The 'Twisted' Series by Ana Huang | Booked & Busy w/ Olivia Ponton

Hi Angels, welcome back to another episode of Bookton Busy. This is my podcast for the girlies who love to read. And by very popular demand, today we are talking about the twisted series by Miss Anna Huang. If you know me, you know how I feel about Miss Anna Huang. I think she has the ability to create this incredible universe with mixing in different parts of the book, but not making it feel repetitive. Ever, and we'll get into that a little bit more later. Now the twisted series is not just one storyline, but it's four different emotional experiences amongst four different characters. And a lot of the other episodes that I've done, I've kind of given a short synopsis of each book, but I think I'm going to stop doing that for certain episodes, especially something like this where I'm talking over four books. So I hope you've read this. So now let's start with act one, the men of the twisted series. In twisted love, we have Alex Volkov. He's the stereotypical like cold, mean, obsessive, controlling, very emotional, guarded kind of guy. And for Alex's core wound, it's probably his childhood trauma that he's undergone because I feel like that is a reoccurring theme that occurs throughout this book specifically. Childhood trauma. For honestly, both characters, now that I'm thinking about it, and Alex will always be a fantasy only type of book boyfriend because his level of obsessiveness is genuinely a little alarming, especially if it was in real life. No, that wouldn't fly with the end, fortunately. Now in twisted games, we have Reese Larson. And forever, I call them rise. I don't know where I got that from, but Reese throughout the series is the most protective of them all, hence why he's a bodyguard. And in this book, the core conflict within himself is duty versus desire. It literally says it on the book. He can't have her, but he's taking her anyways. In twisted hate, we have Josh Chen, which is actually Ava's older brother. I like that the universe is intertwined, but never repetitive. I'm going to get into why a little bit later, but this was my least favorite book in the series, just because I feel like Josh was like your stereotypical charismatic, flirty guy. And in each of these books, something super traumatic happens. I feel like for this story, it just wasn't resonating with me. I wasn't like obsessed. Like how I am was pretty much every other analogue book that I read. And Josh's core conflict or core wound would be his fear of vulnerability. And also again, a core wound that's just like not something in my opinion that is going to like keep me on the edge of my seat. And last but not least, we have twisted lies with Christian Harper. Apparently he's quiet, powerful, protector, stalker, obsessive. And I say apparently because this is actually the only book that I've not read, but it is next on my TBR and I'm going to do a mini episode on it once I finish it on my patron account. In his core conflict, slash wound is emotional transparency. And the fantasy that he represents is devotion, safety, and emotional intimacy. Next, we have act two, which is the women of the series. We'll go in the same order and starting with Miss Ava Chen from Twisted Love. She's genuinely just like an empathetic kind, warm human. And that's the complete opposite of Alex. And my favorite part about Ava is that she represents femininity without weakness. Because I feel like a lot of time society likes to put those right next to each other. For Twisted Games, we have Bridget Von Ashberg. I could be totally butchering that. She's just a royal princess. And this was my favorite book because hence the princess and her core conflict is identity versus obligation. And she represents wanting love without giving up ambition. Hence the princess, her becoming a queen, the whole nightmare. And if you read the book, you understand. And Twisted Hate, we have Jewels Ambrose. Ambrose. She's just very sharp, ambitious, fierce, honestly, a little mean. But then she has that flip side to her where it's like a very caring soft loving part of her. And I would say similarly in this entire series, she never loses herself for love. Jewels throughout this book is in the process of becoming a lawyer. And Twisted Lies, we have the main character, which is Stella Alonzo. And from what I've heard about this book, she's like a social media influencer. She's very creative, soft. And I'm assuming there's going to be a lot of lying in this book. Twisted Lies. Okay, now we're going to talk about the front group dynamic. I feel like holding these books. I'm like holding all of them. And like this is their entire lives right here. We have Ava, Bridget, Jewels, and Stella. And they're an entire front group. They are each other's found family. Pretty much everyone has an interesting dynamic with their families. And that reflects a lot on their core wounds. And like I mentioned before, they all represent a different type of femininity, but all kind of different aspects. But the revolving theme is that none of them are identified as weak. And I would like to mention one thing is that none of them ever really fight with each other or have drama. And I think within a series, ensuring that the women are not fighting with each other and are working towards the same goal and happiness for each other is something really nice to read because I feel like a lot of the time that is not the case. So I got put on these books by my friend Jane. We were at the McNally Jackson store in Soho. And she brought up to us. I loved me. And she was like, I know what you like to read. This is going to be something that completely devours you. And I was like, you know what? Okay, I bought it. And I think I read it in a week, maybe less. But after I read it, it started showing up on my 4U page way more than I was expecting to. And I had no idea that this series was so heavily influenced by book talk. So for Act 3, we're going to talk about the twisted formula. I think this series has dominated TikTok because romance is identified as confident rather than a weakness. And I think for women to be able to read this and digest and almost relate to it in a way that like this is what someone else is going through. I don't have to feel that way about what I'm going through. I think a lot of women could look up to this lab dynamic in a certain capacity because again, none of these women rely or need these men in their lives. They're just like a little add-on, which I think is always how relationship should be in your life. Another reason of why I think this series works so well on book talk is because the brilliant author Anna Huang has cracked the code on how to write a series that lives within the same universe, but is never repetitive because normally for myself when I'm reading a series by the third or fourth book, it just feels very copy and paste and repetitive. And I'm like, okay, well, now I have to stop because it's not really keeping me on the edge of my seat, but this is a series that never gets repetitive. If anything, it is vastly different with each theme in which core conflict is going on. And the super traumatic thing that happens in the middle of the book, and the plot twists are crazy. This was one of my first books that had a plot twist in a romance book. I remember when I was reading Twisted Love and the scene was happening where she was figuring out that Michael was the one that could have potentially hurt her and it wasn't her mom and it wasn't overdose and he had something to do with it. And just all of those things exploding my face, I was like, I've never experienced anything like this. And I think going back to the book talk, I don't think people are sitting here being like, is a series good? They're more so thinking which book do I identify with the main character because they're also vastly different? And that's personally what I did. And that's really why I think book talk keeps recommending it because it is such a personalized experience of reading. Each book offers a different emotional need, a different romantic fantasy, and a different version of power, safety, and desire. And because all these books happen in the same universe, I feel like readers can experience continuity rather than repetition, which like I said, helps it not feel like copy and paste. And now we have Act 4. I'm going to be doing a book by book breakdown. Starting off with Twisted Love, this book's themes are emotional walls. And a lot of obsession from Alex. I think one of the first points that I want to talk about is how love in this book there's a difference between protection and possessiveness because I truly do think that in the beginning, Alex wants to protect her. We all know that Josh comes to Alex and is like, I need you to look after my little sister while I'm gone. So it starts off as this protectiveness that he wants to ensure her safety. And then I think as their love story goes on, it quickly turns into a sense of possessiveness. And I really respect that Ava fires back at him in those moments. We also seem to be protective when Josh quite literally tells him to protect her from Ava's ex boyfriend. And then the possessiveness kicks in when Josh stops asking Ava what she wants and just starts deciding it for her. And Ava really calls him out because that is not fair at the end of the day. No one should be able to do that for you. And I think through this book Anna intentionally blurs the line because that is what creates such high tension. And I think through this readers are supposed to be comforted by his vigilance, but also unsettled by how absolute he is. The next topic that I want to talk about is how throughout this book, the emotional unavailability is viewed as a romantic challenge. I've always said this obsession feels safe in fiction because that eliminates a lot of the dialogue that is needed for us as the readers to understand how obsessed or committed the man is because I think in day to day relationships, you need to have a lot of those communication skills and deep talks with someone to really understand the level of committed that they are to you. And maybe in fiction, if you don't want to have to write a 800 page book, it is way easier to write someone who is obsessed, controlling, devoted. And throughout this book, this signals to Ava that she's never going to be abandoned, replaced, or even forgotten. In a fictional context, the obsession eliminates all the uncertainty. Whereas in real life, we as a society should probably be running away from things like that. But for the writers sake, it is way easier to write obsessiveness than have all that extra dialogue in it. And my favorite way that Alex should shows his obsessiveness and just like his commitment to her is throughout the book she's taking swimming lessons from him and honestly I forgot about this until I was prepping for this episode but I think that was such a key moment that he was willing to do absolutely everything to help her get over her like PTSD of what happened to her as a child or even the party scene where she gets thrown into the water and she's a full blown mental breakdown but Alex is there to save her. That was one of