Lately, I haven’t been one for the gushy kind of romance/rom-com novels. I’m more of a true-crime, Murder, dark and twisty kinda gal. My book club friends had to <b>force</b> me to read <i>The Hating Game</i>. And I LOVED it.

<i>You Deserve Each Other</i>? 💯 better than <i>The Hating Game</i>. Hogle’s narration and character development between Naomi and Nicholas is top notch. You’re rooting for them when you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You’re holding you’re breath during a moment where they just may kiss...or they don’t. They argument are heartfelt and you truly feel them.

Basically, my cold, murder and true crime loving heart melted for this book. And if that can happen, it means this book is <b>truly</b> worth the read!!

The way this book started, I honestly didn't think I would like it. I almost stopped reading it because of the way Naomi and Nicholas's relationship is portrayed. I am glad I kept reading the book because, boy, does it get better! I loved their characters and they felt so real. It feels like this can happen to any of us and it always takes effort to make a relationship work for you. I loved both of their characters, and I especially adored Nicholas. He's is so sweet and the little things he does for Naomi just melted my heart. This is a lovers to enemies to lovers story and is a debut book from this author. I would highly recommend it and caution you to read it on a weekend because you will not want to put this down.

* I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review*

A fun rom-com. The lengths that the heroine goes to in trying to drive her fiance to break their engagement are pretty absurd, take some patently unrealistic, labyrinthine thought streams to get to, and would probably work better in a visual medium as a montage. However, just before the couples' antics get too tiresome (with not a moment to spare) they turn toward reconciliation.

I didn't buy this at all. There was no backstory. I didn't understand why the characters had been in love to start with, and their hating each other felt ridiculous and unrealistic. Naomi's using feminism as an excuse to be a jerk really rankled me.

Naomi and Nicholas had a whirlwind of a time dating and falling in love, but it wasn't until they got engaged and moved in together that things took a downhill turn. Fast forward to the beginning of this book and they are a few months away from their wedding day. A wedding that neither seem to want, but neither want to be the one to call things off. And so begins a series of increasing pranks and attempts to push the other past their breaking point. But along the way, they find themselves breaking down their walls and falling for one another all over again, this time with eyes wide open.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was funny and it was sweet. Watching them have a second chance to fall in love and find their way back to one another was so heartening to watch. The big issue with their relationship is that they never learned how to openly communicate with one another, so that when the other person wasn't meeting a need or needs of theirs, they shut down and withdrew into themselves, too scared to risk rocking the boat. It wasn't until Naomi hit her breaking point and threw all caution to the wind in order to get Nicholas to break up with her. At this point she finally started living again and showed who she truly is and Nicholas felt comfortable enough to do the same.

I'll be honest, as much as I ended up enjoying this book and rooting for their HEA, I had a hard time liking either of them fully for a while. The lack of communication led to a huge heaping of bitterness on both of their parts, though we only ever fully got Naomi's perspective. At one point she says she loves Nicholas 9%. While every relationship is bound to have their ups and downs, I got through most of this thinking that these two needed some major therapy in order to work through everything. While I don't love a number of Nicholas's actions (not standing up for his fiancé, some of his cutting remarks to name a few), I definitely bordered on not liking Naomi for a good portion of the book. I think she had every reason to feel hurt (her family sounds like trash and Nicholas's is far from being any better), but I think there were better ways to handle it than how she did. Granted, it is fairly realistic that someone might respond in the same way that she did. I think this is why I ultimately come out liking the book even if Naomi can be incredibly oblivious and both of them just need to talk to one another. Desperately.

Ultimately, I would recommend this to those who love a good enemies-to-lovers trope. This one definitely delivers.

A new fave! This book was seriously one of my most favorite reads of the year (only beat out by Red, White, and Royal Blue, which is 100% my book to beat this year--yes I know I got there late, but at least I got there!). I wasn't super convinced by Nicholas and Naomi at first, only because I didn't see why these two were even together if they hated each other so much, but I stuck with it because I was enjoying the malicious pranks they were playing. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. They were so mean to each other that I thought there was no way the transition to being in love again could possibly be believable, but it toooootally was. The comeback was perfectly crafted and soo delicious to experience. I felt like I was truly watching them fall in love again, with the most perfect bits being when Naomi remembered the things that she loved about Nicholas, recounting how they met, and them realizing how to communicate with each other. The whole thing was just a really lovely exercise in seeing two people come back to each other.

