The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on August 9th 2016
Genres: Romance
Pages: 384
Format: ebook
Source: Bought
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Nemesis (n.)
1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.
2) A person’s undoing
3) Joshua Templeman

Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She’s charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.

Trapped in a shared office together 40 (OK, 50 or 60) hours a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. Lucy can’t let Joshua beat her at anything—especially when a huge new promotion goes up for the taking.

If Lucy wins this game, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign. So why is she suddenly having steamy dreams about Joshua, and dressing for work like she’s got a hot date? After a perfectly innocent elevator ride ends with an earth shattering kiss, Lucy starts to wonder whether she’s got Joshua Templeman all wrong.

Maybe Lucy Hutton doesn’t hate Joshua Templeman. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.

The Hating Game, Sally Thorne’s debut novel, has been generating a lot of buzz lately.  I kept seeing it mentioned on my Twitter feed so I decided to check it out.  It’s not my typical read but I ended up loving it and I’m glad I branched out a bit for this one.

Pros:

• Characters:  Lucy and Joshua are the main characters here and honestly, there weren’t really any other characters I cared that much about.  It’s not that the others characters sucked, it’s just that Lucy and Josh really took the spotlight and their story was the one I really cared about.  Lucy seemed really carefree at first.  She was a total sweetheart but also a little bit of a pushover.  She let people (other than Josh) walk all over her.  She wanted everyone to like her and she put her own needs second because of that.  She was lonely and homesick and totally overworked.  She just hid it really well.  Josh was an ass and it was pretty easy to see that it was because he had feelings for Lucy.  I admit, I didn’t care much for Josh’s approach.  He was just another person who didn’t treat Lucy right.  Everything made more sense once more of his story came out but I still didn’t approve of his mean streak towards her.  However, that’s not to say that I didn’t still like him because I totally did.

• Banter: Josh and Lucy may not have been nice to each other and I may have had some issues with how they treated one another but the banter between them was too perfect.  Josh may have been mean but Lucy could hold her own against him.  She always had a sassy comeback for anything he may have said.  Even as their relationship changed, the banter never did.  It was easy to see from the start that they had chemistry but it really showed when they were going back and forth in a battle of wits.  They were pretty evenly matched.

• Romance:  I’m torn here because for a while it seemed like nothing happened but I also liked that Sally Thorne took the time to build up to their relationship.  I don’t think I would have found it as easy to believe if it just popped up at the very start of the book.  The build up was one of the best parts.  However, the sexual tension between Josh and Lucy had me wanting to shove them together from the very start.  It was just so easy to see that they needed to get together!  And boy did they ever.  If I thought they had chemistry when they were just bickering, it was 10 times better when they finally got together.

Cons:

• There wasn’t really anything I absolutely hated about this book.  All my problems with it were already mentioned.  Yes, Josh was kind of jerk.  The secondary characters were a little non-existent and I couldn’t find much to make me care about them.  These were all little things though and they didn’t detract much from my enjoyment of the book.

Overall, The Hating Game really did impress me.  Josh and Lucy are right up there with some of my favorite couples.  I’m quite eager to see what Sally Thorne is going to do next.

Overall reaction:

What others are saying about The Hating Game:

Harlequin Junkie’s review: “The Hating Game turned out to be quite a lovely adventure.”

Book Thingo’s review: “I’m not yet convinced this book is a keeper for me, but it gets pretty damn close.”