Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Love Haters: A Novel

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Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Love Haters: A Novel by Katherine Center

43 reviews

kcbas1's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 29%

Terrible dialogue, didn't care about the characters (especially the extremely unlikeable FMC) and just was so bored and uninterested in seeing how the story progressed. MMC was so flat and there was zero chemistry between the MMC and FMC. Side characters meant for comedic relief were even more boring.

Content Warnings

nicolecurlsuptoread's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

✦POV: Single first-person
Katie is living the hero’s journey. While on this adventure in Key West, she will explore her relationship with her body and self and open herself back up to romantic love with Hutch after a very public betrayal. Katie is relatable and sympathetic and has great growth by the end. I liked Katie, but did find her tendency to repeat statements back as questions annoying.

Hutch is a hero, through and through. It’s the whole point, and the reason she goes to Key West, but as we learn more about him and his struggle, I wanted to reach through the page to hug him. He gets in his own way but his devotion to Katie from the start is achingly obvious. He also practices random acts of kindness, and that is hot af.

✦Spice: No/Low
This is a wholesome rom com, with a hint of suggestion. Like, we know they’re thinking saucy thoughts, but they aren’t printed. There are a couple of swoon-worthy kisses, but that’s as far as the spice goes.

The tension, however! This is one thing I love about Katherine Center’s writing: even though we’re only getting one POV, she writes scenes and reactions so that reading between the lines is easy and their longing is clear. She’s one of few authors who can make my chest ache with nothing more than the lead-up to a kiss. 💋

❝You know that feeling when someone’s about to kiss you? That tension? That palpable anticipation? How everything slows down and seems to matter in a whole new way? That was the feeling I had. And it pushed out all the others.❞

✩ Meddling matriarchs are my catnip in rom-coms, and The Love Haters adds a massive Great Dane into the mix! Cue genuine LOLs.

✦More to love about The Love Haters
🌺 Beautiful setting
🛥️ A houseboat!
🫶 Strong relationships
🥰 Found family
🛏️ Only one bed
❤️‍🔥 Forced proximity
☀️ Grumpy/ sunshine
😆 Banter!

♡ The Love Haters is an addictive, fast-paced read I recommend if you like rom-coms featuring thoughtful, moral-of-the-story vibes, and heroic grand gestures.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

✨ Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Connect with me on Instagram for more bookish content!

Content Warnings

readwithria's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 7%

I received an ARC through the St. Martin's Press Early Reader Program. This is critical feedback, but it is coming from a place of love.

I was really looking forward to this book. I've loved every Katherine Center book that I've read, and the blurb for this sounded right up my alley. I read the first chapter and loved it, but then I got to the second chapter and had to pause due to the eating disorder content that there were no trigger or content warnings about anywhere in the book, the blurb, the SMP website, or Katherine's website. However, I wanted to see if I would be able to keep gping, so I reached out to some fellow bookstagram creators to see how explicit the ED content would be. After hearing from multiple people that I was through the worst of it, I decided to continue.

HOWEVER, within the same chapter all of the ED content was quickly blown over, and with no on-page character growth whatsoever she eats a gallon of ice cream (which is also pretty disordered), buys some body positivity books, and has now been on her healing journey for almost a year.

My question is - if she isn't currently in the throes of her ED, why include the food journal? Why include the explicit calorie counting? Why include the body size goals, and whether or not she reached them? Why slap the reader in the face with explicit disordered eating content only for it to not matter a few pages later? I have no issue with the book dealing with themes of body insecurity, or with disordered eating, but there is a more reader-safe way of doing it, and that either requires trigger warnings or reworking the chapter.

I hope that between ARC distribution and final pass pages this chapter was reworked, but unfortunately I will never know because I will not be putting myself through a potentially dangerous reread.

I have emailed my concerns to the publisher, but I can't in good faith not share them with the public as well.

Content Warnings

francineh98's review against another edition

3.0

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really enjoyed this book! Katie’s body image struggles and self-love journey were relatable and added depth to her relationship with Hutch. However, my favorite moments by far were the funny and heartfelt interactions between Katie and Hutch’s aunt, Rue, along with the time spent with Hutch’s dog, George Bailey.

