Toxic Masculinity – …on the B.L.

I like the picture better than the book. | The Hating Game by Sally Thorne | Dress | Shirt |

Worth A Read Hard Pass
Length 386
Quick Review A tale as old as time. Who knew the hate being felt from/for someone was just a big misunderstanding and just love in disguise…

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is not a romantic love story but a cautionary tale. It was stupid, archaic, toxic, and quite frankly set women back seventy years. Part of me wants to be shocked that “love” stories like this are still getting published, but I’m too realistic for that. I don’t know why women read this stuff and what it is they find attractive about a tall asshole. These are not the kind of relationships we should be glorifying. There’s far more interesting and sexy things to read than this troped up, crap novel.

Lucy and Joshua sit next to each other after a merger between two publishing houses. They hate each other and are up for the same promotion. They’re complete opposites. She’s super short, bubbly, and sweet. He’s cold, calculated, and rude. Gasp! Circumstances bring them together, and oh my God, they’re attracted to each other.

By page 50, I was utterly exhausted from reading how short Lucy was in comparison to how tall and masculine Joshua was. It was boring and cliché at the best of times.

The entire premise of The Hating Game rides on the back of the kindergarten playground advice given to young girls: “He’s mean to you because he likes you.” I’m pretty sure we’ve realized how that sets girls up for complicated relationships with attraction at best and abusive and violent relationships at worst.

I kept seeing how great this book was… I don’t get it. It’s kind of funny, but the problematic plot and characters are impossible for me to get passed. The fact the plot is beyond formulaic and predictable almost doesn’t even register due to the toxic relationship between Lucy and Joshua. Honestly, if your friend were to come and tell you all of these things Lucy went through in real time, you would never encourage her to have a relationship with that man. I doubt Joshua’s friends would encourage him to be with Lucy because she wasn’t so great to him either. Love does not and should never wash away the toxic, problematic, or rude interactions leading up to feelings.

Had The Hating Game ended with a good, long visit to a therapist instead of unrealistic sex (I know it’s a novel, no one wants realistic sex in novels) with boring and problematic co-worker, I would have liked it more. If you ever find yourself in Lucy’s position, go to a therapist instead of on a date. You deserve better. Lucy deserves better. Joshua deserves better. These two should never date.

Memorable Quotes
“I’m not about to be ravished. No one boils water before-hand [sex], except maybe in the Middle Ages.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Hating Game
Author: Sally Thorne
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780062439598

Read No
Length 256
Quick Review Alaskan Holiday is a really good example of what I don’t like in a book. Sappy romance, a pretend strong female character, bad grammar, terrible plot, and over all not put together well. Upside: there is a dog.

Don’t waste your time reading *Alaskan Holiday* | Pants (I wear these A LOT) | Shirt (truly one of my favorites) | Shoes (you need) | Watch | Hair Bow

Happy first day of December!!! I’m starting off my holiday reading with a real low point. It’s not the worst book I’ve read all year, but it’s in the top three! Which means, in all hopefulness, that the reading quality can only go up the rest of the month!

I pretty much began reading Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber feeling that it would be awful. It was. It was not good. It’s like a Hallmark movie in book form so a more painful time commitment.

The two main characters are Josie and Palmer. They’re in the middle of nowhere Alaska. A place so remote almost everyone leaves during the winter months and is only reachable by plane. Josie was the chef during the season, and Palmer lives there permanently. Palmer falls in love and asks her to marry him. The rest of the novel unfolds to the exact ending you know is going to happen.

Alaskan Holiday is incredibly sexist. There is the effort of having a strong, career oriented woman as the lead, but the whole novel falls into the trope of ‘need to calm this wild, career woman down to get her to settle into a small boring life.’ The woman gives up everything for the man. This is bolstered by the fact that there are several other women trying to convince Josie she can be happy in the middle of nowhere because love. Palmer is awful. I really hated his character. He oozes the quiet, toxic masculinity that is a total turn-off to any actual strong, career oriented woman I’ve ever met. His machismo was irritating after page 2. His jealousy is beyond aggravating. I couldn’t take it.

There is a lot of telling and very little showing, so the storytelling is Alaskan Holiday is as bad as the characters. The story spends 130 pages, out of 220, setting up a story that could have been easily summed up in 25 pages. The story reads like a teenager’s diary, but not an insightful, wise teenager. There are also a lot of grammar errors.

I was really unimpressed by Alaskan Holiday. It was pretty much a waist of my time. Luckily it was so bad and easy to read, I was able to read it in a less time than a Hallmark movie takes.

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Memorable Quotes
“I’m a man who needs to work with his hands, not just his brain.”

Title: Alaskan Holiday
Author: Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright 2018
ISBN: 9780399181283

Tag: Toxic Masculinity

Toxicity in Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game

Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber