The Hating Game: A Novel

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She can barely afford her tiny apartment and crappy car, but he’s out driving a sports car and living in a super nice place, without, it’s implied, getting any money from his parents (which, honestly, he shouldn’t be considering that he’s a grown-ass man. Yes he was kind and helpful to Lucy, but I wanted to shove him down to the ground and instead push Josh into her face and scream pick him! I doubt any romance will ever be a 5-star read for me, because the inevitable predictability with the genre spoils total enjoyment. He’s broody and a bit of a jackass, but he’s also really thoughtful and sweet and kind and vulnerable. so it’s not surprising that after hours she climbs into colorful fictional worlds of her own creation.

And she played up the whole “little kid” aspect of being small so much that it was a bit weird at times (almost as weird as her obsession with Smurfs…). I’ve already talked about how much i love their chemistry and romance, but i honestly can’t emphasise it enough.More bizarre quotes: "His sweat smells like rainwater and cedar, leaving a faint rosemary-pine tingle in my nostrils. I don’t want to spoil the discovery for yourself, but it’s definitely worth reading if you like discovering what makes a character tick, what’s happening beneath icy eyes.

That's such a weird term and it just shows me the heights people want to go to describe white people. ANYWAY, The Hating Game is an enemies/nemesis to lovers romance book which surprised me in a few ways. Lucy’s dilemma of how their relationship will work and her fear of losing another person close to her was realistic. Sometimes he seemed kind of aggressive (a few times Lucy for sure thinks he is going to kill her and that’s just not very rom-commy to me) or pushy, which I did not love. Although the author made it very clear that Josh is supposed to be some sort of demi-god, that still doesn’t justify Lucy’s obsession with him.I honestly adored this book, and yes, it is a tad bit silly and pretty damn unrealisitic, but it’s a really fun and drama filled time pass book to get your hands on.

Author: Sally Thorne lives in Canberra, Australia, and spends her days writing funding submissions and drafting contracts (yawn! Some elements are annoyingly repetitive (Lucy being short and Josh being big and having a good body), but ultimately, it makes sense in terms of the dynamic between them and both of them protecting each other in different ways and in different situations. If your reading catnip includes dialogue that crackles, cranky heroes with hidden depths, and vivid, self-assured heroines who take exactly zero crap from said hero, find yourself a copy of this book immediately. Our hero has now seen the heroine at her most vulnerable worst with most of her dignity pooled at the bottom of the bucket she is hugging along with the rest of the expunged contents of her stomach and even so, despite the heroine’s vomit trajectory, none will even fleck his teflon self and most importantly, he will love her even more.I can’t stand it when fiction pits women against each other, but this was one of the worst cases of that same trope reversed– and displaying it with men instead of women didn’t make me feel any better about it. I never got to the conclusion of the story, but no explanation of his behaviour would expunge his behaviour enough. We all make inferences about other people from the evidence we’re given, but so much of this story rests on the reader believing Lucy about the other characters’ personalities and motives when in actuality her guess is as good as anyone’s. Mostly it’s a bunch of immature behavior that takes up so much time, it’s a wonder either of them gets any work done at all. The irrepressible Lucy and her starchy, growly counterpart Joshua will win you over from the opening page.

He seemed to have so much going on under the surface and I desperately wanted to know all of his thoughts. Stuff like "this desk is very manly, leather is very masculine and manly, this is very male, your bedroom is so feminine. It becomes flagrantly obvious very early on in the story that Josh is not the hard-faced person he makes himself out to be and when a surprising, unexpected (and don't forget steamy) kiss occurs between the pair the dynamic of the couple completely shifts and we're thrown into what feels like an alternate universe where we find that Joshua Templeman's hard exterior has all along been protecting the softest of centres. We’re expected to feel sorry for him because he’s so hot, but actually shy and with self-esteem issues which, in this bizarro world, are valid excuses for men (and it’s always men) not to try to behave like decent human beings. It isn’t until Lucy discovers the truth about Joshua that she realises her own actions have been deeply judgemental of this soft/hard man whose family problems cut to the core of his being.

The Hating Game is a feel-good and uplifting read that I can guarantee you’ll want to read again, as soon as you’ve finished. We love the r-word being used in the context of Josh telling Lucy he’s loved her since the moment he saw her. After they kiss again, Josh asks her to sort out things with Danny first, as he does not want to be just a fling for her. I loved the cast in the movie, Austin and Lucy are perfect, but let’s just say the book is far much better than the movie. The weekend comes up and Lucy finds herself as Joshua’s plus one at his brother’s wedding as he needs her for support.