“They Hate Each Other” is a wonderfully written queer ya with enemies to lovers and fake dating! Often times books focus too much on their tropes and not the development of characters and natural relationship progression but the opposite is true here. This is written with so much care for the characters and both of the main characters arcs is so incredibly done. Their relationship is full of great moments of discovering more about each other and falling in love. There are many great scenes that usually come from fake dating which I loved.

The only real thing I could see someone disliking is that this isn’t so much focused on their romance as marketed. There is definitely a lot of romance but this goes hand in hand with the Jonah and Dylan’s own lives and issues. For me, this is just a plus since I adore good character development and this is often missing from other books with similar premises to this!

Overall, I absolutely LOVED this book and would definitely recommend checking it out when it’s available (or preorder it now!)

DNF

Hated the characters, theyre so flat. Felt very fake teenager written by an adult trying to appeal to teens.

This was some of my favorite tropes. Enemies to lovers? Queer? AND dual POV? I'm a huge sucker for dual POV. I love knowing what they're both thinking so it's not a mystery if the other one feels the same way.

Jonah and Dylan made me so happy. I felt so... seen in them? Like I felt connected on a deeper level.

I really had a good time reading this and I can't wait for more books from Amanda Woody! They will all definitely be added to my never ending tbr.

I went into this book without any information but I am so thankful for it and I loved this book so much! This is a perfect example of a contemporary book that perfectly mixes romance with more complex and really nuanced topics. I don't want to spoil too much, but I will say that this book was amazing and I am so thankful that I got a chance to read it early!

I loved this book. It had my favorite tropes, was queer, funny, and altogether wonderful. I found it very well written, and the characters had good growth.

Thank you so much for an eARC!

While there were definite things I enjoyed (I love a good feud and fake dating!) the rich/poor dynamic, and the dual POV including the Latinx character Dylan mixed in with random words of Spanish felt kind of icky considering the author is white. Him also being treated as the aloof and more controlled character of the two felt so weird an off-putting.

I have very mixed feeligns about this book

GOD I ABSOLUTELY ADORED DYLAN AND JONAH.

This is my second time reading this masterpiece; it was just as good as the first time! I love everything about this book, and I CANNOT wait for more from the author!!

It was lovely, intriguing, sweet, and even witty at times. Absolutely stunning. I don’t think I’m capable of coming up with a cohesive and well thought out review. There is so much to love in this book.

Diving into the found family I find myself incapable of putting feelings into words. I wanted nothing to happen to all the characters because they are all so near, dear, and precious to my heart. Dylan was my favourite. So sweet and sort of grumpy at times, but only because he was a little awkward. And Jonah, with his love of space and his sad of experience of being a parental figure to his two sisters.

I have so many more thoughts but it’s hard to put everything into words. This book was perfect in so many ways and I will greedily snatch up multiple copies!!!

My heart! There's nothing better than a good old-fashioned enemies to lovers to kickstart your romance reads for the season. I know this isn't coming out until May but it's the perfect Valentine's Day read! I rooted so hard for Jonah and Dylan and thought that their personalities actually complimented each other and is exactly what made the other grow and see their own potential. This was also a sort of coming of age story in the midst of the romance, and it was so refreshing to see two characters develop so naturally. This whole book is a testament to how we can never really know someone if we don't try and to absolutely never judge a book by its cover- unless that cover is as adorable as this one.

3.5/5 rounded up


i loved the first half. exactly what i was expecting - chaotic oblivious bisexuals thinking that the physical visceral reaction they have to being around each other is hate when it’s really love. but then the second act drama hit and idk why but it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way how jonah’s situation was dealt with.

- mild spoilers ahead -

maybe this is wishful (and privileged) thinking but i just wish jonah had had more of a choice in reaching out for help. the way i read it was that dylan and his aunts actions pushed him to the point of breakdown so he HAD to get help bc he literally couldn’t function. i just don’t like that the choice was taken away from him but i also fully understand that like he needed help so it’s a difficult situation idk

again maybe wishful thinking but i wish there had been some way for jonah to have gotten help without his closest confidants literally going behind his back - like i don’t think you understand how furious i was with dylan for doing that but anyway… the ending was sweet if not extremely chaotic.

overall sweet fun read i’d recommend if you have a free afternoon and want to be entertained.