my favorite scenes. The next book we are talking about is Twisted Games which is personally my favorite. There's just something about a princess and like royalty in a book that just heightens all of the emotions and the passion and the stress that is on the main character and I feel like books with royalty in it. I just have a quicker way of understanding the dynamic that is going on and it's a lot easier for me to read and understand. The themes in this book are power, restraint and forbid and love. The first topic that I want to add is Eldora and why I think the setting is kind of a character on its own and I was just talking about this. Eldora does not play as a backdrop but as like this fantasy world that they live in and because of this all the conflict and just kind of everything is elevated. The visibility, the consequences, the power dynamics and even the expectations of why their love is so forbidden. Throughout Twisted Games I feel like the power dynamics are done very intentionally. Twisted Games is not about the chaos or the intensity like some of the other twisted books but this book is about the control. Rise has physical power and Bridget has institutional power and neither of them can act freely so it causes this constant tension throughout the book which I think is necessary in a romance. And within that power dynamic when Bridget is expected to marry somebody it has to be like of her caliber and I think that's when we see the real power dynamic because Rise is not of her caliber but on the other hand he's like this massive strong physical powered man and that's where I think we see kind of the balance of imbalance and the balance between these powers is what makes this relationship feel intentional rather than something that is reckless because I feel like there's a very thin line between the two especially when you're writing it and the forbidden desire here is not like uh oh no we shouldn't it's more so like we can't and we know exactly why and that goes right into why sometimes we can think that restraint feels more intimate than passion obviously they're obsessed with each other but I think the restraint of them not allowed to be together adds a second or third or fourth layer on it and I think looking at it in a cultural lens a lot of women like reading this kind of dynamic because the desire is at the end of the day controlled throughout this book specifically Bridget is never going to give up her dreams and her ambitions and her job for a potential relationship with a man and I think reading that is very comforting and almost motivating especially for women in their 20s it does feel validating now we're going to go into twisted hate because this was just a very classic enemies to lovers slow burn a lot of banter kind of crazy so Anna Huang uses enemies to lovers as the foreplay of this book twisted hate is about the intensity of a conflict and how that can turn into a passion and a desire it's the fantasy of somebody who is challenging you not because they feel threatened by you but because that they can match you on that level and that you guys are equals because I feel like there's a lot of power dynamics in all of these books this book twisted hate is the only book that does not have some level of power but more so whether eye to eye they are the same kind of person they are both incredibly smart ambitious great at their jobs and varies sarcastic and in this book banter equals trust the fact that their enemies at the beginning is not because they like have this burning hate for each other it's because they're too similar and that freaks them out in my opinion and lastly for twisted lies I already said this but once I read it I am going to do a mini episode on my patreon account for act five we're doing book recommendations based on what type of person you are for the software man takes I would recommend twisted games for the enemies to lovers girls we're going with twisted hate obviously for the power dynamic girly is I would say twisted games or twisted love and for the emotional intimacy girls I would recommend twisted love or twisted lies but I haven't read this book but that's a guess based on what I've heard about it for act six I'm going to be doing my dream fan cast but starting off for Ava Chen I would book Midori Francis for Alex Volkov I would cast hero finnius the guy from the after series or very specifically Chuck Bass that makes sense right for Bridget von Asperg depending on the age range I would probably book Freya Allen again I really hope I'm saying that right or kind of any supermodel blonde girl ever and for Reese Larson I would book Harris Dickinson from baby girl where there's that actor from night agent I don't know his name but that specifically makes me think about this and honestly night agent is like kind of weirdly similar ish maybe that's why he comes to mind for Jules Ambro I would book Madeline Patch because she's a redhead and Riverdale and I just feel like it works and for Josh Chen I would book Ross Beller or honestly Hudson Williams could also do a really good job with that for Stella Alonzo I would book Isabella Merced and for Christian Harper I would book Logan Lerman or honestly lip from shameless that also weirdly feels like it would work and that is a wrap on my twisted series deep dive thank you so much for watching and I hope you guys like this video this week I'm working on some very exciting things for booked and busy specifically and we're not done filming today we're going to be filming a few more things for my social clips if you go and watch those let me know I love you guys bye