TWISTED HATE - Ana Huang

5 stars

Enemies to lovers. Hate banging to love banging. Complex family and friend dramas. Addictive pacing. Realistic egos and flaws. What's not to love??

Concept: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★
Steam factor: ★★★★★
Drama: ★★★★

Sometimes there are books that are tailor-made for you.

Things Amy likes to read: enemies to lovers with real dislike on both sides, intense sexual chemistry regardless of mental interest, secret dramas that cause angst to both people, and some sort of angst that both ties the characters together and viciously keeps them apart.

Twisted Hate had all of those things in spades, y'all, and I am OBSESSED with it. I can already tell I'm going to read this story again, and again, and again—because that's what I do with these types of angsty HEAs.

Jules Ambrose and Josh Chen hate each other.

Jules is best friends with Ava Chen, Josh's sister, and she knows Josh hates her because she overheard him telling Ava that Jules was bad news back when Jules and Ava first roomed together in college. He's been a pain in her ass ever since, and she's returned the same energy back to him blow for blow.

Josh Chen can't stop fixating on Jules Ambrose. She's fiery, a troublemaker, a spitfire with more balls than common sense. And he hates her. (He also knows where she is and what she's up to at all times, but that's just knowing your enemy. Right??)

Both Jules and Josh find themselves stuck in eternal snarky orbit with their close relationships to Ava, and it all comes to a head when the universe decides to place them in a remote Vermont cabin... with only one bed. The seal breaks on their sexual chemistry and both Josh and Jules realize that there's no way out but through—so they decide to secretly bang it out of their system.

Enemies with benefits always ends well...

Add in a heavy dose of drama, some serious personal angsts, secret trysts, and high emotional stakes and we've got ourselves Twisted Hate.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, I loveddd this story. No notes, I had such a good time and thought it was all great.

However, a note on the reviews—it seems that many reviewers found this one difficult to love due to the third act conflict. Let me state for the record: I had zero issues with the third act here. Given Josh and Jules' dynamics and the hefty egos + emotional immaturities on both sides, I actually thought that conflict was extremely realistic. They're in their early 20s, they've never had a successful emotionally deep/communicative relationship before, and they're both glass castles of fragile ego. That conflict made TOTAL sense given those factors. But I guess some people have had healthier in-real-life relationships than me and/or never had something similar happen to them in their early 20s years (good for y'all).