The Hating Game

'The Hating Game' first came off as an enemies-to-lovers kind of story, but I wouldn't entirely say it is.
There is undoubtedly dislike, passive aggressive manoeuvres, but definitely nothing that suggests the protagonists are enemies, or hate each other.

Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman barely tolerate each other, and they have no problem showing that.

Acting as assistants to co-CEOs of a barely surviving publishing company merged together, they have no problem showing just how much they dislike each other seeing that they sit opposite themselves everyday.
Lucy doesn't understand why Joshua is so uptight, performative, strict, and yet so meticulous and wholeheartedly committed and devoted to his job.
Joshua, on the other hand, is struggling to come to terms with how quirky Lucy is, and how she doesn't notice that she puts on overlybright clothes to work.

They show how much they can barely tolerate each other, with witty comments, snide remarks, and stare downs that are capable of burning holes through the walls of the publishing company they work in.
The stakes get higher, when they both have to battle for the same promotion. The tension between them becomes too thick to cut through, with both of them being too headstrong to back off.
Will Lucy and Joshua realize that their dislike towards each other hid more than each of them could think of?

Is it possible that Lucy and Joshua, who are complete polar opposites of each other would fall for themselves?
I would say 'The Hating Game ' gives off annoyance to lovers more than it gives off the enemies-to- lovers storyline.
When BookTok recommended this book, I was expecting a sensational, mind blowing plot.

Let me begin by saying that some parts of this novel absolutely did it for me, and some didn't . You're supposed to hate both Lucy and Joshua because of how awful they are to each other, however, I couldn't help but be entertained by the way they attempted to mess with each other and how much they gave HR nightmares with their childish pranks.

It was both entertaining and addicting.

There's also the fact that Lucy refuses to let Joshua beat her at anything, especially getting promoted to a position, where he might most likely become her boss.
She would rather resign!
However, I barely got through a few chapters before I decided I couldn't stand the plot.
Asides from the banter between Joshua and Lucy, which was somewhat entertaining, I couldn't stand the fake-hate, toxic, passionate thing that was occurring between these two characters.

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The messiness of their banter although entertaining,was clearly impacting their professionalism and the quality of their work.
The staring contests happened on company time. This is not entirely bad, except that the author made the staring contest look like something that happened throughout their work hours.
Logically, if they spend their time staring heatedly at each other for the most part of their work hours, what time do they have to do their actual jobs?

And let's not even get started on the obvious stereotypical portrayal of the corporate baddies versus the indie-publisher literalness.
Honestly, this novel barely gave me the sensational, mind blowing plot I expected, and I'm unsure if I'll be picking up any other book by the author.

Do I recommend? Barely. There were so many amazing ways the plot of this book would have turned out, but sadly, we would never get to know that.