That said, I felt like the pacing towards the end seemed off. I also wasn’t a fan of Cole’s character; the drama he created between him and his brother felt forced, and I believe there were better ways to move the plot forward.

I did listen to the audiobook, which kept me engaged all the way through. Patti Murin did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life.

Overall, I recommend The Love Haters to anyone looking for a quick rom-com to read this summer!

What to Expect:

🌺 forced proximity

🌺 0/5 spice

🌺 found family

🌺 lovable doggo 🐶

A huge thank you to the author, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for an honest and independent review.

Content Warnings

bexbooklover's review against another edition

3.5

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Katie is still getting over the trauma of a very public breakup with her now famous ex. She is trying to keep her job and agrees to do a profile on Hutch a coast guard rescue swimmer who went viral for saving a celebrities dog.

This book was full of extremely relatable moments and conversations that we've all had in our life, But I was kind of disappointed in the fact that this really is a very little romance. Not even like a slow burn. Slow buildup just pretty much none. And I get that that might be on me. But with the title of this book I was kind of expecting a little bit more romance.

I loved the conversations throughout this book around. Loving yourself being happy with who you are and the career that you have, and how true friendship really can be a great love. Like every Katherine Center Book the writing in this was just
beautiful. I still highly recommend it and she will always and forever be one of my all-time favorite authors.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of this book.

Content Warnings

juanat77's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’ve read all but one of Katherine Center’s books and I have to say this is my absolute favorite! I appreciate that she writes closed door romm-comms. It’s rare to find a solid closed door heartfelt funny romance novel.

I feel like Center’s writing has really evolved. The Love Haters tackles multiple serious issues as her previous novels while still keeping true to her humor and lightheartedness and of course pulling at your heartstrings.

This particular story focused on self love which, seriously, we can all use more of. The FMC, Katie, is so critical of her body she struggles with naming a body part she loves or even finds beautiful. She is “scared” of wearing swimsuits and covers her body as much as she can. Her wardrobe consists of black clothing to draw the attention away from herself and hide. She meets a woman named Rue who is a free spirit, showers Katie with colorful clothing and shows her how to enjoy life. There is also a male love interest, Hutch, who appreciates Katie and helps her with her self discovery.

Katie is such a relatable character with the dark wardrobe and the constant struggle of loving and accepting herself which is difficult due to the criticism woman experience on their figures daily. Center seamlessly weaves the combination of self discovery and humor. I love that the story wasn’t focused on Katie changing her body but rather loving it.

4.5 stars!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you NetGalley, Katherine Center and St Martins Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings

shawniejo's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Content Warnings

monicasnextchapter's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

⭐️ 5/5 | 🌶️ 0/5
Romance, Women’s Fiction
First Person POV | Single Narrative | FMC - Katie
Setting: Key West, FL

How dare Katherine Center write this masterpiece. She has a way with writing stories that are both lighthearted and deeply meaningful. This is such an entertaining and delightful story that beautifully balances themes of self-discovery, family dysfunction, friendships, romance, and career challenges. She doesn’t shy away from exploring complex family dynamics or mental health obstacles, and she does so with a level of depth, realism, and humor that make the characters so much more relatable.

The romance between Katie and Hutch was slow burning and swoonworthy, mixed with tension and misunderstandings. Their chemistry was great and definitely had me wanting more of their passionate moments.

There’s also the love story of Katie and herself. This is a huge theme in the story, with big emotional revelations and a bff who only wants the best for her. Everyone needs a friend like Beanie!

Lastly, the Author’s Note at the end was absolutely beautiful and took the words right out of my mouth.

Oh and how could I forget Lucky?!? I love the little side stories that add to the main storyline and make it all the more entertaining and relatable. The random tidbits of information was fun to read and learn about too. I learned so much from this book, on so many different levels.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for providing me this advanced reader copy of the book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own

Content Warnings

jessversteeg's review against another edition

3.0

emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

As much as this is a book about falling in love with a coat-guard hottie, it’s also about learning to not hate your body after being raised in a diet-culture-obsessed world. I don’t think I liked this one as much as The Rom-Commers, but it’s a solid spice-free romance.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a review!