**thank you to netgalley and penguin teen for a copy of this arc!!**

I read this book in one night when I couldn’t sleep bc of my family’s snoring (lol) so I started this and ooohh I’m so glad I did! I’m a huge fan of the fake dating trope and this book did it so incredibly well. Combining enemies to lovers and fake dating was such a genius idea because it allowed for double the character development throughout the book. Not only do you see the two boys start to like each other romantically, you also get to see them start to care for each other as people. One thing I appreciated about this book was that the side characters remained side characters throughout the entire thing meaning a lot of time was dedicated to Jonah, Dylan, and their personal struggles. This book handled heavy topics such as abuse, alcoholism, and anxiety gracefully and realistically. I do think it could have ended a little bit faster than it did because the end felt drawn out, but I still very much enjoyed the story's arc. It stood out from other YA fake dating books for me in large part because the majority of the book takes place outside of school. The settings felt fresh and it gave the trope a new feel. I really enjoyed this book.

I am a pile of GOO over this book. I am not joking when I say I was an absolute mess over certain parts, and I felt like my heart was ripped up my throat.

It absolutely nails the humor, the emotion, the hatred, everything. I want to SCREAM it is so good.

What a total sparkling gem of a queer YA romcom. I loved this enemies to lovers offered so much charm, humor, and depth. Both Jonah and Dylan were compelling, neither felt like they were competing for the reader's attention, instead each felt like they stood on their own and had their own distinct background and personality. I won't lie, at first Jonah's behavior towards Dylan was especially hard to handle, but as we learn more about his backstory and circumstances, that behavior and his prickliness overall starts to make sense and we see that despite his walls, Jonah really is a stand up guy. His arc and circumstances with his home situation was tough to read, seeing the toll it takes on him physically and mentally. I felt his strain and pain, the mounting pressure to keep it all tightly under control, and the helplessness as it starts to unravel for him. I think the author did a great job balancing the fake dating plot with giving us more and more pieces of Jonah's difficult background circumstances.

Dylan isn't quite a marshmellow per se, and certainly neither character is the sunshine-y one, but I loved Dylan's quite strength and seeing his mental health journey was refreshing to see. Given their physical descriptions, seeing Dylan as the softer one, the one with social anxiety, felt like a refreshing view to the usual gruff, unflappable, overbearing brawny type. Dylan had a lot of nuance and his family dyanmic was really interesting to see. I liked that for him, not everything is perfectly squared away at the end, because it felt more honest. There are some looser threads with his mom that I wish were fleshed out a bit more, for example connecting her demeanor to her family more, or more background on why her and Dylan's father are such opposites, I thought it would connect back to some specific events that happen but alas, it didn't.

I'm not too sure the last 15% of this flowed smoothly. It felt like the HEA kind of happened and yet the book still continued on, and while usually I would love that, because we have a time jump of a couple months, things happen with them that we don't actually get any detail about. It didn't feel like we as readers were being pulled along with the relationship as it progressed. It felt like on one page they finally get together for real, and on the next it's been 4 months but we don't see how they grew in those 4 months, especially as so much happens to each of them and together, so that's where this lost some steam for me. I just think given all the big stuff that happens for each of them in their lives, a bit more time spent on that would have really rounded out the story and given the more difficult themes like neglect, alcoholic parents, abandonment, trauma, panic attacks, etc. more space.

Overall though, this was easy to binge, I just didn't want to put it down and at several times this made me laugh out loud and emotional. It's a heartwarming romance that really packs a punch.

This was such a great ya romance book that tackled some heavy situations with humor, heart and made me fall in love with almost every one of the characters!!

Enemies to Lovers/Fake Dating done so well. Jonah and Dylan have been butting heads and hating eachother for years even when everyone else has been pushing them together because of their “chemistry”. Jonah thinks Dylan is a golden boy who has it all and thinks he’s better than him, while Dylan thinks Jonah is loud and obnoxious and has to be the center of attention. When a fake dating situation forces them to spend time together they begin to peel back the layers and see how their first impressions were not as accurate as they believed.

There were times in this book that I laughed out loud and times that I cried. It just covered so many heavy topics but so carefully. Jonah is carrying the weight of being in adult mode to protect and provide for his two sisters. Reading Lilly’s excitement from getting to read a book featuring a character like her…gosh I want to protect this family at all costs. While Dylan is suffering from anxiety and ptsd from his childhood and too afraid to let anyone in.

This is so much more than your typical romcom!