[Review] The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Rating: 4 stars

Published: August 9th 2016

Goodreads Synopsis:

Nemesis (n.) 1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.2) A person’s undoing3) 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.

This was so good! I'd been eyeing it at my local thrift bookstore for so long, and I'm glad that I got it. The Hating Game is about two executive assistants who downright hate each other, Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman. They're made out to be opposites of each other (initially) - Lucy is sweet and colorful, while Josh is cutthroat and exacting. But over the course of the novel, their relationship paves way to sexual tension when a chance at a promotion is announced, and the two of them turn it into a competition. Whoever gets the job must leave the office!


This was such an enjoyable read of the enemies to friends to lovers trope. The slow-paced sexual tension was the best, and honestly, this is much more preferable than reading a bajilion sex scenes. I mean, there are several cliched office romance scenes - kissing in the elevator, the paintball scene (which gave me The Office vibes for some reason), taking care of the sick heroine, the wedding date - but even though I've read these before, these were all enjoyable and I just loved how their relationship shifted over the course of the novel. Plus, Josh's nickname for Lucy - Shortcake - is so adorable.

"You like Doctor Josh... I like prissy retro librarian Lucy. Silk-cashmere Lucy. That's my kink. A pencil in your hair, grilling a department head on absentee stats for last quarter."

And Lucy is such a great, relatable heroine. I can understand completely why she's a people pleaser (she's lonely, she doesn't have the funds to see her parents all the time, she's so busy working to focus on her social life, etc). It was fantastic to see her morph into someone who can take charge and stand up for herself, and even more so, find her best friend in Josh.

"You're chronically addicted to making people adore you." The way he says it makes me feel a little sick.
"Well excuse me for doing my best to maintain a good reputation. For trying to be positive. You're addicted to making people hate you, so what a pair we are."
I sit down and tap my computer mouse about ten times as hard as I can. His words sting. Joshua is like a mirror that shows me all the bad parts of myself. It's school all over again. Tiny, runt-of-the litter Lucy using her pathetic cuteness to avoid being destroyed by the big kids. I've always been the pet, the lucky charm, the one being pushed on the swing or pulled in a wagon. Carried and coddled and perhaps I am a little pathetic. 

"And I'm so lonely sometimes I could cry. I lost my best friend. I spend all my time with a huge frightening man who wants to kill me, and he's probably my only friend now, even though he doesn't want to be. And it breaks my heart." 

Even more than that - their chemistry was the best! They bounce off each other perfectly! I can't! get! enough! I can see why the two of them bring out the best in each other. Lucy has such a desire to please other people that she gives in to many of her employees. But it is with Josh's encouraging that she finally can say no to others taking advantage of her. I even loved Josh as an LI, because, again, his past makes sense for his character + the incorporation of a former premed person with big family expectations is extremely relatable.

Also, and this is super important, but Josh is totally respectful of her and her boundaries, even in the midst of their Hating Game.

My only issue was that the sexual tension kind of devolved into the second half of the novel, once Josh and Lucy stopped hating each other. I wanted more of that! Not necessarily the hating, but the build-up and slow-burn that came with the hating.

As always, romances have the HEA, and it always works out for everyone, but this ties it up so nicely that I can't complain about it. A bit sad that they didn't have their competition, but I'm super happy Lucy will most likely get that promotion.

I just want to say, I love romance novels with this cover format.