Content Warnings

jefferz's review against another edition

4.0

funny inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Swimming lessons, a hot coast guard rescuer, Key West charm, plus a 160 lb great dane? The Love Haters by Katherine Center has a recipe of elements perfect for a sweet and bubbly summer cocktail of a read. Featuring a fun and light-hearted plot with a bit of added substance from heavier topics like body image and public scrutiny, The Love Haters delivers a solid romcom experience, despite being a bit formulaic and predictable. Although I had a few minor nitpicks regarding the overall pacing and how the novel executed some of its more dramatic moments, I still found it very entertaining and worth reading.

Mixing the tropes of a fish out of water (or in this case, surrounded by water) with the disheartened and romance skeptic, Katie’s story is one that’s both fun to read as well as one that’s quite relatable. Apart from the main plot involving Katie trying to produce a promotional film featuring an unwilling real-life hero in an effort to keep her job, there’s a secondary storyline involving body image and self-acceptance. While the former serves as the main hook, it’s the latter that I found pleasantly surprising and effective. While the two storylines seemingly have little to do with each other on paper, they both gradually begin to play off and eventually compliment each other, providing great character development as Katie discovers her own self worth next to the unsmiling yet perfect Hutch. Rather than merely settling with just being funny, Katie’s time in Key West quickly becomes a journey to self-appreciation and love, adding additional intention and depth to the story, albeit executed in a casual manner without the ambition or finesse to make it a standout feature. I went into The Love Haters having previously read Center's The Bodyguard which I considered to be an excellent romcom, and unsurprisingly got a few good laughs in this book as well, though the humor isn’t quite as funny here (Hannah is a more amusing and entertaining MC). However when compared, The Love Hater’s back-half definitely had a bit more substance while The Bodyguard was mostly just a good fun time.

Immediately obvious from the get-go, one of The Love Haters’ highlights is the sunny and pastel-tinted portrayal of Key West and its far-removed, relaxed feel. Despite only one sentence of the synopsis advertising the story’s setting (along with the Coast Guard, another element incorporated well), I found Center’s choice of Key West to not only be a great narrative choice given its proximity to NAS Key West, but also for flavor and quite literally extra color. Having lived in “paradise” for the majority of my life, I’ve become accustomed and quite tired of how generic and all-encompassing tropical vacation locations like Key West are often portrayed in media. In The Love Haters however, Center’s approach and descriptions of Key West goes much further than what I was expecting for the story. Obviously romanticized for the feel-good nature of the novel and genre, I consistently found the descriptions and movements around the island to feel truly lived-in and well-researched, particularly Key West’s signature building style and distinctive colorful fashion. While not necessarily being the most lyrical or poetically beautiful descriptions I’ve read, Center captures the lifestyle and image of the island perfectly and many important plot elements simply could not work without the Key West location and warm portrayal.

Another aspect of The Love Haters that I enjoyed was the portrayal and inclusion of the Coast Guard rescue operation that was cleverly integrated into Katie and Hutch’s story. Although it provided a lot of great slapstick comedic material and a narrative reason for pairing them off outside of “work”, I was impressed how Center was able to connect the military angle back to Katie’s personal demons. Aside from the obvious and overdone inability to swim element (providing plenty of Hutch eye candy scenes), I found a particular rescue helicopter flight protocol requirement very cleverly utilized for Katie’s self image storyline, particularly it’s takeaway message. While stereotypical, Hutch’s Coast Guard background also worked in the story’s favor as an understandable layer to his resistance to initial attraction, rather than merely being another generic standoffish aloof love interest. And while completely predictable and almost obligatory for the genre, the rescue motif near the conclusion also provides excellent romance opportunities if you know what I mean.

