When I started hearing about all these “rom-coms”, I had mixed feelings. I love my romantic comedy films, so obviously I’m excited about those plots showing up in books again. My misgivings are based on the fact that these books used to be called “chick lit” and were mocked. I kind of hate any category title that invites people to pigeonhole another person’s reading and judge them for it. I don’t hate the category itself.
The Hating Game came to me by recommendation of Sophie Jordan (If you haven’t read her, you’re missing out. Check out her titles here.). Sophie has never steered me wrong on a book recommendation, so I picked it up, but then it sat on my shelf forever like so many books end up doing because I am always finding more books I want to read, working in a bookstore and all.
I wish I had read this book sooner. It was so much fun! I love the enemies-to-lovers trope (except in cases where they’re enemies because of some type of abuse done by one party to the other, but that’s another blog), and this book does it deliciously well. There’s a lot of heat, but not a ton of actual sex scenes. I particularly enjoy the build in my romance novels more than the actual event, so I loved this. It’s fun and funny, but the two main characters have real issues they have to work through to get to their HEA, and they are definitely not the problems you expect them to have. More than anything, I loved being surprised by the internal conflict in a romance novel. Congratulations to Sally Thorne for not going with stereotypes!
It felt good to get back into a contemporary romance novel, and I’m glad it was one so spectacular.
3 Boys 3 Billion Books 