Besides being romantic and funny and sticking it to the man, Melody Joo doesn't let the men in her life decide what is best for her.
The portrayal of women in the gaming industry is spot on and i loved the way Melody handled herself. I love the relationship between her and Nolan and the growing friendship to love between them! Ah i just look a good sticking it to the man and hate to love book!

DNF - I couldn't do this folx. This was not what I was expecting and I struggled to even get 20%. I was so excited about it being a romance with a Korean American heroine but the romance is definitely to the way back, the waaayyyy back. Marketing for this book was not done well. I also struggled with the misogyny. I know it's real, but I wasn't expecting it to be so bad. Overall, I would make sure that folx who read this know what they are getting into!

Melody Joo is thrilled to land her dream job as a video game producer, but her new position comes with challenges: an insufferable CEO; sexist male coworkers; and an infuriating—yet distractingly handsome—intern, Nolan MacKenzie, aka “the guy who got hired because his uncle is the boss.”

So much more than a regular rom com. I absolutely loved this book!! Loved Melody, hated her boss and the racism and sexism she faced.

One of my favorite romcom reads this year. As an asian, I can relate on the characters reasoning and suffering. Suzanne did a great job in writing romcoms featuring asian characters. All my reviews are at my instagram @abryjewel.

Initial Thoughts

I read some bad reviews of this book before I read it and I think that’s why it took me so long to read it. It’s been pending in my NetGalley queue for months. But, I’m glad my forever buddy reader suggested we read it together!

Some Things I Liked

Nolan. He’s the only thing that was tolerable about this book. He was a treasure.
The gaming plot. I thought that was an interesting plot and something I wasn’t super familiar with. I liked the idea of a woman breaking into a man’s industry and I thought the technical aspects of the gaming industry were illustrated well.

Some Things I Wasn’t Crazy About

Every single male character was an absolute horror. Except Nolan. Seriously, why was every person Melody interacted with a human dumpster fire?
Jane was kind of the worst. In order to tolerate that kind of minor character growth, I would need a prequel story all about Jane just to understand why on earth Melody put up with her.
I was expecting enemies to lovers. What did I get? Nuisances to friends? Where was the banter? I was very disappointed in both the lack of enemies to lovers snark as well as the romance altogether.
Melody’s parents were essentially extreme caricatures of Korean parents and I kind of hated that. They were definitely funny characters but they felt so extreme, they were unrealistic.

Series Value

There is no series value to this book. There is not a single character that I would want to know more about.

I have read another of Suzanne Park’s books and I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t let my lack of enjoyment of this book stop me from reading her works in the future.

Final Thoughts

I was not a fan of this book. There was a lot that literally made me cringe. This is not what I look for in a rom-com.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommendations for Further Reading

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne – that’s what I thought this book was going to be. Snarky, fun, romantic. If that’s what you wanted, try this book.
The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park – if you’re interested to see Suzanna Park tackle a YA rom-com, look no further. This was a quick, fun read.

Loathe at First Sight is about Melody Joo, a badass gaming producer/video game developer, forging her way up in an extremely male-dominant world. She hadn't sought out to make waves really, but when she was joking around with her only other female coworker about a game where the women carry the swords and the men are the shirtless damsels in distress, the higher ups heard and loved the idea giving her no choice but to run with it. Melody faces everything from self doubt to coworker rivalry, overbearing parents, to die hard chauvinistic gamer fans who troll every which way they can, and last but not least a work place romance (of course😉).

I enjoyed reading how Melody navigated and conquered this man's world she inhabited. How she pooled together her resources and pushed forward. I enjoyed the secondary characters, her girlfriends and coworkers, and I related very much to her having one-track- marriage-minded parents. I think my only qualm was wishing the rom part of this romcom took more of a central role in the storyline. It didn't take away from the book at all, if anything it definitely enhanced this being a female empowerment kind of read, I'm just a sap when it comes to romcoms I'll always want more!

The fast-moving story keeps readers engaged with vivid three-dimensional descriptions of the main character as she attempts to balance complex work relationships and her demanding family expectations. The reader roots for Melody from beginning to end. Park strikes a chord in this fresh workplace rom-com with loads of laughs and heart.

