All of Ana Huang’s ‘Twisted’ Series Books, Ranked

The final book in the Twisted series, Twisted Lies, comes in at the bottom of our list. For us, Twisted’s biggest strength lies in the development of its characters. Unfortunately, these two missed the mark.

While Stella and Christian are the last to get Twisted’s main character treatment, we can’t say we felt the same anticipation to get to know them as we had with the other main characters. Ultimately, Stella, the tenderhearted social media influencer at the center of Twisted Lies, only exists in the background of the first three books, while the other FMCs have their moments throughout all the books. At the same time, Christian is introduced at the end of Twisted Games but only comes across as an extension of Rhys (the MMC of Twisted Games) until we enter his POV in Twisted Lies.

When it comes to the plot, we adore a “guy falls first” trope (Funny Story, anyone?), but it wouldn’t be fair to say Christian simply fell. From the moment we entered Christian’s POV, he was alreadyobsessed with Stella, allowing her to water his plants as payment for the expensive apartment she rents in his building.

Stella believes that a relationship will bolster her follower count, and Christian claims that he needs a date for his billionaire functions (sure you do, my dude), but it’s clear from the beginning that their faux relationship is anything but fake on his end, even if he won’t admit it. As the two begin faking dating (an aspect of the story that we really enjoyed) it’s clear that Christian is far more invested in the relationship than Stella is.

As Stella reveals to Christian that an anonymous stalker from her past has resurfaced, their fake relationship grows more real. However, the spotlight on the stalker’s obsession with Stella does not bode well for Christian, and as a reader, the sentiment of Christian’s obsession with Stella couldn’t come across as different from the stalker’s. While Huang did address this dissonance, Christian’s POV was often not the vibe we wish it was.

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Bookending the series, the book that started it all comes in at third on our list. Twisted Love is fun, spicy, and, at times, rather thrilling, but there were definitely moments that left us wanting more.

Alex and Ava, the main characters of the story, are classic Anaverse leads. Alex is a brooding billionaire with a vengeance who has yet to be satisfied, and Ava is a bright and bubbly photographer with unexplainable trauma. Forced together by Ava’s brother, Josh, who leaves his best friend to watch over his little sister while he travels, the unlikely duo start as enemies. However, as Ava’s friends challenge her to undergo Operation Emotion, a mission to draw human emotions like sadness and fear from her stoic quasi-babysitter Alex, the pair’s mutual lust for one another turns into a forbidden romance.

For us, the best part of Twisted Love was discovering the main characters’ backstories. Ava’s story begins with nightmares that she cannot explain and surrounded by amnesia. At the same time, Alex had lost his entire family at a young age and vowed to avenge them. The culmination of Ava’s memory returning and Alex revealing the long game of his revenge was *chef’s kiss.* However, watching that payoff lead to an eleventh-hour break was not.

While Alex absolutely did Ava dirty, and forgiveness needs to be earned, we found the final chapters lacked the magic of the rest of the book.

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Step aside Mia Thermopolis, Bridget von Ascheberg has come to town.

When we learned that the sequel to Twisted Love would follow Ava’s roommate, Bridget, the princess of Eldorra, and her bodyguard, Rhys, we were stoked. In Twisted Games, Bridget grows from a spunky college student, evading her bodyguard’s strict rules, to the crown princess of an entire country. Now that’s character development.

A massive reason Twisted Games won such a high ranking comes down to two words: Rhys Larsen. Starting as total enemies, Bridget sees Rhys’ constant presence as a burden. However, as the two start to take down their walls, they form what is arguably the sweetest relationship in the Twisted series. While the other MMCs lean into the darkness of their brooding, dominant archetypes, Rhys is a protective, stand-up guy who only wants what’s best for his princess.

Never imagining herself as queen, Bridget always assumed she would be free to live a fairly normal life. But when her brother abdicates, she is met with a wholly different reality. The real drama of Twisted Games comes when Bridget goes from the spare to the heir, and the duo is forced to move back to Eldorra. To quote a classic, yet underrated film, Barbie’s The Princess and the Pauper teaches us that “duty means doing the things your heart may well regret.” For Bridget, this means marrying someone with royal blood.

All together, Bridget and Rhys are the kind of couple that you can’t help but root for and their light-hearted love story comes in at just below our top spot.

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Coming off of the high of Twisted Games, the third Twisted story had major shoes to fill and, honestly, Huang’s enemies-to-lovers, heist-filled romance does not disappoint.

Two of the most beloved Twisted characters, Josh and Jules, take center stage in Twisted Hate. From the moment Josh met his little sister Ava’s roommate, he knew she was bad news. Years of arguing and vitriol later, the duo find themselves working in the same hospital and come to a peculiar agreement: to be able to stand spending so much time with each other, they must become enemies with benefits.

As the two prove that love and hate are far more similar than they once believed, Jules and Josh form a relationship that is equal parts spicy and adorkable, revealing that sweet Josh in the rest of the books can definitely turn it on behind closed doors. However, just as the two begin to fall for each other, Jules’ dark past comes to light with the return of her first boyfriend and a threat of blackmail.

It wouldn’t be Twisted if there wasn’t a tragic backstory threatening present relationships, and Twisted Hate went there, taking the drama we’d come accustomed to a step further. As it turns out, the only way to free herself from her ex’s blackmail is to deceive Josh, teaching us that secrets are no fun unless they lead to a wild heist sequence, a shocking betrayal, and the clumsy theft of an ugly yet priceless painting.

While the Twisted series is best read in chronological order, if you’re only planning on picking up one, Twisted Hate is hands down the most fun read of the bunch.

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