story is too good
How rewarding is the story?
Have you read a book before that after reading &#8220;The End&#8221; all you wanted to do is fall to your knees, raise your fists towards the sky, shake them and wail &#8220;Why God, why?&#8221;. No? Then this is the book for you cause this is how I just felt after finishing &#8220;Raw&#8221; by Belle Aurora. With this book it took all my willpower not to lock myself in the bathroom while the family was celebrating New Year&#8217;s Eve just so I could finish it &#8211; needing to find out what happens next. This book destroyed me, it broke me. I felt as if Belle Aurora stuck my heart, my mind and my soul in a blender and set it on high and then just walked away. For the last quarter of the book and still about three hours later I was a sobbing and blubbering mess. It was so much more than I expected and I already had high expectations. This book evoked so many emotions in me &#8211; pain, despair, disbelief, contentment, happiness, hate, disgust, fear and a broken heart. The story gave me whiplash as I was basically torn between emotions on a minutely basis. One moment I was full of hate, the next moment that was replaced by sympathy. Then swooning like a love-sick lunatic, right before feeling appalled and out of my comfort zone. And I loved every bit of it.When Belle Aurora said that this is a story about a love gone wrong, she wasn&#8217;t kidding. I really should have believed it. This story is different and original. Not something I have read before. It is dark and twisted and transformed my brain to mush. Well, my heart too. And my ovaries suffered a little as well.It is the story of Twitch and Lexi. Each of them having lived through a difficult and tormented past and still managed to succeed &#8211; each in their own way. Their meeting and relationship is, well, let&#8217;s say unusual and twisted as hell. But that is to be expected if you develop feelings for your stalker. And that is exactly what Lexi does. Little does she know there is more to him than just some guy that likes to follow women around. And little does he know that she is the only one that can save him from himself. Their relationship made me cringe at times. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief, wanting to shake the characters to make them wake-up and see what was going on. This couple and their relationship is unique. I&#8217;ve never read about a relationship like theirs. And yes, at times it took me out of my comfort zone. But that means the book is good. It makes me feel and think new things, it makes me reconsider my point of view. Amazing, when a story can do this.I can&#8217;t tell you much more about the story without giving too much away. And that is not something I want to do. The story is too good for you not to experience it yourself.What I can tell you is a bit about the characters.There is Lexi. She is a woman to look up to. Having overcome pain and sorrow that her childhood and youth have been filled with, she is now someone who helps others &#8211; giving all her heart and soul. She believes in the good of people and doesn&#8217;t judge. I liked her character a lot. Despite what she went through she wasn&#8217;t broken. She was happy and loving, stable and caring. Her friendship with Dave and Nikki was absolutely adorable. But when it came to Twitch, that girl left her brain on the bedside table. Sometimes I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a decent shake in the hopes of maybe bringing her brain cells back to life. But then I suppose the heart will win over the brain any time and there was not much she could do about it.Twitch on the other hand is one complex and twisted man. Most of the time I was torn between wanting to punch him in the throat or rip his clothes off. He was all domineering, controlling alpha-male with a big dose of bad-to-the-bone added to the mix. And yet, despite his often brutal, demeaning and heartless behaviour, I just couldn&#8217;t help but like him a bit. There was more to him than this sick-in-the-head man. And finding out what it was &#8211; that was excruciating as hell. I love that up until the end of the book, I could not make up my mind if I hate him or love him. But yet I couldn&#8217;t help wishing for him to be happy, not able to just think in black and white. Not able to just judge him. To make me feel like this about a character like Twitch, that was a job well done by Belle Aurora.The story will shock and rock you and trust me, you will love every second of it. For me, this is the best start possible to a new book year. Do yourself the favor and read this book.5+ unique, mind-numbing, heart-wrenching, sobfest-inducing, thought-altering stars. 