This was cute and so much fun! It dragged a little in the middle, but overall it was really enjoyable!

Many readers are familiar with the classic enemies-to-lovers plot, but what about the reverse? Naomi and Nicholas got engaged right before moving in together, and the regret slowly snowballs into resentment as the wedding nears. Naomi knows if she breaks it off now, she'll be paying the enormous party-planning bills Nicholas' overbearing mother has orchestrated for them. This dangerous duo has found themselves in an unspoken face-off; passively enrage each other as much as possible, and whoever quits loses. But could their devious tactics be exactly what they need to resurrect their love? You Deserve Each Other is utterly hilarious and addicting.

The first time I read this I couldn't get past a certain point. This time I finished and I enjoyed myself. But I didn't love it. Honestly I think Naomi was a little harsh and Nicholas was no peach. For me too much time was spent on the bad and I didn't like that I never saw the good to start. Made jumping in feel a little like I was in the middle of the story. It was definitely a fun story in a lot of parts and I giggled a couple of times. I'm happy I gave it a second chance.

I wasn't sure at first I was going to like this book as the characters weren't very nice or endearing. Eventually, they won me over and I ended up rooting for them. Fun, fast read.

While the book definitely improved in the second half, Naomi was insufferable in the first half of the novel and I definitely didn't almost finish it. I had seen so many raving reviews that I kept on with it but so much could have been avoided if they had just communicated!

I usually adore romcoms of this nature. I hate to say it, but this one just wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be.

The characters themselves were hard to root for. That, I think, was the most difficult part for me to bandwagon. The writing is beautiful. Hogle does a wonderful job of giving you exactly what you need and expect in a romance novel, but Namoi was such a hateful character that even her redemption part of the book was a struggle for me to enjoy. Nicholas is not excluded from the character issues, his just seem more minor to me than Namoi.

Without giving spoilers, Namoi is selfish and self centered. Even when she finally comes around it is less about Nicholas and more about her own wants and desires. Nicholas is such a momma's boy that it was hard to think of him as a thirty year old man who is about to get married. However, with these things said, these are completely points of personal preference. As far as rating actual story line, writing, plot structure and the likes, Hogle does a wonderful job. The humor is solid and had me giggling throughout. I would definitely recommend this book to other readers who love a good romcom.

Unfortunately this book ended up in my did not finish pile. I am a big fan of the enemies to lovers romance book trope so I was intrigued by the set up of this novel. The couple is already engaged! I thought this was a unique plot line that I have not read before but once starting the book I found it very difficult to get into. The characters just weren't likeable.

The first few chapters have to suck you in and they just didn't compel me to read further. In enemies to lovers stories, there has to be a thread of chemistry underlying the hate but that did not come across in this book (at least from the parts that I read).

Thank you for the opportunity to read a new author to me but unfortunately it was a no go for me.

PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!!

I have been in a reading slump and looking for something to shake me up and get out of it and this book did that. “You Deserve Each Other” is a masterpiece! Sarah Hogle captured exactly what it’s like to be in a relationship that has hit a stagnant period! ”I don’t really care what you want, to be honest. I don’t like you again yet. But I’m going to. And you’re going to like me again, too.
This house is going to save us.”

I laughed at how witty the characters were and how they interacted with each other. Their dynamic was so relatable. Nicholas and Naomi fight and love hard. At one point I was sighing over the tenderness of their bond.

If you like a slow burn with a 100% believable enemies to lovers storyline, READ THIS BOOK!

I was unable to finish the book, the story line, the characters, the writing was not interesting, felt really out of place, just jumping from one scene to the next.

To be completely honest - I was positive that this kind of setup would not work for me but I was wrong, but also right.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I think the writing was super accessible and engaging and I was glued to the book from start to finish, and I read it basically in just one sitting. I really loved Nicholas, I think he was a great hero and I think he grew a lot throughout the book, so I really appreciated that. I think one of the reasons why I liked him more than Naomi is because we do not get his perspective, we only see him through Naomi's eyes, so it's easy to whenever he's frustrating to attach that to Naomi's perception of him.

