The Hating Game

His Blue Bedroom



“Watching you pretend to hate that nickname is the best part of my day.”

I decided to start my review of the hating game because it truly reminds me of the play ground in grade school where guys would pick on the girls as a way to show they were interested and while some girls truly hated it some actually secretly loved it. I think there should be a bit of Lucy Hutton in all of us and I will tell you why. Lucy Hutton always dreamt of working in the publishing industry, as an avid reader her love for all things books was greater than anything she'd ever known, being hired by Gamin Publishing was everything she had ever imagined, but when her beloved company was on the brink of collapse and merger with another struggling publishing house, Bexley Books, became her reality, her career goals stayed alive, just barely, with a host of personnel cuts and the loss of her best friend Val, her work world was rocked. The day she met Joshua Templeman seemed like a possible new beginning, but his cool disregard of her almost immediately sent shockwaves through her usually cherry demeanor, a war began that day and with every day that past their mutual dislike of each other grew. He tries to break her and she lives to hate him. it's a rollercoaster that I didn't want to get off of until the very end. I started the journey with Sally Thorne a bit backwards because I was first introduced to her with 99 Percent Mine. I however am so glad that I ended up coming back around and reading The Hating game because it is pure perfection.

“You've broken me down so completely, I can't even handle it when a guy tells me I'm beautiful.”

The Hating Game written in the first person point of view painted Lucy as both incredibly smart, and extremely funny, every snarky thought, every snappy comeback, every moment of despair mixed with joy as Joshua slowly became Josh in front of her eyes and ours. Every moment in this book served to cement my love of the author's words, I was invested immediately, but each new chapter brought with it feelings of awe, the more I read the deeper in love I fell, the more real Lucy and Joshua felt, the more their personalities jumped off the page and straight into my heart.

“I'm about to lose something I never had to begin with.”

The Hating Game is slow burn in the very best way, Thorne builds not only the connection between her hero and heroine but the readers attachment to them, their witty dialogue assisted to entice the reader into losing themselves in one of the best bouts of drawn out verbal foreplay that I have ever experienced. Usually when I enjoy a book it only serves to make me want to devour the words, here however I simultaneously wanted to speed read my way to end, and slowdown in order to savor every moment. I loved every second here, I wanted to drown in Thorne's words, I wanted to escape into Lucy and Joshua's world, stand in the corner, watching them like a creeper, I wanted to befriend them, I wanted to relax with Lucy over a glass of wine after a long day at work and get book recommendations from them both. , I wanted to know everything that happened in between every moment, every lost look, every sigh, every secret smile. I have slowly fallen in love with the beautiful and easy writing style that seems to be Sally Thorne's way and I can't wait to read more.