Review: Loathe to Love You by ALi Hazelwood
Romance
Loathe to Love You
Book Info
Released Date: January 3rd
Publication: Berkley
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
“each story had something on me”
Let’s talk about how I finally had a chance to finish all of Ali Hazelwood's short novellas. They were originally released as audiobooks, then later released digitally. At the beginning of this year, she released the paperback edition of all the short novellas: Under One Roof, Stuck with You, and Below Zero.
I gotta say each story had something on me, but I still had some mixed feelings about it. Let me explain. Each of the three novellas has different romance tropes, but it mainly focuses on the past since we have different timelines in all of the novellas. I know it already sounds confusing, but I will break it down even more with each novella.
Let’s talk about her first novella, which is called Under One Roof. This one, I did enjoy reading. It has a forced proximity with a dash of enemies/roommates to lovers trope. It's not really an enemies-to-lovers trope; it's more of a dash of roommates not liking each other at first. Just want to warn you. We get a gist of their fights since we have two timelines: the past and the present. I only wish that we didn't focus so much on the past because we really didn't get to their romance journey until the very end. It had its potential, but it needed more romance between them as a couple.
Now, her second novella is called Stuck with Me. I did enjoy reading this book, but I had problems with the confusion of the tropes that were advertised. It was claimed that Stuck with Me was a rival to the lovers trope. But in reality, it's more of an insta-love with a miscommunication trope at best. The only thing that I wish for this couple was not acting so immature. If they could have communication (mainly with the female main character), then they wouldn't have problems in the present time.
Lastly, the last novella would be Below Zero. And I don't even know where to start. It had the potential of being a cute novella read. But the different timelines between the characters were too messy to form a connection between the characters. It was stuck in the past too much that I just didn't understand how they hated each other. And the timeline for the past is not even the same; it spans over several years until the present time. That's way too much to cover for a novella. It made the read not a fun one in my opinion.
