Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren Published by Gallery Books Publication Date: June 6th 2017
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All’s fair in love and work. The first standalone romance by New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Beautiful Bastard) is a sexy, compulsively readable romantic comedy that dives headlong into the thrill and doubt of modern love.
Despite the odds against them from an embarrassing meet-awkward at a mutual friend’s Halloween party, Carter and Evie immediately hit it off. Even the realization that they’re both high-powered agents at competing firms in Hollywood isn’t enough to squash the fire.
But when their two agencies merge—causing the pair to vie for the same position—all bets are off. What could have been a beautiful, blossoming romance turns into an all-out war of sabotage. Carter and Evie are both thirtysomething professionals—so why can’t they act like it?
Can Carter stop trying to please everyone and see how their mutual boss is really playing the game? Can Evie put aside her competitive nature long enough to figure out what she really wants in life? Can their actor clients just be something close to human? Whether these two Hollywood love/hatebirds get the storybook Hollywood ending or just a dramedy of epic proportions, you will get to enjoy Christina Lauren’s heartfelt, raucous, and hilarious romance style at its finest.
Cocktails and Books received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect our opinion of the book or the content of our review.
The writing duo that makes up Christina Lauren do it again with this funny and sexy rom-com that hits all the right beats.
Evelyn Abbey loves her job. Growing up with parents who worked in the “Business” she has been around movies her entire life and now as a movie star agent, she is the one who gets to wheel and deal behind the scenes for her clients. What she is missing is romance – basically a guy and at 33 she knows she needs to find one soon. Then she meets Carter at a costume party and she thinks she may have found the one – or at least one with potential.
Carter Aaron wasn’t expecting anything when he meets Evie at his best friend’s costume party. Then he meets a girl that loves movies and TV just as much as he does. Having only been in LA for a short time working as a TV agent things are beginning to look up – that is until he and Evie’s companies merge and now instead of finding love they are in direct competition for the same job they both love. Now instead of romance, they try to one-up each other as their competition takes a turn for in some cases the worse.
I first have to say that the Christina Lauren does a fantastic job setting up the story of Evie and Carter – you as the reader are invested in their relationship from the start. Then when the story starts to take a turn I definitely felt the anguish in some cases but the humor in others that made me not only laugh out loud but make me want to shake some sense into the two characters. Especially since the readers know that Evie and Carter are perfect for one another. The dialog was crisp, witty and hysterical and the dual POV was perfect and needed for us to see where these characters were coming from. The story is fast paced and the secondary characters were just as much fun as our main couple – true friends on both sides. There is a little bit of a mystery that is quickly solved but the core of the story is all about Evie and Carter.
All in all, this is definitely on my top 5 list of 2017. If you are looking for a fun romantic comedy then don’t look any further than Date You Hate You.
