This is not a perfect book. There's some weird sentence structuring, some editing oversights and some decisions made by the MC where you just want to throttle him because he should know better and even does half the time but goes against it. So if you're nitpicky and that stuff ruins a story for you, then yeah, probably not your choice.
That being said, just holy hell and wtf did I just read? I thought I'd read dark before and I thought I'd seen depraved but this book just might take the icing on the cake for me.
Joseph is a senior in college who has a single exchange with his college buddy's twin sister, Natalie and immediately becomes obsessed with her. He literally goes from chasing her down to try and talk to her to stalking her social media and wanking off to pictures of her over the days as his dream girl and centerfold. In his obsession, he idealises the hell out of her. When her father suddenly dies, Joe is tasked as one of the pallbearer's and immediately zooms in on the object of his desire, Nat, once again. At first I didn't know if there was something off with him, the way he spoke in the first 3 chapters, he already had a road map planned out for them and he didn't even have her yet. But then I came to see it as a by product of Joe's whole life having been mapped out for him with no leeway by his scummy, snobbish, cold father whose already told him he's going to marry after college somebody that benefits the family and when he sees Nat and builds her up in his mind, it's also an act of rebellion. He isn't just imagining her, he's also imagining getting off the path dictated to him by a father and brothers that he hates.
From there, Joe and Nat move rather fast together and after a terminal illness in the family comes up even a rush marriage. Joe sees himself as Nat's savior, first sensing that things are not right for her and then finding out some awful, horrendous details that make him possessed to protect her and help her heal. The further he goes, the more he realises that Nat is NOT his perfect centerfold, not the pretty smiling girl in the photos he spent so much time obsessing over but a completely broken girl, so fractured that it's impossible to say whether she can even be put back together.
And that's just the very tippy, top of the iceberg. I'm not going to go any further with story than that because this is an absolute crazy down the rabbit hole ride of complete depravity, darkness, filth, sex and nightmares much bigger than Joe ever imagined. And poor Nat - God, she makes terrible decisions, one's that make you furious but the more you dig, the more you see how she's so way way more than just broken. For all his missteps, Joe never ever let's go of trying to reach her. Yes, they both do wrong by each other and some people won't like this book for trigger's like cheating, although for me, I'd say that's hardly a trigger when the book is basically a land mine of the worst triggers possible.
But even with all that being said and done, once I got on this ride, I could not get off. Yes, I cringed at certain times but the story is told from Joe's POV so there's mystery and suspense involved as he tries to peel back the layers of Nat and find out how far things really go, how deep the secrets really are in his bid to fix her and bring her back. His feelings for her start out obsessional and deepen into a love that never wanes, he's relentless at not giving up but man, what an absolute mindfuck of a battle he's fighting.
This book is not for the faint of heart and yes, lot's of books say that, but this is really dark and sick content. What Nat has endured is beyond the pale. And even during the book itself, there's a total circus of so many shades of grey and craziness that it never relents or becomes an easy journey.
Like I said, this is not a perfect book but if you're looking for a dark read and going in blind (which you will be because the blurb is totally misleading) then there just might be a chance that it'll hook you as deeply as it did me. As part of a duet, it ends on a cliffhanger and the author put me through the ringer enough that I am utterly compelled to have no choice but continue on and finally unravel all the missing pieces. I know they're going to be horrifying most likely but I just can't let it go!
3.5*** because I'm not really sure how I feel about it but I can't stop until I'm sane again.