occurred. We didn't spend time with her for the weeks after her heartbreak, and we didn't experience her devastation for four long years. This book is set fours years after they split up, and I think that could be somewhat to blame for why it was harder for me to sympathize with her at times.



Adam didn't sleep with anyone else in this story either, and we always knew he was completely hers in every sense of the word. He also doesn't do as many hurtful things to Katrina. On top of that, his friends actively try to gut him throughout the book. They were doing it for a good reason, but it's up to you to decide whether the ends justified the means.



I realize I haven't talked a lot about what this story is about, but I imagine there will be a ton of reviewers that will tell you everything you want to know on that end. This review is more of a purge of my thoughts as spoiler free as I'm able to express them, so I apologize if it reads like a jumbled mess. In my opinion, all you actually NEED to know about Adrenaline is that it's a second chance, dark MF romance with MMF, MM, and MMFM scenes. I suggest looking up the trigger warnings if you have any. There is murder, knife play, kidnapping, stalking, and more. I am shit at identifying them all, or I would.



While I may be unclear on a lot of things, the one thing I know for sure is that A.L. Woods is a talented writer. This isn't my first read from her, and there will be plenty more in my future. From the prologue, I was sucked in. Everything felt incredibly real. I could see, taste, and smell everything she described. I felt for the characters immediately and experienced a whole myriad of emotions: happiness, sadness, terror, anxiety, anger, and heartbreak. I had tears in my eyes by the end.



I desperately wanted Katrina and Adam together no matter what transpired over the course of the book, because I believed they wanted each other more than they could ever want anything or anyone else. That's saying a lot considering that Katrina hooks up with everyone Adam knows in one way or another. They aren't officially together, so there is no actual cheating. I want to be clear on that, because I know cheating is a hard limit for a lot of romance readers. I'm personally here for all the messy, toxic, fucked up shit authors want to throw at us as long as they make it okay for me in the end, but in this case, there is no committed relationship at the time of her getting dicked down by his friend group.



Speaking of Adam's friends, those motherfuckers tested me more often than not, but I couldn't help but to love most of them. Vince is easily the most twisted of the bunch, and that's probably why he's my favorite. He infuriated me at times, but he also gave me strong Damon from the Devil's Night series vibes. Enough said. I totally imagined Max as a more fit version of Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions, and I'm dying for his story! I need Lainey to be his love interest. I adore that pairing. Gabe was not my favorite, and that's all I'll say about him. Drew wasn't in the book much, but I like him a lot. He pulled through in the end, and I hope we get his story, too.



Despite my complicated and mixed feelings on certain aspects of this story, I seriously enjoyed it! It gave me lust, love, heartbreak, angst, personal growth, family, friendship, violence, mystery, suspense, and filthy sex. In other words, everything a dark romance fan could want. I can't wait to see what else this author has in store for us with this series, but whatever it is, I know I'll be reading all of it.



Dark romance fans, this one's for you!