The Hating Game Review
Charming and nice, Lucy Hutton believes these things will be enough to get her a corner office at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone loves her- well, with the exception of cold and intimidating Joshua Templeman. Not that she likes him at all. Forced to share an office for abnormally long hours, they are always playing games designed to one-up each other. Lucy refuses to let him win any of the games, but the competition reaches a new extreme when a promotion opens up. Lucy winning will make her Joshua's boss, but losing has a steep price: she must resign. At the time she needs to focus most, she begins to have steamy dreams about Joshua. After they share a kiss, Lucy begins to think she may have misunderstood Joshua this whole time. Maybe they don't hate each other. Or maybe she is being fooled while playing the biggest game of all.
Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:
I absolutely adored this book! It was so entertaining in more than one way. It was humorous and adorable at so many points. I love how it is a romance book at heart, but it does have a plot outside of the romance. I was pulled into this book very fast, and once it got me invested it didn't let go. I never wanted to put it down to do anything! This was my introduction to Sally Thorne, and I feel it's safe to say that I will definitely be reading her other novels. If they are anything like this, I will adore them as well.
Our two main characters, Lucy and Josh, are such great characters and are written in a way that is completely realistic, something I feel tends to not happen with romances (let's be real- the perfect men and women we read about in romances do not exist because nobody is perfect). Both characters had the perfect balance of positive and negative traits. I especially loved getting to know Josh. It was very enjoyable to learn how deep he truly is and to see how his rough exterior melted away bit by bit as we spent more time with him. Lucy is so loveable and quirky, but my favorite part about her was how she balanced her fun and bubbly personality with professionalism.
The romance was written so well. The relationship truly showed what a real relationship is like. There were ups and downs and plenty of pure gushing moments. The two balance each other out very well, and I was able to support their relationship pretty easily because of it. While there were some of *those* moments (though nothing extreme), I loved how that wasn't the center of the book or relationship. The characters are complex, and this makes the romance so much better because their personalities and depth became the focus of their relationship. Lucy and Josh make for the perfect enemies to lovers trope.
The book was written in a very fun and interesting way. I absolutely loved Thorne's writing style! She was able to make me feel so many emotions from gushing and laughing to distress and intrigue. She certainly knows how to write all types of scenes and make the reader invested.
Overall, this book was so fun and unputdownable (I'm not sure if that's a real word, but I'm gonna use it anyways because it's the perfect description). Thorne's writing style is great, the characters were complex and loveable, and the relationship was realistic but adorable. This is a really feel-good book in the end that I will definitely use if I ever want a fast-paced read that is guaranteed to put a smile on my face. I very highly recommend this book. It nailed all of its goals!
Rating: 5/5 stars
Author: Sally Thorne
# of Pages: 365 (paperback)
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance, Humor
Series: Standalone
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