Hate You, Maybe

When the stakes are win, lose, or fall … and love is not in their lesson plan.

Sayla Kroft has only two goals this year:

Score the big district grant to rebuild her high school’s dilapidated theater.
Avoid Dexter Michaels, the flirty-flirt athletic director who wants those same funds for the gym. Losing to her workplace enemy—again—is not on Sayla’s never-ending to-do list. Neither is being trapped with her maddening coworker at a professional retreat.

Or noticing his relentlessly crooked smile is actually kind of … hot.

But just as she’s beginning to believe Dex might not be the devil himself, the two are forced to switch job titles to prove their collaborative spirit. That’s when Sayla realizes her competition is fiercer than she imagined, which leaves her with an impossible choice:

Fall for Dex and risk losing the grant … or stop at nothing to win, and risk losing everything.

My Review:

A great enemies to more romance that lightens the angst with lots of fun snarky banter. Sayla is so anti-Dex in the beginning that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to relate to her at first, but snippets of her backstory reveal hidden depths and I soon became her enthusiastic cheerleader. Especially once they head out on that professional retreat and our enemies to more trope stretches into close proximity where sparks start sizzling and hearts begin to soften.

Sayla and Dex remind me of Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe (my first experience with literary romance!) They have that same kind of competitive vibe where Sayla/Anne takes it way more seriously than Dex/Gilbert. Loved finding that personal childhood to adult connection in this story. I was just as emotionally invested in Sayla and Dex’s romance as I was in Anne and Gilbert’s decades ago!

And the way the author draws on the complex stumbling blocks that threaten to keep them apart kept me compulsively reading. Because how could everything get sorted when obviously only one of them can win that coveted grant money?! Love the way hope threads through it all. And this hero and heroine finding the courage to take risks and believe in second chances adds even more emotional depth and balances the brilliant rom/com moments perfectly.

I listened to the audio edition of ‘Hate You, Maybe’ and thoroughly enjoyed the dual narration provided by Amanda Friday and Andy Harrington. Their performance helped me connect to the characters even more. Love the energy and comic pacing they brought to the narration, as well as all the emotion they managed to convey with only their voices. Made for an attention-grabbing listening experience.

My thanks to Dreamscape Select and Net Galley for providing me with an audio copy of this book.

15 thoughts on “Hate You, Maybe”

  2. What a wonderful review, Kav! Anne & Gilbert vibes? Can’t beat that! Love the MC’s unique name, too. Kind of like Kayla, but with an “S” instead. Sounds like an interesting read!

    Hope you have a great weekend & are staying warm & snuggly. They’re calling for a warmer, drier winter in SC this year. So no White Christmas again for us. Sigh . . .

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    1. Yes, Anne and Gilbert will always be my epic romance pick. It was -28 yesterday and overnight (-18 F) but it’s gradually warming up today so that’s good. I can handle a two day cold snap but it gets grim when they last a week or more. So hooray for warmer (for us in winter) temperatures and lots more books on my TBR to enjoy. Happy Reading, Diane!

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      1. Yes! Makes me want to watch the movie again. Sigh . . . 💘 You would laugh sarcastically & roll your eyes if you knew what we consider a cold snap in SC. I don’t even want to get the mail by the curb if it’s in the 50s. And you walk to church in snow. My hero. 😃

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  3. HATE YOU, MAYBE sounds like and fabulous rom/com and I know I’d love reading Sayla and Dex’s story. It’s now on my ever growing TBR list.

    Thank you so much for your review and for bringing this great book to our attention.

    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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