Dating You / Hating You is a Christina Lauren-fied love-to-hate romance between two rival co-workers in an LA-based talent agency. My reading relationship with Christina Lauren's novels have been hit or miss. Some of their steamy contemporary romances are ones I revisit often because I love the chemistry they create.

This wasn't my favorite or my least favorite romance from Christina Lauren. The book was missing the effortless chemistry readers can usually find between the two leads in one of Lauren's novels. There was very little build up before both characters were infatuated with each other, which is one of my favorite parts of reading romance. This is an ongoing criticism of mine for many romance novels because if I don't believe the romance, I don't enjoy the book.

Evie and Carter meet at their mutual friends' costume party, their friends' not-so-subtle attempt at fixing them up.  Both show up looking like they are on their way to Hogwarts. (Do all all quirky characters have to love Harry Potter?) They feel the chemistry zinging between them but I didn't, unless chemistry equals unfunny jokes.

Knowing Evie has a nervous tick that involves her loading on body lotion, Carter puts sunless tanner in her lotion bottle. Meanwhile, Evie replaces Carter's K-cups with decaf, causing him to walk into walls. Often in comedies, readers (or viewers in the case of movies) are asked to suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment. I get that. But nevertheless, it bothered me that these two adults (Carter is 27 and Evie is 33) could act so childish. That was one of my criticisms of another popular office hate-to-love-romance.

I did enjoy watching Carter and Evie sneak around once they got over the prank stage of their relationship. I also liked most of the supporting characters in this book especially the married couple desperate to retain their wild young, Steph and Michael Christopher.

Even though this wasn't one of my favorites, the audiobook was a quick listen, and I did enjoy parts of this book. If you're a fan of Christina Lauren's books or office romances in general, you can give this one ago. But I personally can't wholeheartedly recommend it.

Audiobook Comments:

I've always loved Shayna Thibodeaux's (aka Candace Thaxton) style. Her performances are always consistent and very easy to listen to. Deacon Lee is another great narrator. I have only good things to say about the audiobook production of this one.

* I borrowed the audiobook from my local library. Thanks to Gallery books for providing me with a finished copy in exchange for an honest review.







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