Proceed With Caution:
This book contains death, grief, depression, and discussion of suicide.
The Basics:
Hate to Want You is a Romeo and Juliet-esque second chance romance between Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler. Their families use to be close, but now they can't even stand to be in the same room. But not Livvy and Nick who have been secretly sleeping together every year on her birthday for the past decade. Except for this year. Something has changed.
My Thoughts:
I was really eager to finally get to Hate to Want You. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about this series, the first book in particular. Unfortunately, I was just bored and annoyed. Perhaps I'm just out of the toxic relationship phase, but this Romance did nothing for me. The sex was good. I wish there were more. Everything in between? Just nope.
The set up of Hate to Want You is that Livvy and Nick's grandparents immigrated to America, became business partners, opened a successful grocery store, but then their parents got into an accident and were killed. Livvy's father was the driver and Nick's mother was the passenger, so of course his family blames hers for what happened. Or do they? Honestly, no one knows what happened that night. I get that they need to direct their emotions somewhere, but it was really only Nick's dad. Everyone else is like "it wasn't his fault!" and "no one knows what went on except them!" So....what's the problem?
Nick had broken up with Livvy ten years ago because of reasons (super obvious reasons, but of course it has to be treated like an awful secret until the end), leaving her heartbroken and depressed. Well, she already struggled with depression so the break-up pushed her over the edge for a while. No, this is not a healed by the power of love story, thank goodness. But I don't feel like her depression was really focused on at all, except for a few scenes where Livvy or others specifically mention that she's depressed. Show, don't tell...
As for the actual romance...I just did not care. There was no real tension or obstacle for them to overcome. Like I already said, their family feud isn't even a real thing. In fact, Nick has ONE conversation with his father and it's all gone. Like, he couldn't have done that at any point within the last decade? I guess sneaking around and feeling guilty is a better way to live.
Hate to Want You was just not for me. Perhaps I would have liked it more when it first released, but these needlessly angsty, unhealthy relationships just aren't doing it for me anymore. They've been sleeping together for ten years. At any point they could have had a conversation to make things work.