The Hating Game

THE TIME HAS COME MY FRIENDS! I’m deep diving into The Hate Game! I’m going to start off by saying – I have LOTS to say, so get comfy. Also, this will be full of spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book and/or watched the movie, you have been warned.

A few years ago, one of my favorite people in the entire world Angi bullied me into reading The Hating Game. It was on my list to read, but it’s a million miles long. So in an effort to move it up, she sent it to me. I read it in like 48 hours. (Note – we have a 2 person book club that basically is us bullying each other into reading things, getting anxious that the other person isn’t reading fast enough and then screaming about the book for like 5 days. So this is actually totally normal behavior for us).

Needless to say, I loved it. I loved it so much that I read it a second time a year later. And that would be why I was both excited and nervous about it being made into a movie. I loved that one of my favorite rom coms was going to be a movie! YAY! But also, I rarely like a movie version better than a book. My toxic trait is that I spend all of my time comparing the movie version to the book (I’m going to try not to do that here … too much). I can only think of one movie that I like better than the book, and that is because they changed the ending.

But rest assured, my romance loving friends, the movie does the book justice. I have now watched it 3 times. Are there changes? Yes. But it was well done. And fun! And sexy! And the chemistry between Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell is fantastic.

So in case you don’t know or need a refresher – Lucy and Josh hate each other. They work as assistants to the co-CEOs of a publishing company and play games like the staring game and the copycat game to drive the other crazy. Then things really heat up (in more ways than one) when they both apply for the same new position, which would mean one would be the other’s boss.

Let’s start with the characters. Lucy Hale was the perfect Lucy Hutton. She was adorable, her wardrobe was amazing (I want everything, especially the brownish tweed dress she wears when Helene is doing yoga in her office), she was funny. Seriously, perfect.

Let’s talk Josh for a minute. I thought Austin Stowell did a really great job, and man is he handsome. He was not, however, the dark, brooding, slightly asshole-ish Joshua Templeman of the book. If I hadn’t read it, would I have thought anything of it? Absolutely not. They were great together. Fantastic chemistry, excellent banter. But since I am who I am, that was something that really stood out. But I wouldn’t call it a knock against it. I would say it was different.

The other character I want to address is Danny … he felt very different from the book. And I mean this in a bad way. Way goofier, kind of cringy… Movie Danny didn’t feel like someone Lucy would actually consider as a potential boyfriend. Book Danny was better and I’m leaving it at that.

There were so many really fantastic scenes. The elevator scene with Jeanette from HR (poor Jeanette) / the flashback with the donut hole was a scream. Everything with the front desk guy at the hotel at the wedding. The paintball / sick scenes (though I wanted them to be longer, I get it is a MOVIE not a 75 part mini series … ) were well done and felt very true to the book.

One thing I want to discuss is the elevator first kiss scene. So in the book, Josh kisses Lucy. In the movie, Lucy kisses Josh. While it might seem like not a huge difference to a casual observer, we know it is a VERY big difference. I honestly don’t know how I feel about it either… Lucy kissing Josh gives her more agency HOWEVER I think I like it better with him kissing her. Since he is the one who knows he’s in love with her. Again, if you hadn’t read the book, you wouldn’t KNOW. And I don’t think it makes it bad, but it does change the tone of that scene. (Would love to know others thoughts on this. Angi disagreed that it felt different since he does stop the elevator and initial the conversation).

One thing that they changed up was the ending. Not dramatically but they go to the wedding and then the real black moment happens. And this is what is interesting… it works. It makes the black moment that much harsher because they’ve already slept together. He’s told her that he loves her. And THEN she overhears him with Bexley. I personally thought it was a great move. A bigger gut punch for her. You might disagree, but while on my first viewing I was mostly like WAIT WAIT WAIT, upon further review it works.

A couple of other small things- I was really sad they didn’t really do the Lucinda / Joshua thing. I loved that in the book. Again, I KNOW it is a movie and not the length of The Sound of Music. But again, I am who I am. I also hated they didn’t explain her Smurf love. It felt like she just had a weird obsession with tiny blue creatures.

So those are a lot of my thoughts. Not all of them because if you made it to the end of this post, you deserve an award. I could have gone on and on and on. In conclusion, if you haven’t seen the movie, do it!

And now I will leave you with my favorite line: You better put that donut hole away or I’m going to shove it up your semi-colon.