SUMMARY
Nemesis (n.)
1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome;
2) A person’s undoing;
3) Joshua Templeman.
Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman hate each other. Not dislike. Not begrudgingly tolerate. Hate. And they have no problem displaying their feelings through a series of ritualistic passive aggressive maneuvers as they sit across from each other, executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. Lucy can’t understand Joshua’s joyless, uptight, meticulous approach to his job. Joshua is clearly baffled by Lucy’s overly bright clothes, quirkiness, and Pollyanna attitude.
Now up for the same promotion, their battle of wills has come to a head and Lucy refuses to back down when their latest game could cost her her dream job…But the tension between Lucy and Joshua has also reached its boiling point, and Lucy is discovering that maybe she doesn’t hate Joshua. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.
Image and summary from Goodreads.
REVIEW
I finally got around to reading The Hating Game and I decided to listen to it as an audiobook during my long haul flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires. With so many hours to fill, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finally experience one of the most talked about romance books of the last few years.
This was also my first Sally Thorne book, so I went into it with pretty high expectations after hearing so many readers rave about it.
Unfortunately, it just didn’t quite mesh with me.
The audiobook itself was really well done and I have no complaints about the narration. It was easy to listen to and the narrator did a great job bringing the characters to life. If anything kept me going, it was definitely the audiobook performance.
The biggest issue for me was that I struggled to connect with Lucy and Josh. I could understand why their dynamic works for a lot of readers, but for me I never became fully invested in either of them or their relationship. Because I wasn’t emotionally attached to the characters, I found it difficult to stay engaged with the story.
I’ll be honest, there were quite a few moments during the flight where I seriously considered giving up and marking this one as a DNF. The story just wasn’t grabbing me and I kept wondering if I should move on to something else. In the end, I decided to stick with it, partly because I had plenty of flight time left and partly because I wanted to see why this book is so loved.
I’m glad I finished it because I did enjoy the ending more than I expected, but overall it never completely won me over. Sometimes you can appreciate why a book has such a loyal fan base while also recognising that it simply wasn’t the right fit for you and I think that’s exactly how I feel about The Hating Game.
This was a 3 star read for me. While it wasn’t a romance that I’ll be thinking about long after finishing it, I’m still glad I finally gave it a chance. It may not have been my favourite introduction to Sally Thorne’s writing, but I’d still be open to trying another one of her books in the future.
-Rachelle
I’m on Instagram at @rachellesbookshelf
