This book isn’t normally my genre (contemporary, or contemporary romance). But I make exceptions if I’ve read and liked books by the author before, or if someone whose tastes that are similar to mine says a book is worth checking out. Dating You / Hating You fits into both categories. I loved this author duo’s YA book Autoboyography when I read it last month, and this book in particular was a favorite of y’all here at the CBR romance reading hivemind when it first came out. So I picked it up. And it was fun!
This wasn’t a perfect read for me, but I enjoyed it a lot. Evie and Carter have instant chemistry, and fun banter when they first meet, and you invest in their burgeoning affection for one another, just in time for their companies to merge (they’re both talent agents in Los Angeles) and for them to be set against one another by their dick, sexist boss. Whom I hate. I very much disliked him immediately, but then he picked up Evie’s donut and threw it in the trash and I LOST MY MIND.
The stressful work situation made me vicariously stressed, but it was always lightened by something, whether a prank war, or their obvious attraction to one another. I also liked reading about people in one of these books who did actual work, and did it competently.
I’m not sure how I felt about the Brad (the dick boss) resolution. I think I might have preferred a less dramatic confrontation. What actually happened seemed a bit too over the top and maybe undercut all the nice commentary on subtle, sexist behavior that women have to deal with in the workplace that the book had been doing up until then. But that was really my only complaint. Fun! And I think I will be reading outside my normal genres again, at least to read their Wild Season series, which has also gotten good reviews from my romance reading friends.