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A review by jedbird
The Hate Project by Kris Ripper
3.0
This was a sort-of-enemies to basically-lovers story with a main character who was hard to sympathize with. There were also a bunch of references to bell jars which I obviously needed to have read the first book in the series to understand.
Oscar is anxious, depressed, and somewhat overweight. He has a customer service job he hates. He has a bunch of friends who treat him like a beloved dysfunctional pet. The friends are relentlessly supportive, which is both nice and pretty unrealistic, but this is a romance novel, so... A newcomer to the friend group is Jack, who is handsome and has a good job in something finance-adjacent. Oscar and Jack don't get along, until they do, when they engage in a little annoyance as foreplay. It turns out that Jack has a thing for bear cubs.
There's hoarding, a sassy grandma, trans and enby rep, found family, and some pretty severe emotional limitations from Oscar. Multiple bell jar mentions wtf.
Even for a romance novel, I felt like the endless understanding offered to Oscar was just really unrealistic, and I did wonder why Oscar wasn't in therapy, because he needed to be.
Oscar is anxious, depressed, and somewhat overweight. He has a customer service job he hates. He has a bunch of friends who treat him like a beloved dysfunctional pet. The friends are relentlessly supportive, which is both nice and pretty unrealistic, but this is a romance novel, so... A newcomer to the friend group is Jack, who is handsome and has a good job in something finance-adjacent. Oscar and Jack don't get along, until they do, when they engage in a little annoyance as foreplay. It turns out that Jack has a thing for bear cubs.
There's hoarding, a sassy grandma, trans and enby rep, found family, and some pretty severe emotional limitations from Oscar. Multiple bell jar mentions wtf.
Even for a romance novel, I felt like the endless understanding offered to Oscar was just really unrealistic, and I did wonder why Oscar wasn't in therapy, because he needed to be.