Sajni Patel

A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy debut about first impressions, second chances, and finding the love of your life in the most unexpected way. Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents' latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she's out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later -- the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What's not surprising: he's not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco. Jay Shah looks good on paper...and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He's also infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

The Trouble with Hating You

Eslie

“Who do you think you are, handling her like that?” Jay snapped and gently touched my back. “Are you all right, Liya?”

“I am so sorry you went through all of this,” he added, kissing my head. “You are amazing and strong, and I’m incredibly honored that you shared with me.”

“You eat tacos with a fork and knife?”

Afsara Monzur 

A fiercely independent engineer walks out on the man her parents have set her up with -- only to start working side-by-side with him at her job in this laugh-out-loud debut with "delicious banter, deep wounds, heartwarming friendships, and a path to love that often feels impossibly hard, and [a payoff] satisfying enough to give you a book hangover the size of Texas" (Sonali Dev, USA Today bestselling author of Recipe for Persuasion). Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents' latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she's out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later -- the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What's not surprising: he's not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco. Jay Shah looks good on paper...and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He's also infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late-night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

Keira 💫

lexie

i cried. i normally don’t cry in novels. Jay was a man of our dreams. he always say things that will make you wanna be Liya. They’re perfect for each other. i’ve found my new book boyfriend 🤪🤪🤪

Arooj

literally never trusting tiktok for suggestions ever again

Nouran Hazem

Nouran

dija

This book has : 
-hate to love romance (NOT enemies to lovers)
-realisticly written characters 
-mostly all South Asian cast 
-sweet love interest/standoffish, snarky main character
-amazing female friendship 🥺 loved the girls so much 

Tw : physical and emotional abuse, parental abuse, molestation/sexual assault.

Jess Griffin

this was cute & so easy to read! excellently written and discusses serious topics (SA/grief).

i can’t wait to read Preeti’s book!

Jantien 

** spoiler alert **
           This book has everything I need to be happy. An enemies to lovers trope, Indian culture, drama and lots of romance.

Sanika Palande

3.5 stars. Your typical cheesy bollywood style rom-com. One of the few romcoms where the male lead >>> female lead (also why is Jay so perfect/almost perfect?? Literally don’t like that his character is so flawless, it would’ve been interesting if he was more morally grey). Not a huge fan of Liya’s character at all, despite her backstory - she’s rather off-putting and gives me cliquey mean girl / sorority girl vibes and I def wouldn’t be friends with someone like that irl. I LOVED Jay’s mother’s character, and appreciated the discussion around assault/mental health/cultural short-comings.

Overall sweet but lacking.

Super blah. The only redeeming parts were learning about the author's culture, but the two leads were just lacking a spark -- from the very first POV chapters where Liya IMMEDIATELY characterized herself as spunky and not like othe girls and Jay IMMEDIATELY was thinking about his tragic backstory. It was Wattpad level.

Marika

This book is really good. Liya is an amazing FMC, and doesn't care what other people think. I really don't like her Dad, I mean who does that to their own child. And Jay's family sounds amazing and I love how his mother stood up for her and care for her. And Jay being protective of her from day 1 is amazing, I mean look what he did with Mike and how he treated and reacted to her Dad and Mukesh, I love it even if she can stand up for herself he cared enough to fight for her. This book is really good, I just love it. Jay and Liya relationship is just amazing,  the bickering and everything. I love how Liya helped Jay with his grieving and how to cope with what happend to him. And I love how she shut every guy down even when they didn't really date, she really care from him and didn't even look at any other. 

Cheri McElroy

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Liya is a young, successful young Indian woman living in Houston. She has no interest in marriage because she has her job, her friends, her apartment, and the ability to care for herself; thank you very much! Then she meets Jay Shah and finds her thoughts changing.

This rom-com includes good food, good food, southern sass, and a look at the issue of assault(non-graphic, off-page). I enjoyed the ride.

lindsey

arwa 

4.5/5 stars!!!

