Audio Review: Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren (Goodreads Author), Shayna Thibodeaux (Narrator ), Deacon Lee (Narrator)

9 hours, 39 minutes

All’s fair in love and work. The first standalone romance by New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Beautiful Bastard) is a sexy, compulsively readable romantic comedy that dives headlong into the thrill and doubt of modern love.

Despite the odds against them from an embarrassing meet-awkward at a mutual friend’s Halloween party, Carter and Evie immediately hit it off. Even the realization that they’re both high-powered agents at competing firms in Hollywood isn’t enough to squash the fire.

But when their two agencies merge—causing the pair to vie for the same position—all bets are off. What could have been a beautiful, blossoming romance turns into an all-out war of sabotage. Carter and Evie are both thirtysomething professionals—so why can’t they act like it?

Can Carter stop trying to please everyone and see how their mutual boss is really playing the game? Can Evie put aside her competitive nature long enough to figure out what she really wants in life? Can their actor clients just be something close to human? Whether these two Hollywood love/hatebirds get the storybook Hollywood ending or just a dramedy of epic proportions, you will get to enjoy Christina Lauren’s heartfelt, raucous, and hilarious romance style at its finest.

I must confess something. Before tell you must pinkie swear that you will not laugh at me.

Ok Ready??

This is my very first Christina Lauren book at the ripe old age of 38.

Yeah, I know, what a tragedy. A huge part of me wants to blame my college English professor who told me I was “too smart” to read chick-lit. At the time I LOVED everything chick lit. One day I was reading a chick lit book before class where I would be forced to pick apart  F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald needed some heavy duty meds if you want my humble opinion. But I digress.

After the professor had it drilled into my chick lit brain, it would be two decades before I picked up another novel such as romance and chick lit. And what was that book called?

Dating you/Hating you!

I have seen soo many people in the book blogosphere raving about Christina Lauren, and after I saw that Scribd has what looked to me all her books, I downloaded Dating you/Hating You as that was a stand alone

, I had not taken the time to see what the books were all about, but I am all for taking chances so onto my phone it went as it was an audiobook. I have to admit that I was wary as I have only recently started liking romance book of any kind.

How I came to love the romance genre

It seemed as if Christina Lauren book had nothing but praise heaped on them and that posed another problem. What if the book was was way overhyped, and everyone was engaging in groupthink? Being the newbie who has only in the last year and a half were able to understand human speech I decided to go with the audiobook as the novelty of being able actually to understand human speech has yet to wear off.  I downloaded it onto my phone, and I was hooked!

I could relate to Evie so hard. She was awkward in high school and had extensive knowledge about movies and what makes them tick..most of the time. Ok Ok her boss Brad is fond of pointing out the one film that flopped instead of all the money and clients that Evie has brought in.

This book also sheds light on what modern feminism is. Evie wants to be able to keep her job, but her boss is forever looking for ways to have a good reason not to renew EVIE contract.  There was no outward sign that  Brad has done anything illegal… yet… I thought he glossed over the whole feminism thread. It would have beefed up the story if Evie ever actually DID something that would have made Brad even meaner. LOL

There were parts of the book that I thought NOW we will read about the actual feminist men during the ’60s but nope the overall tone ket it lights and airy making this a PERFECT beach read. Unless you are like yours truly and you bring a book by Tomas and spend the whole summer attempting to make sense of the tome.

I loved this book.  And now I have a new favorite author, so it is a win-win.