Like so much of life – relationships, career moves – reading is all about timing. Sometimes you’re in the mood for a particular kind of book, and sometimes you’re not. It’s just timing. This is why I don’t plan my TBR – I just let it happen.
Recently, I had finished my audiobook and started the one I had planned to read next, a memoir about a man who had been on death row for 30 years for a crime that he didn’t commit. I listened to the first half hour or so, then picked up the print to see what I thought, and then came to the conclusion that it was just the wrong book for me at that time. It was well-written and extremely compelling, but I was too stressed out and preoccupied with life to get into it.
Instead, I picked up something light and fun, and it turned out to be exactly the right choice.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is about Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman, two junior executives at a publishing house who are bitter, angry rivals. They report to co-CEOs, a management structure dictated by the merger of two companies, and spend their days sitting outside their bosses’ offices playing immature games designed to unnerve, infuriate and enrage each other. Whether it’s staring, eavesdropping or making snarky comments, every action taken by these two is meant to sabotage and destroy the other.
So we all know what’s going to happen, right? But how Thorne gets Lucy and Josh from detesting each other to something very different is a great ride. Their banter is genuinely funny and clever, and the buildup of the physical tension between Lucy and Josh makes the pages turn quickly. I would have liked a *little* more hating – maybe two more chapters – before the wall began to crumble, but that’s a minor quibble. I also think The Hating Game wrapped up too quickly – as readers we should have had a little more time to enjoy its hard-won glory. But in all it was a great palate-cleanser. Every now and again, I need something like this to balance the depressing weight of my usual fare.
I listened to The Hating Game on audio (except when I just couldn’t put it down and picked up the print). I know I’m enjoying an audiobook when I bring my phone into the shower to listen. Katie Schorr was the perfect Lucy. I can’t imagine any other voice for that character!
If you’re in the mood for something light that will distract and entertain you, try The Hating Game. I was surprised to like it as much as I did.