On the other hand, I found Naomi to also be a compelling main character, but one that is super frustrating. And that's for a myriad of reasons, but most importantly because I felt like Naomi should have broken up with Nicholas and potentially should have sought out therapy, to be honest.

And herein lies my biggest issue with this book - it's very hard to root for a relationship where one of the people who is engaged to be married really actively hates their fiance. At the beginning, the novel reads like the part of a romance novel where the main character is about to break up her current relationship just before she meets the main love interest, except for the fact that the awful fiance is ACTUALLY the love interest.

And while I can totally acknowledge that people can have ups and downs in their relationships, and that they can have really bad patches, I just did not find this particular set up believable. Naomi and Nicholas never felt like they were in an actual relationship before, and it was a very disjointed experience to read how their relationship developed. While I loved seeing them getting to know each other again, there was never enough grounding in their previous relationship. It felt like it never even existed and I had a hard time suspending my disbelief about that. We just did not get enough of how they got to such a bad place in their relationship, and the author purposefully ignored that, and I really disliked that.

I also thought that the character of Nicholas' mother was way over the top and too dramatic, and I found their whole relationship obnoxious, but at the same time without any actual development or resolution and that really annoyed me.

However, ultimately, once I put aside my grievances and pretended that Nicholas and Naomi were just getting to know each other FOR THE FIRST TIME, I really loved their banter and I really loved their interactions and that's what made me enjoy this one in the end. So I would still recommend this, but it was definitely a tiny bit of a frustrating read. BUT CUTE AND WE LOVE CUTE.

Thank you to NetGalley, G.P. Putnam & Sons, & Penguin Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.

Ok, so. I spent a good portion of this book frustrated as heck and almost unbelieving that two people that had ever been in a loving relationship could get to this point ... and then I spent another good portion of this book totally here for it. A lot of it was funny, if a bit on the extreme side - and I laughed out loud a few times (which means it was for real funny). And then other parts were just so depressing. It was a weird read.

Also important to note that this is one of those that you LOVED or were totally MEH on (with the occasional friend throwing in a DNF or HATED it). I can't really say how others will feel about it, but I'm not mad I read it. So there you have it. Take that vagueness and run with it. I wish you the best of luck.

Enemies to lovers is my favorite trope and I couldn’t have been more pleased with this book. It was charming but weaved with humor and themes that make this a romance with substance. Highly recommend.

This book was so fun! Naomi and Nicholas hate each other. Naomi and Nicholas are also engaged. The book goes through the ups and downs of their relationship - Nicholas’ mother, a move to a new house, Naomi losing her job, and the general craziness that comes from hating the person you are living with. It’s a romance, so (spoiler alert), they’re obviously gonna fall back in love, but the getting to that was such a fun read. It was funny, it was cute, it’s worth the read. (My only complaint is that I read it in July in 90+ degree weather and there was lots of talk of snow and cold. Probably should have read it when I first got from @netgalley!)

I unfortunately had a really hard time getting into You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle. My initial reaction after reading the first three chapters was: What the hell? I’m supposed to root for their relationship at some point? They don’t fit together at all! Thankfully, my feelings about Naomi and Nicholas started changing a bit at some point and I began to really enjoy their fights and the tension between the two of them even though I still didn’t think they’d work as a couple. I actually didn’t fully believe they were in love with each other until around 80% to 85% of the way through the book because even though both of them had definitely showed their real face at that point and you could tell they were caring about each other again, I was just never really able to forget about how they had initially felt about one another.

At the very end of You Deserve Each Other however, I definitely believed they loved each other and was glad they’d stayed together. I loved how Nicholas finally began talking back to his mother and enjoyed seeing him and Naomi start to have each other’s backs and become a team. The last chapter was very cute and definitely one of my favorite parts of the book.

So all in all, I ended up really enjoying You Deserve Each Other even though I had a hard time getting into it. I actually finished most of the book in one day and the story definitely gripped me. Furthermore, I really enjoyed Sarah Hogle’s writing style and loved the idea of writing a lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romance which is why I’m definitely interested in checking out her future novels.