The Hating Game Book & Movie Review
Note: All the reviews on my blog are written for the sole purpose of sharing my experience and enjoyment of the book reviewed. My first language is not English so please forgive the possible multiple errors in grammar and misspelled words. Oopss! : )
When I posted in my bookstagram that I was having trouble getting through this book I got a lot of messages from my followers mainly because they couldn't believe it and I totally understand. This book has been around for almost six years and with the growing popularity of bookstagram and booktok it has gotten more and more attention through out the years. Add to that the release of the movie on 2021. Even though my 2022 New Years resolution was to review all of the books I read in the year, the truth is I have not been keeping up with my resolution. It's a little hard since I not only have to work on the shop's orders but also make new items, homeschool my two boys and run the house. My days are crazy, still I owe it to my book friends to review the book and let you know at the end, what are my thoughts about it and, since I also watched the movie, I'll share my thoughts about it too.
First on to the book.
When I shared on Instagram that I was having trouble getting through the book I was about half way through it. Per my rules I always give books the first one hundred pages to capture me, this does not mean I DNF the book if I'm not captured by it. I don't really like to DNF books, that's just my thing. I basically give the book those first hundred pages to start exploring how I feel about it. Another thing is, I'm a slow reader with all that I have going on but when a book gets me, specially one that has romance or comedy, I go through that baby like there is no tomorrow. I started the book on May fourth and finished it today May 21st, that was a very long time for a book under four hundred pages. That would be my time frame for a book of about six hundred plus pages. So yeah, I struggled a bit.
The good thing about pushing through was that I actually enjoyed it from about the two hundred page onward and I figured out what things had me a little weird about it. Let's talk about Lucy. I can say with a lot of certainty now after finishing the book that Lucy, one of the two main characters of this book, was the number one reason I was feeling like I was about the book. I like Lucy sort of but I certainly don't love Lucy. To me the character was way to needy and desperate for my liking. Also a bit on the stalker side which is something that also applies to the other main character of the book, Josh. While I enjoyed their multiple games and their names for them, I felt really awkward about their interactions at some points of the story. After the two hundred page mark, give or take, I started to feel more of the romance which helped and I started to enjoy the book more. If I would have felt that way earlier in the book, before page two hundred, I would have finished it sooner.
While I enjoyed the book later on I must also admit I didn't really love the ending, I kind of was left wanting more and I wished they both would've gone through the interviews and one of them was picked and have something come out of that scenario. Sadly it didn't happened and the curious thing is that the movie's ending, while different from the book in a small way, I liked it less than the book's.
So, what are my thoughts on the movie?
I actually liked it a little bit better than the book. The thing about movies based in books is that more often than not the movie is very different from the book and you are left disappointed. In this case I have to say this is one of the few book based movies I've seen where I can say is very loyal to the book. There are always going to be changes during adaptation, still I liked the fact that this movie was probably 85% to 90% all book. I mean if you take the movie and book A Walk to Remember, to me those are two different stories that share a title and some characters names. To sum up I was very happy they kept it as close to the book as they could.
Would I tell other people to read it? Yes. At the end of the day there were a lot of parts I enjoyed after page 200 and everyone is different with their books taste. I found the authors writing easy to go through so I would definitely read more books from her. If you wish to give it a try you can get your copy on the link below.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne - Book
My Ratings for the book:
3/5 Stars
3/5 Spice Rating
My Ratings for the movie:
4/5 Stars
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