“I know you can take care of yourself, but should someone try to hurt you, they’ll still have me to deal with. Not one day will go by without you feeling my love, in action, words”

JAY SHAH IS NOW MY DREAM MAN

this book was so good and made me cry a little bit. i loved the desi representation and the important issues were explored well and i didnt feel as if anything was rushed or dramatised for the sake of the book (which i feel can sometimes happen unintentionally in some books)

both Jay and Liya were such strong characters and their background and character development was so well done. i loved both their relationships with their respective families and friends!!

Preye

I really wanted to love this book but I found that I couldn't connect to the characters; the writing style wasn't for me; and it felt like there was gaping hole in the narrative. 

The writing felt a bit clunky and the plot became a bit repetitive after the 25% mark. That's not to say this wasn't enjoyable—because, above all, the premise was what drew me in and what kept me reading—but I feel it wasn't executed properly. 

It felt like the book was chock-full of tropes and stereotypes and it made it an implausible and disorganised mess. The characters had so much potential but fell flat, and I breezed halfheartedly through the final 25%.

This book was really good and I very much enjoyed it, and I’m very happy to say that this was the first book that I read in the romance genre section. I love that they had two main characters point of view and not just one. The chapters were pretty short so it was kind of a fast paced book. I love you two main characters of a personality and I love a badass girl and put together gentle and passionate male main character. This book truly reached all my expectations and I would definitely suggest anyone to read this and I would myself, read this again.
<3

Megan BV

This is such a beautiful romance. Jay and Liya are such real characters. They feel so many things and fight and grow and push back and I love them. Towards the end I felt it was dragging on a bit but this book tells a whole story and I appreciate all detail. 

lauren carla

this novel was cute, funny, and overall just a good time. also it was set in houston, representing exactly!! (despite the fact that Liya hated it there 🥴). I thought Liya & Jay were really cute together, but I felt like their relationship was a little underdeveloped? at the same time I also thought it took them a long time to get together, so I really don’t know what i’m feeling in that department lmao 😭😂 I hated Liya’s father with a burning passion omfg. mukesh was bloody awful too, like who has the audacity to do something like that??? but what kind of father doesn’t believe his own kid???? wtf???? anyways, this novel made me feel a variety of emotions lmao 😭

Alice Dulude

I went into this book blind and honestly, I’m so in love. Liya is one of the strongest female character I have ever read about. She went trough so much and thought no one could ever love her after what happened, but she found her person. Jay’s family is amazing ❤️❤️ I love jay and Liya so muucchh 😭❤️ I will surely read the rest of the series ❤️

Sofie

Whenever Liya glanced at me, which wasn’t often, she had daggers for stares. Her annoyance level was ridiculous. But as soon as Ma engaged her in conversation, she was someone else entirely


The Trouble with Hating You is a story told in dual POV by Liya, a forward-thinking, stubborn, non-traditional Hindu girl who has effectively been shunned by her community due to her sexual history and no-nonsense demeanour, and Jay, an all-around "nice-guy" (my quotation marks, no the authors) who loved his family and has a grin that could drop your panties. They first meet when Liya literally runs into him when she's escaping dinner with her parents, because as she finds out, they plan to ambush her with the appearance of Jay, with whom they are trying to set her up in an arranged marriage.

I'm not going to pretend to know the intricacies of Hinduism or Indian culture, but I had a major problem with the insidious misogyny in this book. It was most likely included to foil our progressive couple, and the author definitely tries to tear it down, particularly at the end, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable to read about. Still, I liked how Liya was quick to point it out and shut it down. I liked how she kept her head held high when faced with her communities judgement, disdain, and vicious rumours.

