I read Torment by Dylan Page about two years ago, and I still haven’t found anything that comes close to it. I keep chasing the feeling it gave me, but nothing really compares.
The only books that even slightly came close were Take Me With You by Nina Jones and Captive by R.J. Lewis and even those barely scratched the surface.
What really stayed with me was Shay as the mmc. He was completely messed up like hearing voices in his head, violent, obsessive but also strangely compelling. He’d go to extreme lengths to protect Mina, yet at the same time, he needed her to ground him. Underneath his aggression,violent tendencies to hurt everybody around him there was this constant pull toward the fmc Mina. Not in a soft, perfect way, but in a way where he needed her to steady him, to bring him back when his mind spiraled, he always found peace in her arms. And those moments? When everything around him was chaos, and he’d just end up with her quiet, grounded, almost at peace for a second ,oh god they truly hit the hardest and made me cry every time. It was messy and toxic, but also strangely comforting to read. Like you could see the one place where he wasn’t completely lost. Those quiet moments where she calms him down felt so intense and oddly comforting, even though their relationship was clearly toxic.
I loved how the story made me hate him at first, then slowly understand him, and eventually feel for him. That emotional shift, the angst, the depth of his character which I haven’t experienced in any other book.
I’m not particularly looking for the taboo aspect as they were step siblings or the tragic ending, but I am looking for something with that same emotional intensity, complex characters, and gripping plot. If it helps, the closest vibe I can describe is like The Night We Met by Lord Huron and Blackout Days by Phantogram—I can't even listen to these without thinking about shay and mina ❤️🩹
If anyone has recommendations, I’d really appreciate it ( 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘢. 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥.)