While I enjoyed reading the novel which went by very fast, upon completion I felt that pacing and the overall focus of the story to be a little misplaced. While the first two thirds of the story was entertaining enough and Katie/Hutch had good chemistry, it mostly felt like fun in the sun slapstick fluff. That may seem like an odd thing to point out considering some of Center’s other novels mostly consist of quality, yet still slapstick content. However, once the novel hits the 60% mark, the real meat of Katie’s character story begins. The final third of the story abruptly shifts the tone and focus, which felt quite jarring compared to how relaxed the rest of the story felt. Additionally, the “lies” highlighted in the book’s synopsis and character relationships honestly started to feel quite chaotic, particularly nearly all of Katie’s coworker Cole’s character motivations and the conflict with his older brother Hutch. Their strained relationship, uncomfortable reunion, and all the conflict that follows felt quite manufactured and unusually forced due to a lack of foreshadowing or context clues (the exact same note I had with the love interest and familial discourse featured in The Bodyguard). The deceptions and plot progressions felt progressively more over the top, not to mention rushed and out of left field. To Center’s credit, the progressions were unexpectedly twisting and certainly amped up the story, invoking the worst thing that can happen trend. I fully believe that the plot and developments in the back of the story could’ve completely worked if more of Hutch/Cole/Rue’s backstories were incorporated into the first half of the story instead of revealing all of the cards in the moment, or if this narrative shift occurred far earlier in the story. Its current placement causes the chapters before it to feel like wasted pages underutilized while everything afterwards rushed and excessive.

While Katie is given good character growth potential which culminates in a dramatic and unexpected ordeal with Hutch’s great dane George Bailey (while the good, it could’ve been great with more time), Hutch on the other hand didn’t feel as developed. While there’s a lot of interest revolving around his Coast Guard career and image-breaking moments with his dog and Rue’s gal pals, I was a bit disappointed that his character ultimately ended up simply being Mr. Perfect and morally flawless. The novel’s entire setup revolves around the world finding him attractive and perfect after a rescue video he’s in goes viral (much to the ire of Cole), but I was surprised that the story didn’t actually capitalize or twist that public image for narrative purposes and greater depth. While that’s slightly to be expected given the story’s feel-good tone and genre, this is again another point of criticism I had with The Bodyguard and its love interest Jack Stapleton; both male love interests felt too perfect and by extension, bland and forgettable.

The side characters are another area that I felt hindered the novel’s enjoyment and the author’s ambition to be more than just a romcom (see Center’s extended author notes). While I found Rue to be lovely, decently developed, and having great character moments with Katie and her worries, Katie’s relative and friend Beanie (forgot what their relation was, perhaps a sign of what little impression she left) felt noisy and distracting to the story. Their girl talk gossipy phone calls about Katie’s time in Key West constantly felt like interruptions to the flow of the story and didn’t feel like they added anything of value. I realize how this sounds given I’m a male reader criticizing gal pal banter, however other reviews by female readers also share similar opinions of Beanie and her phone calls. Beanie’s narrative purpose in the story was clearly intended to be a foil to Katie’s self-image doubts and to help her reframe her opinion of herself, but the execution of their conversations felt underwhelming and lacking depth, given the weight of the topic. This is made all the more noticeable when Katie finally has her “ah-hah!” moments which feel less than satisfying when her support from Beanie all feels so trite. I almost would’ve preferred if Beanie was axed completely and her contributions to Katie’s growth were left solely to Rue, or less predictably, maybe even Katie’s boss Sullivan (the one who may fire her constantly). There’s a perfect opportunity near the end of the story where Katie and Sullivan have a brief heart to heart that could’ve strengthened both Sullivan’s character and the story considerably had it been fleshed out more. The same could be said about Cole whose lies and motivations felt all over the place. While the plot developments and conflict technically make sense on paper, the actual execution and my reaction to them while reading ranged from bafflement to confused amusement due to the lack of setup. The ARC version obviously may be different from the actual published version, but the ebook copy is not very long and certainly could’ve been longer if it allowed greater development to make Cole’s actions more believable. As it currently is, Cole becomes the scapegoat for every plot twist that feels like a narrative stretch under the guise of “I had to do it for you to keep your job”. The story falls back on this explanation far too many times, particularly since the initial reason for Katie taking on the Key West job in the first place is for that same repetitive reason.

Despite some concerns about the pacing and side characters, I found The Love Haters to still be an entertaining read and an above average romance novel that’s awfully close to being an excellent one. The vibe and content is very much on-brand for what readers have come to expect from Katherine Center’s novels. The vibrant Key West setting and constant swimming-related events paired with a sexy tall Coast Guard also makes it a perfect summer vacation read, likely intentional given its announced late May publication date (also on-brand for me reading the summer story in Winter much like my Xmas themed reads in July). Overall, The Love Haters is a very easy book to pick-up and is a safe recommendation for most romance or chick lit readers.

Content Warnings

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