The Way I Hate Him by Meghan Quinn

Narrated by Vanessa Edwin & and Teddy Hamilton in Duet Style

1st in a Series of Standalones. Small Town Rom-Com.

I got approved for an audio ARC for The Reason I Married Him by Meghan Quinn, but after about 30 minutes of listening, I realized I liked the town of Almond Bay and the characters I was meeting so much that I should the first in the series, The Way I Hate Him first.

Hattie is mourning her older sister’s death. She’s supposed to be finishing graduate school but she just flunked all of her midterms, only wanting to be home with the rest of her family in Almond Bay. So she heads back home expecting to stay at her long-term boyfriend’s place, until he breaks up with her for being boring.

As she is packing her things, she finds a box of items including a Grammy, that he stole from his boss, rock star Hayes Farrow. Hayes used to be best friends with Hattie’s brother but something happened and they are enemies. Hattie hates Hayes too out of sibling solidarity. But she can’t resist an opportunity to get back at her ex, and grabs the box of stolen stuff to return to Hayes so he fires him. The problem is, Hayes already fired him and now desperately needs help. So when Hattie came by to return his stolen Grammy he threatened to call the cops on her unless she took the job working for him.

Hattie’s older sister is running both the family farm and the Almond store that Hattie built with her late sister, her brother is taking care of her sister’s now orphaned little girl. All they care about is Hattie’s college education, cutting her out of all family business. So she lies, saying she has an internship, and takes the job with Hayes Farrow.

“Well, I fucking liked every second of it, and I shouldn’t . . . for many reasons. Reason number one, her brother hates me. Reason number two, she’s twelve years younger. Reason number three, she’s technically working for me.”

Despite the age gap and the family enemies thing, the chemistry between Hayes and Hattie was incredible and I loved their banter! As with all of Meghan Quinn’s books, there is a good amount of romance, sexy times, and emotion. But my favorite parts are always the ones that make me literally laugh out loud

“I bet if you looked closely, the pictured nipples have a wonkiness to them too. That or the ladies facetuned them.”
“Can you facetune a nipple?”

Likes:

Made me laugh-out-loud.
Made me excited for more in the series.
I liked the small town of Almond Bay.
I was smiling the whole time unless I was sobbing.
All the character’s growth.
Her best friend Maggie.
I cried.
Great music references.
Gran cracked me up.

Dislikes:

There was a lot of fluff in a too-long-for-the-story book.
I hate when an important piece of the backstory is held back from the reader.
Are we sure he’s a rock star? I barely saw anything about that.
She forgave WAY too easily.
He hit below the belt in a fight, and was too cruel for me to ever 100% forgive him.
She pushed herself on him when he firmly said no. If the tables were turned it would have been called out.

The Narration:

The duet narration with Vanessa Edwin & Teddy Hamilton was wonderful. Meghan is great at picking narrators and style for her books. I highly recommend this in audio form.

The Down & Dirty:

I really enjoyed The Way I Hate Him by Meghan Quinn. While it wasn’t my favorite of her books, I still loved the town and I can’t wait to go back to The Reason I Married Him next.