Review: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

5 stars

Release Date: 9 August 2016

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. My opinion is my own. 

My romance catnip is where the hero is more aware of his feelings than the heroine and/or more invested in their relationship, so I nearly had to be hospitalised from catnip overdose while reading The Hating Game by Sally Thorne. I mentally placed it on my favourites shelf when I was only halfway through, and then, somehow, the second half got even better. Just to give you an indication of my insane love for this book, I'm a paragraph into this review, and I already feel all giddy reliving my reading experience. 

The Hating Game is about Lucy Hutton and Josh Templeman, who are the assistants to the to two co-CEOs of Bexley & Gamin publishing house. Bexley & Gamin was formed out of a merger of two separate mergers: Lucy and her co-CEO are from Gamin; Josh and his are from Bexley. They have different corporate cultures, and Lucy has hated Josh from the moment he walked into their shared office, when she smiled at him and he didn't smile back. Now, they spend their time playing games of brinkmanship and one-upmanship: The Staring Game, the HR Game, the How You Doing Game. Then, a new position is announced - Chief Operating Officer - and suddenly Josh and Lucy's games have real stakes, just as Lucy was starting to realise that Josh doesn't hate her the way she thought and maybe she doesn't hate him quite as much as she thought either.

That little blurb I've written above doesn't really do it justice, and it also implies that there's more of an element of sexist "he's mean to you because he likes you" than is really present. 

I've had big problems lately with the not-quite-redeemed hero, but Thorne has no trouble redeeming Josh. Once Josh realises that Lucy interprets his behaviour as enmity and standoffishness - and that this is affecting her self-perception of herself as a likable person - we begin to see a whole other side of him as tries to salvage their relationship and build something new and good. 

Lucy's relationship with Josh - where she gives as good as she gets - is markedly different to her relationship with others, where she values her reputation as a nice girl too much to rock the boat. I loved seeing her confidence grow as a result of Josh's support. In turn, Lucy's support was essential for Josh to face his family at his brother's wedding, and these make some of the book's best scenes. 

The whole thing is just insanely humorous and off-beat, and somehow manages to simultaneously have off-the-charts levels of sexual tension and sweetness. 

Thorne's writing is unique (maybe other people will think it's OTT, I don't know) but I thought it was perfect, both as writing and as the expression of a zany, Smurf-collecting, five-foot tall heroine. In fact, it's lucky I had a physical ARC, becuase I think if I'd had an e-copy I would have broken my Kindle highlighting all the beautiful turns of phrase. As it is, every second page ended up being dog-eared either because I loved the writing, or it was just too heartwarmingly cute, and I wanted to be able to find it again easily. Only, as it turns out, when you dog-ear everything, you can find nothing, so the joke's on me.  

I guess that's it, because I don't know what else to say. I feel like I used up all my praise on books less great than this one in the past and now I have no words that are strong enough to convey my feelings. Fangirl Dani out. 

EDIT 8/4/17: Apologies, Fangirl Dani didn't notice the problematic aspects in this book. Please see the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books review, and Silvana's review on Goodreads for details