Olivia Ponton says Ana Huang writes obsession so readers don't have to wade through 800 pages of talking

Hi angels

Welcome back to another episode of Booked and Busy. [music] This is my podcast for the girlies who [music] love to read

And by very popular demand, today we are talking about the Twisted series by Miss Anna Hong

If you know me, you know how I feel about Miss Anna Hong

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 story line, but it's four different emotional experiences amongst four different characters

In 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 them

So, now let's start with act one, the men of the Twisted series

In Twisted Love, we have Alex Vulov

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, cuz I feel like that is a reoccurring theme that occurs throughout this book specifically

Um, childhood trauma for honestly both characters now that I'm thinking about it

And Alex will always be a fantasyon type of book boyfriend because his level of obsessiveness is genuinely a little alarming, especially if it was in real life

No, that that wouldn't fly with me, unfortunately

Now, in Twisted Games, we have Reese Larson

And forever, I called him Brize

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 with pretty much every other Anna Hong book that I've 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 Patreon account

And his core conflict/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 cuz 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 nine yards

If you read the book, you understand

In Twisted Hate, we have Jules Ambrose

Ambros, 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

Jules throughout this book is in the process of becoming a lawyer

In Twisted Lies, we have the main character, which is Stella Alonszo

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 friend group dynamic

I feel like holding these books, I'm like holding all of them

I'm like, this is their entire lives right here

We have Ava, Bridget, Jules, and Stella

And they're an entire friend 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 onto these books by my friend Jane

We were at the McN store in Soho and she brought up Twisted Love to 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'd read it, it started showing up on my for you 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 three, we're going to talk about The Twisted Formula

I think this series has dominated Tik Tok because romance is identified as confidence 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 love 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 a 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 Hong 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 and 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 an overdose and he had something to do with it

And just all of those things exploding in 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 this 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 four

I'm going to be doing a bookby 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 see him 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 800page 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 writer's sake, it is way easier to write obsessiveness than have all that extra dialogue in it

And my favorite way that Alex 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 forbidden 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

Eldor 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 physicalpowered 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 20ies

It does feel validating

Now we're going to go into Twisted Hate because this was just a very classic enemies to lovers slowburn a lot of banter

Kind of crazy

So Anna Hong 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

Cuz 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 where they're eye to eye

They are the same kind of person

They are both incredibly smart, ambitious, great at their jobs, and very sarcastic

And in this book, banter equals trust

The fact that they're 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 soft romantics, I would recommend Twisted Games

For the enemies to lovers girls, we're going with Twisted Hate, obviously

For the power dynamic girlies, 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 Vov, I would cast Hero Phineas, 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

Or 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 similarish

Maybe that's why he comes to mind

For Jules Ambro, I would book Maline PH because she's a redhead and Riverdale and I just feel like it works

And for Josh Chen, I would book Ross Butler or honestly Hudson Williams could also do a really good job at that

For Stella Alonzo, I would book Isabella Merrced

And for Christian Harper, I would book Logan Lurman 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

So, if you go and watch those, let me [music] know

I love you guys

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