First off, this author is an instant buy for me. She’s WOC and just so witty and funny human being. I knew this book would rock. It definitely didn’t disappoint and for me in mid 30s, it was reliable more so then her first novel. I love the MC because she had good self awareness and excellent character model for younger readers in their 20s. Honestly, the author couldn’t write a more truthful account of men driven work force. Wish colleges make this book required reading for pre -graduates!

This book is very enjoyable - there isn't as much focus on the romance as you would believe, but the plot is very interesting. It made me feel like I needed to get my career in gear! :)

This didn’t wow me but it was a pretty solid read. The meat of the story is really about Melody Joo trying to make her way as a woman of color in the extremely sexist game design industry. She gets doxxed in a gamergate type of situation, and I appreciated that Park didn’t shy away from dealing with that. The actual romance part, which was an enemies to lovers story, wasn’t that compelling to me compared to the rest of the story.

Loathe at First Sight by Suzanne Parks

This is such a fun book with an interesting array of characters. I loved Melody's personality and her parents were so over the top and funny. Melody's challenges being a female in a male dominated field were all too real, and handled very well. Nolan, the intern, was a combo of sweet, annoying, and intelligent that morphed into dependable, fun, and hot. I loved that the story didn’t focus on the romance, but left it simmering on the sidelines. I enjoyed seeing the growth and determination in Melody. Most of all, I was so happy that she came out on top in the important areas and showed everyone what she was capable of doing. Thank you to Avon and the author for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

A fun, sexy rom-com with strong representation and an honest looking at misogyny in the gaming industry. It was a quick, diverting, transporting read!

This story's portrayal of women in a male-dominated field was interested, however I found the relationship itself to be a little lackluster and I was not a big fan of the writing.

"Loathe at First Sight" by Suzanne Park is a fun techy romance novel for nerds and novices alike. The book follows the main character Melody Joo who is a video game producer working in a predominately male led field. She is struggling to find her place and break through the glass ceiling when she has an idea for a new game. It may start as a joke, but soon this project takes on a life of its own and she's working with a group to develop it, which includes having an eye catching intern. Will Melody create the ultimate video game? Will she find love? Does she even want to?

Suzanne Park's writing is witty, fun and engaging. Readers can't help but feel for Melody and cheer for her along the way. The book is a perfect mix of technology nerd and romance with a dash of heavier themes woven in seamlessly. At times it did feel like the job aspect was the main theme rather than the romance, but I enjoyed that and felt more interested in the book accordingly. It was frustrating to see the attitudes of the people around Melody (family, coworkers etc.) but that atmosphere had me cheering for the main character all the way to the end.

I requested and was granted access to this book in order to conduct an interview with author Suzanne Park. You can read said interview below.

1. Professionally-speaking, 2020 has been quite exciting for you, as you’ve had both a young adult novel (The Perfect Escape) and an adult novel (Loathe At First Sight) published in a single year! I’d love to hear a little about your experiences drafting and publishing books for two different target audiences. Did you encounter any significant or interesting differences between writing (and publishing) books for a young adult reader versus an adult reader?

The publication experiences for my two books were so different that it’s hard to even compare them (so a note to writers: journeys toward publication may vary widely!). For all of my books, I try to do something “hard” that I’ve never done before so I’m learning new things and stretching to new levels. When I wrote my YA book The Perfect Escape I wanted to challenge myself in two ways: by writing a dual POV (which I’d never tried) and writing the book primarily from a male teen’s perspective. It took about 5 months to draft and one month to edit. The developmental edits weren’t too bad when the editor came back with notes, and the voice and humor stayed the same from the beginning. I love this book because it’s nuanced and layered, and has so much energy and momentum.

For Loathe At First Sight, I actually wrote it two years before The Perfect Escape, and redrafted it (a 50% rewrite by the end) from being a darker comedy to a workplace comedy with romance. That book took a lot longer from start to finish with all of the story and plot changes, but adding to that, I wanted to make sure I had all the gaming industry details right, so I did a ton of research for this novel. The last thing I wanted was for people to discount the book because it wasn’t an accurate representation of what it’s like to work in gaming. My adult editor loved the main character’s voice and the feminist message, so I’m thrilled this one will be in people’s hands soon.