But. I didn't particularly like how (view spoiler)[her main trauma, the reason that she's so standoffish with guys and never lets anyone in, was because she was assaulted when she was 15. And I really didn't like how Jay is suddenly the one tearing down her walls, healing her. If you want to base your main character's personality on a past trauma, at least let their big breakthrough be something they find within themselves. People don't magically forget their past, their issues, and their scars just because the right person comes along. And if you ARE going to make that the case, then at least show them working through it together.I feel like all we got with Jay and Liya was a few "of course I believe you"'s, a few tender kisses, and some long-winded i-love-you speeches at the end that felt more like exposition than a genuine declaration of love. (hide spoiler)]

I ALSO... and this might be controversial.... DON'T LIKE JAY. 

Sure, he came through at the end there. But as he's courting Liya, he is such a "nice-guy" it made me literally sick.

Here he is enlisted her friends to convince her to go out with him after she ALREADY SAID NO.

The gist of the twenty-mile-long text chain was this: Jay had asked them to convince me to go out with him! The audacity! Who did he think he was, getting my friends involved? And to make matters worse, of course they were on Team Freaking Jay. 

Here he is acting in true nice-guy fashion when Liya continues to turn him down.

I opened my mouth to snap at him, but he walked out and said, “You messed this up, Liya. We would’ve been good together. We could’ve had something real."

Here he is in his inner dialogue calling Liya UNGRATEFUL because he bought her $1400 (!!!) shoes (they are not even friends yet, people), and she was like.... um, take these back weirdo:

Since I’d been helping Liya, that ungrateful woman, for the past few weeks, I’d skipped out on our meals, which upset Ma.

And you're trying to tell me Jay is supposed to be this progressive, "we're always equals mkay? we walk side by side, I will never be above you, we're gonna be uNtRAdiTIonAL like that" kinda guy? I got some news for you....

Anyway he asks her out like 5 times I think before she finally caves. And, look, okay, I get it's a romance novel and the whole point is that she wanted to say yes and he could tell that, and that it's supposed to be romantic that he doesn't give up, but like... how many times do women need to say no for men to take the fucking hint? How many times do men keep pushing because they think we, like Liya, actually want to say yes but are playing hard to get?

(I apologize for that very heteronormative statement. In my personal experience, and the experience of nearly very woman in my life, however, it has always been the man who doesn't take no for an answer.)

And this isn't a fluffy rom-com novel where that sort of toxic behaviour doesn't speak to any deeper issues within that novel's world. When it's all fluff, things aren't that deep. But this is a novel with heavy themes, like deep-rooted sexism in religion, believing women, family dynamics in traditional households... I couldn't ignore Jay's character, and it doesn't stack up against the other themes of the novel.

Unrelated, I found the whole workplace drama thing boring and unnecessary. 

Also unrelated, is anyone else hella bothered when a character is like, declaring their love and is all "I fell in love the first moment I saw you" (or in Jay's case: “I’ve been in love with you since the day you walked into that diner, when I took you home and decided to buy these damn shoes.”) when it's so obviously not true? 

Um. I think that's most of what I thought. I could probably add more but this review is too long already.

Sarah 

Sahi K

Probably more of a 3.5 but I’m rounding up. 

CW: talk of past sexual assault, parental and marital abuse, gaslighting, death of a parent

This is one debut I’ve been highly anticipating and I was ecstatic when I got approved for the ARC. I was gonna read it much closer to the release date but I changed my mind and I’m glad I read it because the beautiful love story was definitely something I needed. 

The story actually takes a while to kick off and I felt bored initially, but I was determined to see it through and when everything fell into place, I found it to be a very well written romance and also strong female friendships. The dialogue can be a bit on the cheesier side sometimes but as a Bollywood movie lover, I’m accustomed to a lot of cheese and I didn’t mind it at all. I liked how the author showed both the good and bad sides of the Indian community and while some of the characters really pissed me off, it was mostly because such people do exist in real life and I hate seeing them in fiction too. The only small gripe I have is that except a handful of families, the author showed that most of the community is very conservative and patriarchal, and I think that was a bit too harsh and we are getting progressive. I both liked and hated the ending - the main characters’ arc was perfectly concluded and this is probably the first time I was happy that there wasn’t an epilogue because it perfectly suited the character’s personalities; on the other hand, we didn’t get to see any consequences for some of the other unsavory characters and I would have liked some resolution in that matter. 

