Book Review: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Title: The Hating Game

Author: Sally Thorne

Publisher: William Morrow

Date: August 9th, 2016

Format: eARC

Source: from Publisher for a review

 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): Debut author Sally Thorne bursts on the scene with a hilarious and sexy workplace comedy all about that thin, fine line between hate and love.

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.

Review:

Romantic, funny and simply adorable!

You know you have a great book in your hands when after reading only the first two lines it pulls you in and it does not let go of your attention.
That’s what happened to me after I started this book: I just wanted to read, read and read until I finish the very last page.
Unfortunately, life got in a way so I didn’t have as much time to read.
However, I caught myself more then few times, while not reading, intensively thinking about this story.

In The Hating Game, we follow Lucy, a 28 years old woman who works in publishing company. Working in publishing was her dream since she was a litlle girl and she is so proud to be where she is, and to feel loved by all of her colleagues.

There’s only one person she does not get along with: Joshua. He is the guy she shares her office with and even if he is a good looking guy, she can’t stand him.
Together, they are playing „the game“ known only to them: they stare at each other, mirror each other, just to see how the other one will react.

“I have a theory. Hating someone feels disturbingly similar to being in love with them.”

Saying that I liked this book would be an understatement. I loved it, loved it, loved it!

Lucy was such a great narrator. She was not only likeable, but was also funny. She is a good person, and what I liked the most was that you could see her goodness from her actions.
There was only one time when one character told her that she was good at heart, but mostly, the author showed us her goodness intead of just saying she was good.

Joshua is a misterious guy in all his glory. From the begginig of the story it was hard to tell anything about him, even though it was obvious there was more then meets the eye.
I like how we got to meet him slowly, discovering his personality layer at time.

The Hating Game has one of the best character developments I have read in a book lately.
It surely has the best character development I read in a standalone novel this year.

The romantic aspect of the story is so well done. The attraction was obvious from the beggining but it took time for love to develop.

The writing style is really good. As I already said, the author easily grabs a reader’s attention with her words and the whole novel reads pretty easily and quickly.
This novel made me laugh so many times I can’t even tell you!

The story itself was so good and I would like to see it one day being turned into a movie.

This is a debut novel and I can’t wait to see what Sally Thorne will write next because this was amazing!
Remember her name because I have a feeling she’ll be well known author one day.
I am so glad to say I added her on my „can’t-wait-for-the-next-book“ list.

If you’re a rom-com fan, do yourself a favor and read this book! Trust me, it’s a muss!