Hate to Love You by Elise Alden

Hate to Love YouNarrated by Carmen Rose

After finishing Hate to Love You, I was left with an overwhelming feeling of bewilderment. Sure, I understood what I’d read, but I fail to understand the point behind it. I mean, what made someone sit down and write this as their debut novel?

Paisley is eighteen when we first meet her. She’s just discovered that she’s pregnant. The fact she’s still a virgin must be just a small inconvenience anyone can explain away. Maybe she’s the next Virgin Mary or something. So, eighteen, pregnant, and with no life ambition, Paisley has no clue what to do. She knows her parents will be furious with her. They might even kick her out.

To make matters worse, her older sister Caroline, Paisley’s nemesis, is bringing her fiancé home to meet the family for the first time. Paisley knows Caroline considers her an embarrassment, but she doesn’t care. If she can make Caroline unhappy, her day will improve just a little bit. So, downstairs she goes to meet James, a snooty tax lawyer who she dislikes on sight. Her brain dislikes him, but her body definitely does not. Their eyes meet, they read each other’s mind, and it’s instant attraction. Yes. You read correctly. Paisley can read minds, and James can too.

The more time they spend together, the more they dislike one another. Even so, there’s a chemistry neither can deny. Everything comes to a head one night in a darkened room. James believes he’s having sex with Caroline, but it’s Paisley, and she doesn’t bother to tell him the truth.

At the wedding, Paisley is drunk and unhappy. Her family has just discovered her pregnancy, and she’ll be kicked out the next day. What can she do to save herself? Suddenly, an idea comes to her. She stands up and makes a drunken, rambling speech about how she and James had sex before his marriage to Caroline. Granted, it’s true, but in extremely poor taste. Paisley decides to go a bit further and names James as the father of her unborn child. It’s a lie, but who cares? Imagine the discontent this causes!

Fast forward seven years. Paisley is now twenty-five, freed from her addiction to drugs and alcohol. She returns to London to see her son. She signed over all parental rights to him just before his birth, but she wants that to change. James refuses to listen, and Paisley devises a plan to change his mind. Will it work? Can Paisley ever make amends for the terrible things she’s done, or, are some things too horrible to forgive?

Carmen Rose did a good job with this very peculiar book. Her British accent set the scene perfectly. Her character differentiation was excellent. She is able to make both male and female characters sound believable and distinct. Ms. Rose uses a variety of regional accents to help with this.

The one character who didn’t sound very believable was a coworker of Paisley’s. She’s supposed to be from Australia, but Ms. Rose makes her sound just as British as anyone else in the book. Luckily, she doesn’t play a huge part in the story.

Hate to Love You is full of sex. Not only do Paisley and James have quite a bit of it, but many of the characters think about sex a lot. The language is raw and course. Ms. Rose doesn’t appear bothered by this. She takes it in stride, and even manages to sound a little aroused when reading some of the steamier scenes.

There were certain elements of this book that just didn’t make sense. The whole mind reading thing is the one that bothered me the most. It’s incongruous, when compared to the rest of the book. This isn’t paranormal romance or urban fantasy. Maybe the author just liked the idea of telepathy and decided to insert it. In my opinion, the story would have been stronger without it.

The characters were impossible to like. Paisley is immature, petulant and selfish. James is entirely too quick to anger, and incredibly stuck up. These two have countless misunderstandings which could have been prevented if people would have acted like adults, and had reactions that didn’t put me in mind of spoiled children. Sure, Ms. Alden gives us reasons for this behavior, but understanding it doesn’t make it any easier to like.

I also take exception to ridiculous names. Who would name a character Tarzan? Every time I heard him mentioned, I wanted to laugh.

A lot of people seemed to really enjoy this book. Sadly, I cannot count myself among them. For some reason I can’t explain, I wanted to see how things would turn out for Paisley and James. Maybe I was waiting for Paisley to grow up. Now that I know how the book ends, I’m quite happy to put it aside and move on to something with a bit more substance.

Shannon


Narration:  B

Book Content:  D

Steam Factor:  For your burning ears only (both for sexual content and language)

Violence:  Domestic

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Tantor Audio

 

Hate to Love You was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for review.

2 thoughts on “Hate to Love You by Elise Alden

  1. I read a book a couple of months ago where the heroine had gotten pregnant but was still a virgin and it ruined the story for me. I spent the entire time wondering how that was humanly possible, even going so far as to look up information on the internet. While it was plausible, I just couldn’t work with it. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief that far.

    Although I would say the couple didn’t have nearly as much sex as this couple did. :P

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