The characters of Liya and Jay were definitely the best parts of the book. Liya is strong, independent, opinionated but there’s a vulnerable side to her that only those closest to her get to witness. She may feel a little unlikable initially but as we get to know her, I really loved her and realized the unlikability only stems from society’s perspective and nothing else. Jay on the other hand is a typical nice Indian boy who wants to keep his family happy, but there are depths to him that we discover as the story goes on. I loved that the author spent time developing their friendship and there were so many sweet moments which only endeared me more to them. And I loved that there was deep understanding between them and immense trust and support for each other. 

The other best part of the book was Jay’s lovely family who were tight knit and traditional in some ways but also didn’t bow down to society’s gossip. I particularly loved Jay’s mother who was a rock and never let anyone treat her or her family with disrespect. And Liya’s three best friends were a riot and I loved every single scene where they all were just having fun. I like that the author showed how important female friendships are and sometimes even more than family. 

To conclude, this book had some difficult themes which I thought were handled well but ultimately it’s strength is the adorable relationship between the main characters and some very lovely friendships. I like seeing the man support the woman’s aspirations for a change and would love to see more such books in the future. And I would definitely read whatever the author writes next.

Tânia Borges

This was everything I wanted and needed right now. It's such an important book, with such important discussions, and yet still light-hearted and fun and easy to read. Definitely recommend.

Kayla 

The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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About the book: Liya is a strong, feminist, biochemical engineer who loves her freedom and does not want some guy calling the shots. Jay is a smart, attractive lawyer who wants to please his mom and settle down with a nice Indian girl who will get along with his family. His mother tells him that they are going for dinner at a nice house and he will meet the good girl she picked out for him. Turns out that woman is Liya and she is in no way interested in this set up. She bolts only to find Jay at her work a few days later and calling her out for being late to his meeting. And so the story begins. It’s a hate-love romance! .
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Thoughts: This book was everything I wanted! I love hate-to-love romances and this one had the banter I crave! We had slow build up and denial from both characters, ah it was amazing! I loved both characters so much, maybe Jay a little more lol. There were some serious issues that were dealt with in here to give the characters a bit more depth. However they are not the main part of this book which is nice. I felt like the author handled the issues well and I wish we found out how it was all resolved in the end. But perhaps that’s for another book...
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I’ve heard a rumour that the author is working on a book about one of Liya’s friends, Preeti who has a forbidden love story. I cannot wait for that one! .
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Heather Harrington

When Liya Thakkar is blindsided by her parents into meeting yet another potential marriage prospect, she can't run fast enough. After literally crashing into said suitor in her bolt out the door, she takes solace in the fact that she'll never see him again. To her surprise, he turns out to be the new lawyer aid hired to help her struggling biochemical company, and he's not happy to see her either. Jay Shah has got it all; a wonderful family, a great job, and he's not so bad to look at either. He's never had to try too hard when it comes to relationships, so when Liya wants nothing to do with him, he only seems to want her more. Soon arguing in the office leads to late night dinners, and Liya opening up like she's never done to anyone. But will the secret she's guarded her whole life cause the only man she's ever loved to turn his back on her?

I'd heard a lot of hype around this book, but sadly, I didn't love it as much as I'd hope. There were aspect that I really enjoyed: learning more about Indian culture; Jay and his relationship with his family; and the female friendships. While Jay made the book for me, I can't really say the same for Liya. I didn't even really start to like her until half way through this. I found her slightly too haughty and a bit aggressive. I also found some of the dialogue to be unbelievable and the pacing of the story got a bit clunky at times. Despite this not being my favorite recent read, it was still a solid debut.

The Trouble with Hating You

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