One challenge has been trying to talk about the books to people outside of the book world because they might not know exactly what you mean by saying a book is “YA” or “Adult” (one ex-co-worker asked, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ADULT? LIKE X RATED?”) so I have had to think hard about explaining how these markets and age groups differ and how the potential readers would be different.


2. In addition to describing Melody’s initial feelings toward her potential love interest, the title of your adult novel, Loathe At First Sight, seems to be a playful reference to a beloved romance trope, ‘enemies to lovers’. From fake relationships to love triangles, every reader looks for and loves something different in the romances they read. What romance (or other literary) tropes do you enjoy reading (or writing!) most and why?

Yes! I love a good enemies-to-lovers. To be perfectly honest (confession time)…I didn’t exactly know what tropes were when I first started writing (I know, so embarrassing). I knew what they were in theory, but I never thought about them as categories for the stories. And I don’t usually know until after I start figuring out the main characters’ backstories that I determine the trope(s) my book might include. I just turned in my YA book to my editor that’s about a city girl falling for a country boy — it’s an idea I’ve had for a long while and finally put it to paper. But I didn’t think of this as “opposites attract” story until I was well into figuring out the characters’ misbeliefs, strengths and flaws because I didn’t want it to be a superficial “opposites” conflict.

I love reading and watching a good forbidden love story (there’s a little bit in that in Loathe too because the love interest is technically her employee). The adult book I’m drafting now has a childhood rivals-to-lovers storyline, and it’s been a ton of fun to write because they dredge old sh*t from their past lives that they need to get over but haven’t.


3. I recently read a fascinating post you shared on The Geek Embassy in which you spoke about how your initial perception of Loathe At First Sight as a light-hearted workplace romantic comedy shifted to something a little more serious after speaking with those in the gaming industry and doing extensive research on the subject. Why was it important to you to accurately capture the gatekeeping, misogyny and racism that so often makes the gaming industry unsafe for female creators and players (particularly those from a marginalized identity), and what was it like to to craft the novel to reflect this situation accurately while also including a secondary romantic subplot? Was it difficult to balance these potentially disparate elements of the story?

When I came up with the idea of this book, I’d initially thought it would be a fun and lighthearted workplace comedy, like The Office, but set in the world of gaming. But as soon as I scratched the surface, it was instantly clear to me that the gaming industry was not fun and games for women, especially for women of color. Sexual harassment and racism was (and is) pervasive and rampant, and not much changed for women in gaming over the last ten years.

Most of what you’ll read in Loathe At First Sight is absurd and humorous, but there are some cringe-worthy and very serious parts as well that were important to my story because I wanted to shed light on the macro- and microaggressions, racism, sexism, and harassment prevalent in the game world without diminishing the seriousness of the problem. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

The workplace romance is a source of conflict for Melody because she’s already in a tough situation at work, and one wrong move on the relationship front could mean immediate termination. What I loved most about Melody and Nolan’s relationship though was they helped each other grow and thrive in a workplace where everyone had pegged them as something they weren’t, and this isn’t something I see often in workplace comedies. I thought the title Loathe At First Sight worked perfectly for the book because it wasn’t only about the enemies-to-lovers relationship, but also that the main character is surrounded by hateful naysayers who want to see her fail.

In my past life as a stand-up comedian, I didn’t shy away from racism and sexism in my material so I wanted to try to do the same here with providing humor alongside social commentary. Publishers Weekly said that I wrote a novel from a female game producer’s perspective that makes “tough topics go down easy by couching them in wry humor,” so I hope I was successful in providing a balance of seriousness with comedy.


4. As someone who struggles with confrontation, one of the things I admired most about Melody in Loathe At First Sight was her ability to advocate for herself and fearlessly speak up when she witnessed injustice or inequality. Do you have any words of wisdom for those of us who want to feel more comfortable and confident speaking up in our own lives?

