BOOK REVIEW: The Valentine's Hate

Cupid only strikes once. At least that’s what Lissette Alonso believes. Ever since the Most Disastrous Valentine’s Day of All Time™ she has hated all things V-day. But Lizzie’s best friend is having pre-nuptial festivities for a week leading up to her February 14th wedding and Lissette is taking her maid of honor duties seriously, maybe too seriously. Of course, of course of course who is the first person she runs into on the way to the wedding? None other than her childhood nemesis, Brian Anderson, the reason for all of her Valentine’s Day hatred.

Brian knows he messed up with Lizzie but give him a break, he was just a kid who was trying to look cool and Lizzie regularly pushed all of his buttons—both in school and out of it. He’s always been gruff and grumpy, but these days, Brian is much better off with his writing; fictional characters never talk back. Unlike Lizzie who always has something to say.

Suddenly the two are back under the same roof and bickering like old times, except that Brian has bigger problems than dealing with Lizzie’s verbal sparring. Someone Brian is desperate to avoid shows up and somehow Lizzie gets roped into pretending to be dating him. And, suddenly, the simmering anger has blossomed into something extra spicy…

Spoiler Free:

An easy and cute holiday-themed, trope filled rom-com, The Valentine’s Hate is a quick yet enjoyable read.

Lissette Alonso hasn’t liked Valentine’s Day since her childhood neighbor/nemesis ruined each one for her growing up. But when her grade school best friend, Mari, plans pre-nuptial activities in Mexico for a week leading up to her wedding day on Valentine’s Day, Lizzie knows being the maid-of-honor is more important than any of her hatred. That is until she travels all the way from London to discover half of the hotel has been shut down for water damage, and her room has been relocated to a new location an hour away.

Brian Anderson writes books because fictional characters don’t talk back and he writes under the pen name B. Anderson to keep from needing to attend book signings, Q&A’s and talk to the beings behind the pages. But now having ten books in the successful series, its time the readers start putting a face to the mysterious pen name. Mexico seems to be the best location. Specifically, the same hotel in which Lizzie’s best friend’s wedding is planned to happen.

Now under the same roof, both pick off where they’ve left off, annoyed and bickering constantly. Throughout the week they’re both shown maybe they didn’t know each other the way they thought and maybe helping each other out can void all the ill-will from their childhood.

Without spoiling, I enjoyed this fast-paced read, but I would warn those to go into this piece knowing the equation this genre has created because this piece follows it pretty closely.

Spoilers Full:

Okey-Dokey y’all know the drill.

This is the section in which I include all and every spoiler.

So here in my disclaimer.

There are spoilers ahead.

Please read at your own risk.

Seriously, I will talk about the ending.

Proceed with caution.

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Alright, here we go.

I’ll be honest and say, I picked this book up purely because the cover disclosed the cliché rom-com, quick read type of book and I ended up purchasing it because I got it on discount. That doesn’t take away from the novel itself, it’s just the truth and it definitely turned out to the type of book I profiled it to be when I pulled it off the shelf. This piece moves very quickly, runs through troupes, ideas, and even more so events. For a smaller novel, Halston definitely packed in a lot of different scenarios. So, let’s dive in it together.

I didn’t like the way this book began. I felt like the “flashbacks” or recounts of their childhood interaction felt redundant. It is something that I can see as being threaded into a conversation in the present tense instead of taking the time upfront to write it out in detail. It is structured as the prologue, but felt like multiple small prologues and I eventually just wanted to get through them. I think if there could be one story that is expanded on and then the others brought up later would’ve had a better impact on the reader. Continuing through the story, Lizzie and Brian meet on the plane having been sat next to each other and they figure out who each other is, but when they also arrive at the hotel, they have a moment since her room is being relocated. I see what the author was going in the slow progression. Basically, it made it seem more comfortable between the two characters before he offers his room to her, I just didn’t get the heart tugging that the “enemies to lovers” and “forced proximity” troupes are known for. It definitely felt like it was missing something in those scenes.

From when Lizzie agrees to sharing the room with him to agreeing to fake date (yet another trope), the progression seemed very fast to the point that the reader wasn’t able to experience the change in emotions or intensifying of the emotions. Mostly, the readers weren’t teased of the possibility of a enemies to lovers’ romance. Not to mention how the engagement plot felt off in a way. I’m not sure if it didn’t mesh well with the subject matter or if the writing wasn’t strong enough to make it seem like a realistic thing to occur. Throughout the piece the point of views jumps back and forth from Brian to Lizzie and at some points it was wanted and interesting to see the other’s POV, specifically when she leaves and after the Mexico trip, but I felt that the POV switched too often. There were times I wanted to sit with Lizzie and her thoughts especially since her character seemed to take the main character title more than his.

Like I said before, I profiled this book pretty accurately and therefore didn’t expect anymore than what I got. And that doesn’t mean anything negative towards this novel. It simply means this piece is the easy, rom-com, cliché/tropey read type. There are publishers that survive on these types of books because they sell. Because readers love to disassociate and get those warm ooey-gooey feelings they tend to give. This book is no different from those. Though fast-paced, this piece still delivers on the romance, the tropes, and the conflicts that we readers love to see in rom-coms such as distance, history, and exes.

In the end, I enjoyed this book, I wish I would’ve been more excited or attached to the characters than I was but the story did still give me butterflies.

Sidney Halston

Jeanette Escudero, known as her pen name Sidney Halston, Escudero worked as an attorney prior to her writing career. Writing as Halston, she is a USA Today bestselling author of the Panic Series, The Worth the Fight series, the Iron-Clad Security novels, and the Seeing Red duet. Jeanette Escudero has a total of 25 novels.