Another great read from Katherine Center! I always know what to expect from her books and this definitely delivered. Great characters, depth, good banter! Interesting reflections on societal beauty standards and the impact they can have on people. Only reason I knocked this down to 3 stars instead of 4 is that the main conflict had to do with basically miscommunication and a somewhat outlandish situation that felt kind of out of place and unrealistic whereas the rest of the book felt very grounded and realistic. Overall a great read though would recommend!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this earl in exchange for my honest opinions all opinions are my own!

I haven't read a Katherine Center book that wasn't 4-5 stars and this one was no exception! I loved the romance between Katie and Hutch but even more so, I loved the romance between Katie and herself. The best love stories are the ones that are about more than romantic love and Katie's self image issues felt extremely personal to me and relatable.

I was so excited to receive an advanced copy from SMP and NetGalley as Katherine Center is a top three author for me. I loved everything about this book. The character development was so strong that I was immediately sucked into the storyline. I loved the bigger lessons in this book, learning to love yourself and learning to conquer your fears. Sometimes that can lead to things you never thought possible. Rue and her friends were a delightful extra to this book. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with them?!? The backstory of Hutch, Cole and Rue was unexpected and heartbreaking but so full of love and redemption that you couldn’t help but smile. Add this to your list to buy in May 2025. “It’s good before, and it’s good during and it’s good after”

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy of 'The Love Haters' by Katherine Center.

I loved this one! The past couple of Katherine Centers' books have been hit or miss for me. I felt like this was her best one in a few years.

I loved the relationship between Katie and Hutch. More importantly I loved how much Katie grew and worked on herself throughout the novel. It was awesome. I also loved the community that they built with Rue and The Gals in the village. It's like I was visiting my grandmother.

Congrats to Ms. Center. I will keep reading everything she writes.

📚The Love Haters by Katherine Center

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
🫑

🚁 Just like with The Rom-Commers, Katherine made me cry, burst out loud with laughter, and annoyed my husband many times with "listen to this" moments when I read him funny parts.
The Love Haters was a joy to read, and I wiggled my toes in anticipation of what would happen next many times! I also learned so much about Coast Guard rescue 😳 and about other things (I don't want to spoil the book if I tell you because I know you'll google its meaning😉). 🌺 I love how Katherine writes wounded characters, but their hurt doesn’t come out as anger but as vulnerability and kindness. And the plot?! Oh my, so good. And her author's note is a love letter to all of us. Love, love, love this book.

And at last, I have another fictional boyfriend. Everyone needs Hutch Hutcheson in their life. 💓

❤️ I can't wait to read Katherine Center's next book.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, for eARC.

Tropes:
💏 Strangers to lovers
☯️ Grumpy/sunshine 
🫂 Found family

⚠️ TW: Death of parents 
⚠️ TW: dysmorphic disorder

The Love Haters by Katherine Center
Rating (5/5) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Publishing date - 05/20/25

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this arc! This is one of my most anticipated reads for 2025 so I was excited to be approved by Netgalley last week.

Absolutely loved it. Could not put this one down! Memorable characters especially the Great Dane named George Bailey. With laugh out loud moments & heart felt scenes ; this book is sure to be a hit next year!

Katie, whose job involves filming documentaries, takes an assignment to film a promo for the Coast Guard. This job highlights rescue swimmers which sounds exciting until Katie realizes her omission about not knowing how to swim may cost her the job. Then she meets the rescue swimmer, Hutch, and with the help of Rue and the gals at the motel Katie gets the shot of ‘Vitamin Sea’ she desperately needs!

One of the characters who especially stood out to me is Rue. Her outlook on life just simply made me happy. I loved her backstory and her optimistic view of life in technicolor- such an endearing character.

I loved this book and guess what? I found my new book boyfriend! Thanks so much to @stmartinspress for gifting me the opportunity to read this via @netgalley.

When this releases on May 20, 2025, be sure to read the author’s note at the end. She discusses the messages of body image, self worth, confidence, and how self-love is vital.

This was a solid rom com. I enjoyed learning about the Coast Guard and the setting in the Keys. I also enjoyed the relationships the main character, Katie, had with her best friend as well as the other women (Rue and The Gals) in the book. The main male character was a little flat for me.

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on this book. For one, I was really into it! As someone who has struggled with disordered eating in the past, I really enjoyed her journey (and beanie was straight precious!) I was loving Rue, and the little old ladies, and the dog (I'm a fellow great dane owner myself) and both the MMC and the FMC.
AND THEN
After around three fourths of the book, the most stupid pointless deception came into the book, and the FMC just... went along with it! I was so mad, i almost gave up on the book. I'm glad I didn't, but i really hated that.
Now the scene with the hurricane and water rescue were really intense, and i was into it for sure. I did enjoy the book. But them finally getting together just felt so quick, and even though the epilogue was thorough, I still felt like I was missing a final connection. Have him asking her to be his girlfriend or something... asking her to move to florida... SOMETHING.

As usual, Katherine Center deals with difficult topics with grace and tenderness. I fell in love with these characters and am not afraid to admit that I did have tears falling while reading! We may not all find ourselves in extreme circumstances but we certainly all are tasked with finding ways to live with ourselves, even those parts of us that prove more difficult to love. This book will make you love yourself, and the world, just a little bit more.