Melody shows strength in ways that I didn’t necessarily have in my late 20s and I wanted to show her confidence in the story in a realistic way (for example, I didn’t want to have her all of a sudden out of the blue waking up with complete self-confidence or coming up with a brilliant million dollar business idea out of nowhere). What she does do in the story is surround herself with likeminded people at work who provide support and seek help from those who are more senior to her to provide mentorship, support and advocacy (speaking up too) when she needs them the most. Melody wasn’t the most salesy person, or great at media engagement (she outsourced those things to Asher), but she does get some practice too by chatting with people at the convention and generating enthusiasm for her game. She also celebrated her wins with her team, which really showed her strength as a leader (she also gave them donuts haha). Later on, she give a big speech in front of her company, and all these things she did prepped her for that. I learned how to do a lot of these things later in my working career, and in hindsight I wish I had done them earlier.


5. When Melody’s loved ones learn of the disrespect and difficulties she’s experiencing at work in Loathe At First Sight, they encourage her to quit, but she insists on keeping her job and seeing her video game project through to completion. Why did you feel it was important for Melody to remain in – and fight for – her job, and do you have any advice or guidance you could share with those who find themselves in a situation similar to Melody’s?

Melody’s motivations change early in the book: at first she planned to stay there for the money (bonuses) and “coolness” factor, but then after Melody overhears some male executives trash talk her, a fire lights inside her and she is determined to get her game released. She wants to show her jerk executives, coworkers and trolls that they’ve underestimated her.

My advice would be to surround yourself with people who advocate for you. This also means to go out of your way to find those people, and that can be a little weird, networking and introducing yourself to others, but what I’ve found is that people actually like it when people go out of their way to introduce themselves.

I also recommend showcasing wins. This might not be for everyone, but when I worked at a huge company on a large advertising team, I used to put all the ads I worked on on the intimidating general manager’s chair with a note, something like: “Great to see this team get these out the door! The product team loves the work!” He’d see me later and mention it in casual conversation and my colleagues were so impressed. How did the general manager know what I was working on? It’s because I got my accomplishments in front of him and he remembered me because I took initiative. And the best thing? I didn’t even have to talk to him. It didn’t take much, just a color printer and a post-it. But he always remembered my name.


6. Zombies make seem to be a fun and consistent theme in your work! In The Perfect Escape, both Nate and Kate work at a zombie-themed escape room. In Loathe At First Sight, Melody devices a game in which male strippers have to fight off (among other things) zombies in a post-apocalyptic setting. Why zombies, and what are some of your favourite pieces of zombie-themed media?

Haha I’m so glad you noticed this! I’ve been obsessed with zombies and apocalypse survival for a long time, and it all started because of The Walking Dead. I’ve seen every episode (and read a few comics) and bought all sorts of survival guides so that I’d know how to stay alive if the apocalypse came. My favorite zombie media would be Train to Busan, The Kingdom, World War Z (book and movie).


7. From Kate’s pursuit of acting in The Perfect Escape to Melody’s resilience in the gaming industry in Loathe At First Sight, two prominent themes in your work seem to concern the pursuit of one’s dreams and finding – and fighting for – where you belong. Is there anything you hope readers will take away from your work?

As someone who was once pre-med and pursued an MBA degree that she doesn’t use anymore, I am a firm believer in pursuing dreams and figuring out where you belong. I know for a fact I wasn’t put on this earth for my excel spreadsheet and surveymonkey skills. It took a long, winding path to get to where I am in my writing career, but looking back, I don’t think I could have had this career any earlier. I needed my life experiences to help me figure out what kinds of stories I want to write. And I had to try out a bunch of things to figure out what I did and didn’t like in a career. Over time, what you care about evolves as life circumstances change. What you want in life might not happen overnight, or turn out exactly the way you wanted it, but I like to believe that you can get there with time and patience. A dose of good luck would help, too!


8. Melody’s journey in Loathe At First Sight is complete and satisfying, but it seems like there might be more to Nate and Kate’s story. Can readers look forward to a sequel to The Perfect Escape and are there any hints or snippets you can share about what that might entail?

