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Reviews by Hayley R

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The Hating Game
by Sally Thorne
A love- hate relation with this book. (6/14/2021)
The novel follows the relationship of Lucy and Josh rivals in life and the "workplace." I put workplace in brackets because the two leads rarely do anything but stare at each other and play immature games in the same vein as 2 year old boy pulling the hair of a girl he has a crush on. Yet, they some how are up for a major promotion. Can I work here? Seems like there is a lot of drinking on the job. One day during a team building paintball day Lucy feels ill and Josh show his "sensitivity" by taking care of her. I put sensitivity in brackets because l'm tired of women giving men an award for showing basic human decency.
Other then the annoying cliche story there is a odd amount of nice guy bashing in this book. What a weird stance to take by the author. Lucy is used as the barometer of why nice is a bad thing to be since her people pleasing tendencies cause people to walk all over her. I'm sorry but the author is mistaking insecure weakness for kindness.
At one point Josh tries to gain the readers sympathy by mentioning how upset he gets when people comment on how handsome he is because he's always used for his looks and then left because he has a bad personality? You mean you won the genetic lottery and the one thing you are capable of changing is what turns people away.
Overall, the book had some really good moments. But the starting 50 pages of the book I rushed through, because I just didn't connect with the characters. The other half was better. I'll always skip through some chapters, but I'll read it again.
I do believe the book is over-hyped.
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