The Hating Game

 

The Hating Game
By: Sally Thorne
"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."

I'm a sucker for publishing house settings.  I'm also a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers trope so The Hating Game was a win-win for me.  I'm also giving this book brownie points for making the food pairing so easy.

Since Lucy's parents own a strawberry farm, you could pair any number of strawberry dishes with this book.  I decided to go with Strawberry Shortcake in honor of Josh's nickname for Lucy.

"Stop calling me shortcake."

I used this Strawberry Shortcake recipe from the Food Network.  It's a really simple recipe and I made it even simpler by using store-bought whipped cream.

If you haven't gotten enough of The Hating Game, I also created a menu inspired by the movie.  Not all of the recipes featured in the movie were present in the book, but it's the same strawberry-loving vibe so check it out.


The Hating Game: ★★★★☆
I'm a big fan of the enemies to lovers trope and this one was well done!  The banter and the games the main characters played were so entertaining. I can see the reasoning behind some of the negative reviews in that the author does spend an odd amount of time discussing physical features such as the size difference between Lucy and Josh, but it didn't overshadow my enjoyment of the book.  My only personal complaint is that this is the second book (the other was People We Meet on Vacation, in case you're curious) I've read lately that has the male lead taking care of the female lead while she is too sick to function.  I get that it's supposed to be sweet and indicate to us that Josh actually is a decent guy, but who let's their arch nemesis stay at their place all weekend while they puke their brains out?  Offer to drive me home, maybe drop some soup at the door, text me to see if I'm okay, but don't move in while I'm incapacitated! That being said I'm surprised that this was Sally Thorne's debut novel.  She really did a fantastic job.  The Hating Game was funny, pretty fast-paced, and quite steamy too.  I'll definitely be reaching for more of her novels in the future.


Check out The Hating Game movie here or check out some other Books+Bites posts.

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