I’d love for there to be a continuation to Nate and Kate’s story. I wrote The Perfect Escape so it could be a standalone with the possibility of a sequel. The book I pitched though is another YA standalone so we will have to wait a bit on any Nate and Kate developments. Fingers crossed they’ll get to have more survival adventures together!

Trigger Warning: Sexism, Racism, Harassment, Doxxing, Discrimination

Melody Joo has made a drastic career change, leaping the opportunity to get into the world of video game producing. But she's not prepared for the level of intersectional racism and misogyny leveled at her from all sides—from her famous boss to her coworkers to her team. When a joke idea to a female coworker is overheard and stolen by her boss as a last-ditch effort to the higher ups, Melody is thrown into the game as lead producer. She's not going to let the whispers get to her, however. She's going to produce this game...or else.

I feel that this book was horribly mismarketed from the start. That cover, that title, that blurb...it all screams contemporary romance when the relationship between the intern and Melody is slow-burn and recognized as taboo as hell (and not acted upon at all) until the very, very end when the intern is no longer an intern.

However, I loved this for what it was: an insightfully scathing look into the gaming industry, and definitely not a contemporary romance.

"You shouldn't stay there if you hate it so much."


A woman of color (note: an Asian woman, the subject of far too much fetishization within the gaming industry...and elsewhere) gets a job in a predominantly white male environment that has never felt the push for diversity because any push was ridiculed by the top.

But I was ten minutes late to a mandatory sexual harassment training in the Orson Scott Card large conference room.


And despite the set-backs, the micro-aggressions, the flat out harassment and discrimination and targeted attacks by coworkers and the gaming industry trolls and everyone else, despite having her flagship game getting consistently sidelined in favor of "woke feminist" games developed by her male peers, she succeeds and earns the respect of her team by being a true leader.

"And you're probably doing what you always do...you take on everything by yourself, keep piling on responsibilities, and then burn out in the process."


And Melody does reach lows. She's inherently clumsy, something that both is a nod to actual contemporary romance that has weirdly klutzy cute heroines, and a critique of that trait. She takes on the world and drives herself to the brink of exhaustion and beyond. She is targeted and harassed and doxxed and receives absolutely no support from her awful boss, who wants her gone so he can continue with the way life has always been: light and breezy with no need to think about implications of his comments or actions upon marginalized communities.

I did like that this book talked about the whiteness and toxic masculinity of the gaming world, from the idolization of white fantasy writers who were um, really problematic towards women and people of color, and yet revered without criticism. This was shown in mildly subtle ways, with the naming of the various conference rooms: Tolkien, Martin, Card, Butcher, Rothfuss, etc. You name a problematic white fantasy author, he had a room named after him—which further elevated those authors and erased the contributions of women, people of color and the LGBTQIAP+ community in the realm of science fiction, fantasy and gaming.

So who should read this?

I'll be real: it's not a 100% pleasant read. There were so many micro-aggressions and flat out aggressions that it's going to be incredibly painful, particularly if you are a woman who has worked in an all-male environment that was inherently lacking in actual introspection.

But if you watched or read about the 2020 Hugo Awards and your blood boiled, then this is the book for you.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I DNFed this book. I found the characters to be unlikeable. And I would troubled by some of the harassment elements presented in this book.

Loathe At First Sight by Suzanne Park
4/5

This novel follows Melody Joo, a Korean-American woman working in the video game production world. Many aspects of this novel reminded me of The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon, so if you enjoyed that book you will definitely like this one as well. There is a huge emphasis on working in an industry that is dominated by white males, and the accompanied hurdles that must be crossed with not only being a woman, but a woman of color. I enjoyed that the romance aspect was not the only storyline in this novel. There were many funny and relatable moments, and I enjoyed the wit sprinkled along in Park’s writing.

I would definitely recommend this book to those who like their romance novels to have a plot, and especially to those who enjoyed The Boyfriend Project. I especially enjoyed the fact that this was an #OwnVoices novel.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers and Avon Books for this gifted e-book.

A cute love story that I thought brought something unique to the table: a feminist story with a love interest. Most novels make it seem as though the feminist character hates men, but I like the narrative here. A cute seasonal read (great for any season).