Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

PLATINUM I recently attended a Writers Retreat where one book in particular was mentioned, and I use the term mentioned very loosely, what actually happened was they demanded we all read it immediately. Suffice to say, I purchased the ebook that night and dove in, immediately I was smitten, utterly invested and truly in love with every single word written by Sally Thorne. "Watching you pretend to hate that nickname is the best part of my day." Lucy Hutton always dreamt of working in the publishing industry, as an avid reader her love for all things books was greater than anything she'd ever known, being hired by Gamin Publishing was everything she had ever imagined, but when her beloved company was on the brink of collapse and amalgamation with another struggling publishing house, Bexley Books, became her reality, her career goals stayed alive, just barely, with a host of personnel cuts and the loss of her best friend Val, her work world was rocked. The day she met Joshua Templeman seemed like a possible new beginning, but his cool disregard of her almost immediately sent shockwaves through her usually cherry demeanor, a war began that day and with every day that past their mutual dislike of each other grew. "You've broken me down so completely, I can't even handle it when a guy tells me I'm beautiful." The Hating Game written in the first person point of view painted Lucy as both incredibly smart, and extremely funny, every snarky thought, every snappy comeback, every moment of despair mixed with joy as Joshua became Josh in front of her eyes. Every moment in this book served to cement my love of the author's words, I was invested immediately, but each new chapter brought with it feelings of awe, the more I read the deeper in love I fell, the more real Lucy and Joshua felt, the more their personalities jumped off the page and straight into my heart. "I'm about to lose something I never had to begin with." The Hating Game is slow burn in the very best way, Thorne builds not only the connection between her hero and heroine but the readers attachment to them, their witty dialogue served to lure the reader into losing themselves in one of the best bouts of drawn out verbal foreplay that I have ever experienced. Usually when I enjoy a book it only serves to make me want to devour the words, here however I simultaneously wanted to speed read my way to end, and slow down in order to savor every moment. I loved every second here, I wanted to drown in Thorne's words, I wanted to escape into Lucy and Joshua's world, stand in the corner, watching them like a creeper, I wanted to befriend them, I wanted to relax with Lucy over a glass of wine after a long day at work, I wanted to know everything that happened in between every moment, every lost look, every sigh, every secret smile. The Hating Game has quickly became one of my very favourite books, climbing it's way onto not only my Best of 2016 List but my favourite of all time list. If this is how Sally Thorne marks her debut into bookworld, I can only imagine what she has yet to do.