Hunting Adeline

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of gender and/or transgender discrimination, sexual violence and/or harassment, rape, mental illness, child abuse, suicidal ideation and/or self-harm, graphic violence, sexual content, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

The first part of Hunting Adeline, in which Adeline and Zade are separated and traumatized, emphasizes the effect that trauma has on a person’s self-esteem. Both Adeline and Zade see themselves as damaged or tarnished to the point that they are no longer worthy of their partner’s love. However, the memory of their relationship is also a powerful force of hope and resilience, with Zade hearing Adeline’s voice, and Adeline hearing Zade’s encouraging voice in her darkest moments. In the van on the way to Francesca’s house, Adeline hears Zade telling her to hold on, and she thinks, “[I]t feels so real. So soothing, that I fight to stay where I can hear him” (7). Even as Zade and Adeline fear that their trauma will affect their relationship, they cling to one another across the distance between them, using the memory of love to sustain themselves.

In Part 2, Carlton intensifies the novel’s examination of trauma’s long-term effects, for even Zade and Adeline’s reunion fails to erase their trauma, and Adeline remains haunted by Xavier’s violent abuse.