Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Dear Love, I Hate You

this would’ve been a 4 star if it weren’t for the final 30% of the book. I was so intrigued off the bat and couldn’t put the book down, until about 70% of the way through.

such good use of childhood friends to enemies to lovers & anonymity/letter writing tropes

I definitely think this book should be advertised as New Adult, not Young Adult, and would be more believable if set on a university campus. The characters, their lifestyle, their development, and the plot did not line up with high school aged characters. It made it feel disconnected and unrealistic.

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gemin1reader's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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virgoupallnight's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The style of this book is very Wattpad-esque.

Girl “doesn’t” like boy, meet cute, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl break up and get back together several times, happily ever after

. Don’t get me wrong I love a cheesy romance as much as the next person, but it becomes exhausting when every bad thing in the world that could happen, happens to both main characters and somehow every issue is forced into resolution by the end of the book. In several cases, it seems like the author just tired of the problem that she gave the character so she created the shortest, lowest effort resolution to move on from that issue.

For example when Aveena makes up with her mother after nine years of neglect, all it took was her mother to cry and show that she missed her dad? Maybe I’m just being cynical but I feel like the damage and emotional abuse/neglect wouldn’t just vanish like that. Or consider the fact that she was drugged and assaulted and within hours of waking up was basically over it and DTF with Xavier? I mean everyone handles trauma in their own way but the fact that it’s so casually glossed over and then never brought up again to me means that there could’ve been a better way to bring the two characters back together.

I believe that if the characters hadn’t been given every conflict possible the author could have developed some of the more character-building trauma in their lives.

I mean for Pete’s sake you don’t find out that Xavier was injured in the boating accident (or even on the boat when it happened) that killed Finn’s mom until almost the end of the book and then several pages later that trauma is being sexualized by Aveena before it’s pretty much never mentioned again

. Overall, I think this book should have gone through a bit more editing, but it was still a decent read with a professional feel to the writing style. I finished the book and overall thought it was decent which is why I still gave it a 3/5, but I don’t think it will be one of those books that I pickup and comfort read.

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