Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - The Trouble with Hating You

I don't find the plot points around abuse and toxic men unrealistic, unfortunately, and I did end up loving Jay's family and their warmth. Jay and Liya were mildly annoying, but for the most part I enjoyed their relationship. I can't speak for the accuracy of the cultural depictions, but they seemed to work well.

My main issue is with the writing. There is too much description in some parts and not nearly enough in others. For example, I still have no idea how Liya's career progressed or why Jay worked in Liya's office instead of his firm's building. I'm also not sure why the readers got a graphic depiction of childbirth and a lot of sexual tension/thoughts only to have the sex happen behind closed doors. (I completely missed it until one of the characters mentioned it.)

I'd still try Preeti's book because I thought she was Liya's most compelling friend, but the writing didn't work for me.

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aliciachauhan_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

what can I say about this book? this was the first time reading a book where South Asians were the maim characters specifically Hindu gujarati therefore I felt like i could really relate to it. it was incredibly great to read about things I could specifically relate to such as traditions and beliefs so I felt a lot more connected to the characters than ever. I strongly felt a connection towards Liya as she has the same view as me on marriage and children within an Indian household and wider society. I just hope one day I would would able to experience this type of love in real life because this book was truly beautiful.

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brokenbodybitch's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.25

I did enjoy the book, however I do want to put a warning in here that it is a much heavier book then I was anticipating and the content warnings shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The romance in this book is pretty good, the chemistry between the characters is definitely well written and at times, they do questionable things but generally there is some reasoning (in this book the reason is very often a trauma response or something related to fears and trauma) that makes it so you can still root for the MC or LI. I really enjoy how you can tell their upbringing and what they went through up till now really motivated their actions and often times, you can see the bouncing ball of oh well this is because of this and stuff like that you aren’t left wondering what possessed them to do whatever they did.

I am not south Asian so I can’t speak on the accuracy or quality of the rep but I think the family dynamics in this book were really well done, yes don’t get me wrong a lot of the family was just straight up insufferable and I would gladly like to clock her dad in the face, however the dynamics and relationships between characters felt very real and they stayed true throught the book. I find when some authors try to write family dynamics with generational trauma and abuse and heavier more complicated things like that they will sometimes have these happy endings that while nice, ultimately don’t seem all that realistic, where as in this book her father is vile her entire childhood (for whatever reasons) and he didn’t have this seemingly instant magical turn around, his actions lined up with how his character had been set up from the beginning, and that was with all the characters I can think of.

I really enjoyed this book, yes it is a romance but it also deals with trauma from many many different angles as well as having South Asian representation. At times it reads a little more like a YA/NA romance but all in all, the characters have clear and developed backstories and it deals with trauma from so many sides that it felt like it had another purpose beyond the romance.

Extra CW/TW:
The biggest ones to be aware of are SA between an adult and minor, being told you are lying about it and other horrible things along those lines by many people but especially parental figures, and the trauma that goes along with SA, in particular childhood SA. It is handled fairly well by the end of the book and does have a positive ending but it can be very heavy at times; and I can’t speak on childhood SA but from a general SA trauma perspective it was pretty accurately portrayed. Again I’m not the authority on this, but I don’t think it is harmful rep by any means just very possibly triggering for someone with those potential triggers. It’s not a bad book I don’t think, just be very cautious going into it

Content Warnings