Trigger warning: Body image discussions and disordered eating.
This book was provided to me via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
Oh geez, I tried to get into this one. Really I did. But it was boring. I just didn’t like it and instead really enjoyed two other romances I read this past week much more. I think it’s just because Center had the character of Katie just doing the Too Stupid to Live (TSTL) thing and I just could not after a minute. Also, I just didn’t like all of the body image stuff that was going on and the fact Katie didn’t feel “beautiful” until Hutch. I just don’t know. This felt very paint by numbers to me and then off in some way that I can’t name.
“The Love Haters” follows Katie Vaughn. Katie is a video producer who is about to lose her job through a lay off unless she agrees to film Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The whole thing is really about how Katie starts to fall for Hutch, but she has begun the whole relationship with lies and continues with lying and doesn’t know how to stop and just be honest with him.
I just honestly had it with the lies and body image stuff a good 20 percent into this book. I started this way back when I first go it via NetGalley and then set it aside because it was driving me up the wall. I didn’t find Katie’s “lies by omission” cute and felt exhausted by the whole thing. Who acts this way? Also she mostly just thinks about how hot Hutch is at all times. Her personality (the little she was given) was grating after a bit.
Hutch was blah. There was zero chemistry between him and Katie. I just didn’t think the relationship felt real or earned. It just kind of happens. I don’t want struggle romances, but there has to be something to make me feel invested in the main characters in a romance. It can’t just be, I guess. You want to root for them.
The other characters in the book, Cole, Hutch’s aunt, were not given anything to do with, they definitely needed to be more developed.
The writing and flow was just off this whole book. If I really love a romance the book flies by. This one dragged.
The book was supposed to take place in Key West and I think other reviewers clocked it takes a while to get there.
The ending was a HEA (it’s Katherine Center people) but it just didn’t feel earned. Maybe because I disliked the entire premise of the book and two characters.