The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Series: Standalone

Release Date: August 9th, 2016

Rating: 3.25/5 stars

The Hating Game was just OK for me, which is disappointing considering the many good reviews that it has. That being said, I’m not usually a fan of enemies-to-lovers romances, I find often there’s a reason you don’t like someone, and you should just stick with that reason. In this case, though, the heroine, Lucy, and hero, Joshua, just didn’t gel together; their personalities were like night and day, which caused Joshua to be a dick to Lucy, and then the rest is history.

Lucy was an excellent and fleshed out character. She was this uber-nice, sweet, people-pleaser that strived to make other people feel better about themselves. However, I felt at times that Thorne went so far as to make Lucy a doormat in certain aspects–like when Joshua was dissing her family’s strawberry farm. If anyone made fun of my family that wasn’t a friend, I would so go off on them!

I understood that the whole enemies-to-lovers aspect of The Hating Game was the main so-called relationship hurdle, but there were times when Joshua just went way too far. Like he went from witty, bratty banter to downright mean. And for someone like Lucy, who originally only wanted to be Joshua’s friend, it hurt reading that. Also, the author adds to the competitive, hate-filled relationship by placing her two MCs in competition with each other for the job of CFO (I think). Which means one of them would be the other’s boss (worst case scenario when you’re enemies 4 eva).

I liked how the author introduced an alternate love interest. It adds another layer of complexity since you start seeing that Joshua’s not just a dick: he’s pulling the infantile move where the boy likes a girl, so he pulls her hair on the playground. One aspect of The Hating Game that flat out annoyed me was when they both acknowledged they were attracted to each other Lucy kept insisting they would only ‘get together’ (wink wink) once (to get it out of their systems–how clichéd). Joshua, of course, kept putting it off… even though Lucy would always find excuses to go over to his place.

Now, once they were kind of together, the next hurdle was so predictable once Joshua brought up how he and his brother are estranged. I’m not going to spoil it, but it’s definitely a trend I’ve seen a lot lately. It is annoying, especially since the author always adds drama by having the hero not tell the heroine, so she’s emotionally unprepared for the following situation (are you curious yet?). How Lucy reacted, I felt she was very authentic, since not only was she hurt and embarrassed, but she was angrier at Joshua than the situation. She thought that it was a reflection of how Joshua didn’t trust her, that she wasn’t worthy of him confiding in, which hurt her a lot. In the end, she obviously handles the situation very maturely. But, I have to say the best part of The Hating Game is when Lucy reams Joshua’s dad for being a jerk! Honestly, if you can read the book… I’d read it just to experience the fantastic way Lucy put Joshua’s dad in his place. It was utterly badass, especially for a girl who was quite a doormat to basically everyone else in the novel.

Overall, The Hating Game was OK. There were cute moments, and I liked each of the characters, but it didn’t “wow” me. To be honest, there were times when I thought Joshua wasn’t worth that much trouble. The Hating Game worked out well though; ‘cute’ summarises it best.

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