Katie and Hutch are so real!! 🥹 As usual Kathrine Center has outdone herself! Definitely looking forward to listening to the audiobook next (KC’s audiobooks are always so well narrated!)

I definitely recommend this asap! This is the best way to hate love 🥰

Thank you St Martin’s for this ARC.

Katie is a documentary filmmaker, sent by her colleague Cole to highlight the Coast Guard, and specifically, Hunky rescue diver, Hutch. The problem is Katie knows nothing about the coast guard, and doesn't even know how to swim. She needs to learn both things while keeping her head on straight in such close proximity to a man with the body of a Greek god.

I really liked this book, it has a lot of depth to the story, a nice pace, and a multifaceted love story. I will say, as someone who cares for young adults with eating disorders and who had disordered patterns around food and poor body image for over half my life, I did feel triggered by the language used around Katie's relationship with food and her body. I think it becomes easier to manage feelings around as this story evolves and grows.

4 stars

Another fun and sweet book from Katherine Center.
I liked this book, but unfortunately I didn’t love it. I enjoyed the atmosphere and all the action and thought it was a really fun premise but I didn’t get much from the romance. Hutch felt like a pretty one dimensional character and I didn’t feel much of a connection between him and Katie. Additionally, for about 67% of the book, pretty much nothing happens. I read this as an ebook so I was SHOCKED to find out when the book started to get interested that I was already well over halfway through.
This book is called The Love Haters and although we are told that the main characters hate love and even WHY they hate love, that really doesn’t translate into how they act. They have an almost love at first sight connection very early in the book, which really negates everything we are initially told about them.
This definitely wasn’t a bad book, but it kind of fell flat and definitely doesn’t live up to Katherine Center’s other books

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the ARC!

If NetGalley didn't require to to have a certain amount of words/characters for reviews, I would simply have put, "No Notes".

No Notes. None. Katherine Center is an angel from heaven who crafts the best rom-coms. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
Full Review to come.

I love all Katherine Center books and this one was no exception. Her characters seem like real people and her books make you feel like you are a part of them. I laughed a lot while reading this book but also felt the struggles that Katie felt in relation to her body. As for the romance I like that it was not so steamy and the book has a lot of other things going on and for it. 4.5 stars!

Katherine will forever be one of my favorite authors! The Love Haters is bound to be one of your VERY favorite books you read in 2025! You will laugh and cry and fall in love! I’m so mad I’m already done reading it! You are lucky, preorder it and get excited!!! 🏊 🩷 🌺

This was such a fun one. Unexpected romance and ridiculous situations, definitely a feel good story.

📖 ARC REVIEW 📖

Thank you @stmartinspress and @smpromance for an early copy of The Love Haters by @katherinecenter. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 🤍

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Release date: May 20th, 2025

Blurb: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

🛑Read on with caution; review may contain spoilers🛑

The Love Haters, despite the title, was surprisingly full of love and character growth, especially for the main character Katie, who’s been through a lot as a child and even as an adult, and in turn, had a lot of insecurities and fears in adulthood and after her ex-fiancé cheated on her with a celebrity. When a career-changing opportunity was offered to her, she took it despite not being qualified, as the job required filming a Coast Guard rescue swimmer named Hutch in Key West; yes, the job required swimming, which Katie did not know how to do.

Her time in Key West was life-changing for her though, as she learned to conquer her fears and how to appreciate and love herself just the way she is, with the help of Hutch and his adoptive mother Rue and her friends The Gals. Katie’s character is very relatable, but there were some parts of the story about how pessimistic she views herself that was quite triggering. I loved how much her best friend Beanie supports her despite being so far away, though, and how much she gives Katie some “assignments” to figure out what else about herself she loves and how she pushes her to expose herself to her fears.

Katie’s romance with Hutch feels like a side story in this novel, to be honest, with Katie’s journey in loving herself first being the main objective; but I enjoyed their budding romance and chemistry, nonetheless. I loved their conversations about getting to know one another, and how Katie had a part in Hutch and his brother Cole making up after a long time of resentment.

There are loads to unpack with this novel and I feel like this review doesn’t do justice of how much I really enjoyed Center’s new novel. Just know that this is something to look forward to for a heartwarming novel that will make you appreciate yourself as a person and human being.

I am holding a small grudge against the MMC. there’s a scene where the FMC needs to wear a swimsuit and he specifically tells her not to wear a flowered one. She wears a black one and he is affronted when he sees it, telling her it’s too sexy. I’m sorry, but it’s 2024. Why is a man policing what a woman is wearing based on his discomfort? It really turned me off from being able to enjoy the love story. I get that he’s supposed to be a protective, hero type, but I really didn’t take kindly to this scene.

Otherwise it was a cute story. I like the journey of self love Katie goes on. And I continue to adore Katherine Center.

LOVED this sweet story! Katherine Center's newest book does not disappoint!

Katie works as a videographer in Dallas. Cole is her coworker and assigns her to make a documentary video about his brother, Hutch, a Coast Guard rescuer in Key West. As she takes on this task, she learns a lot about Cole and Hutch, and a tragic accident that happened when they were kids. While filming the docu, she becomes quite enamored with Hutch, but she's not really sure if he has feelings for her or not. Excitement on the water, and in their souls ensues. The ending was perfect and satisfying. This is a precious rom-com that swallowed me up and left me with a huge smile on my face!
Highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Love Haters.