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Loathe at First Sight
By: Suzanne Park
Publisher: HarperCollins publishers
Pub Date: 8/18/2020

I really expected an enemies to lovers trope and that’s not at all what I got. The characters had very limited chemistry that I kept expecting it to kick off, only for it to never really happen.
Melody Joo has landed her perfect job at a video game company but she quickly learns how dysfunctional this office is. The CEO is a jerk, most of the men are sexist and the CEO’s nephew is just handsome enough to make the whole experience miserable. At this point I thought we were headed into the good part but we just never got there.

The CEO of Melody Joo's gaming company overhears her talking about a new concept, and along with pressure from the board to promote diversity, she becomes the lead for her game. Fighting a lot of misogyny and with the odds stacked against her, Melody fights for her place in the gaming world. While there is a romance plotline, this was way more of a #girlpower (but not eyeroll-ey) book and I'll definitely be reading Suzanne Park's other books!

I enjoyed the gaming company part of the book and Melody as our main character. However, I wouldn’t say this was a romance or a hate to love book. Definitely more of a woman’s fiction book than romance.

Enjoyed this - such a fun take on love and gaming and felt like a light, easy breezy read for the holidays!

DNF.. I started this because I was in the mood for a romance, specifically enemies to lovers because that is my favorite trope... I ended up being extremely annoyed with the main character and her parents.. I felt like the title was misleading but the romance hardly was enemies to lovers and lacked chemistry throughout. The MC had a weird relationship with her parents and friends and it seems like she hated her job but she kept at it because its on her bucket list? NO. If a work place is toxic, get out of there!!!

I really really wanted to like this but alas, it was not meant to be. Thanks for the chance though.

I love the way that Suzanne Park writes about women in a male-dominated industry (in this case, the video game industry). She doesn't shy away from addressing topics like misogyny or workplace discrimination, and for that, I say, BRAVA!

Suzanne Park was featured on the FreshFiction.com blog in a 20 Questions author feature. You can see the interview here: https://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=10819

I love this book so much and I really enjoyed the aspect of starting a new job and trying to feel around to find where you fit in.

First of all, I should note that I did enjoy the experience of reading this book. I thought the premise of a young, Asian American woman starting out in the gaming industry was done well, and overall made for a fun page turner. However, I do think this book as a whole suffered from…not really knowing what it was trying to be?

Loathe at First Sight is marketed as a romance, and its title implies an enemies-to-lovers story with a subplot of young professionals working in the video game industry. However, what I actually got from this was “book about being a BIPOC woman in an overtly sexist, racist industry, with a subplot of office romance.” And there was nothing “loathing” about it other than a brief, uncomfortable conversation between two coworkers? Again, none of this was bad, per se, it just…..wasn’t what I was expecting. In fact, I was way more interested in the workplace plot than the romance, so I guess it’s a good thing that it wasn’t what was advertised?

As an avid video game fan and as a woman who has worked in toxic office environments, I was definitely here for this feminist story about Melody Joo overcoming obstacles and doing a kick-ass job leading an underdog game through production. The ending came together really well; everyone got what they deserved, and I was left with an overall satisfied feeling.

Also, I just need to say that this book is a PERFECT example of why dating in the workplace is a horrible idea. Melody and Nolan balancing their disagreements and power imbalance at work with their budding romance made me wildly uncomfortable. Oh, and I know the men were crucial to the sexism storyline, but I really could’ve done without all of them. Even the love interest.

Overall, aside from the overall identity crisis and some awkward pacing issues, this book was a good time. I don’t know if it would’ve resonated me if I wasn’t interested in the video game industry, but it was still enjoyable.

This one didn't work for me and I ended up skipping around just to finish it. I couldn't convince myself to care about the main characters and the plot never ended up clicking for me.

I am sorry for not reviewing fully but I don’t have the time to read this at the moment. I believe that it wouldn't benefit you as a publisher or your book if I only skimmed it and wrote a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for not fully reviewing!

Suzanne Park knocked this book out of the park. I read this book because of POC MC, Woman-in-male-dominated-world, video games, and of course, the romance! A funny joke turns into Melody's worst nightmare. I found this book hilariously good and very motivational. Melody is a character I think a lot of women/fem people can relate to. 5/5 stars

This was so funny and needed. A great showing of the need for diversity in books and in video games, I loved the journey and the support and change she creates throughout her new job. Great characters and a wonderful change she’s changed in her life for the better.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

Meh. I read rave reviews about this and it was categorized under romance, but I don't think that's quite right. This is really about being a woman, and a minority, in a male-dominated space, specifically gaming and game-creation. I quite liked Melody, but I found that the supporting characters were very one-dimensional. It wasn't a terrible book, and there was a romance, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Melody has recently gotten a new job working at a Seattle-based gaming company. It's a frustratingly sexist place (as well as racist, but to a lesser extent). The worst dude-bro is the CEO, Ian. A close second is his nepotistic nephew, Nolan, an intern. A close third is Asher, her office-mate who is an ultimate Gamer Dude-Bro. When Melody's parody game idea is taken seriously, she has to endure harassment, sexism, and doxing from the global gaming community. But one of these coworkers isn't as terrible as Melody first thought-- in fact, he is really there, supporting Melody. But Seventeen Studios has a strict no-dating policy. What's a workaholic perfectionist to do?

I love girl-power stories, and Loathe really delivers on that front! The title, though, is super confusing. It makes it seem like it's a haters-to-lovers romance, but it's not really a romance at all. If I were purchasing it for my library's genre-fied collection, I'd put it in Novel (catch-all)-- not Romance.

Diverse reads:
- Melody is Korean American.

"Women working at game companies have to constantly overcome perception barriers. I argue a lot about how women are portrayed in the games we produce. Gaming is very white, and bro heavy. And the more nonwhite, nonbros we have at companies like mine who can interject opinions and different perspectives, the more diverse the gaming offerings will be in the future."


Before I list down my opinions for this book, I would like to thank HarperCollinsPublishers for sending me an E-Arc of this book. I haven’t got the chance to read this book for the past few months because schoolwork is always dragging me down, plus I had a major reading slump in those months, so I stuck to reading physical books.

In this book, we follow Melody Joo, a Korean woman working in a game company called Seventeen Studios in Seattle. She works with an annoying CEO, Ian Mackenzie, sexist co-workers, and an intern named Nolan Mackenzie (Ian’s nephew), whom she feels like he only got the job because the CEO was his uncle. Things get weirder when a zombie survival game with male strippers, which Melody conceptualized as a joke, became a real project that needed to be released soon with Melody as the producer. Because of the premise of the game, she received backslash from sexist gamers to the point that she became a victim in a trolling scandal. She also feels affectionate towards Nolan, but she can’t show it to him because relationships between people in the studio’s workplace are strictly prohibited and can lead to termination. Melody attempts to get her life together while facing obstacles here and there.

First, I would like to talk about the plot of this book. The storyline is very loose; we just follow what Melody does for the game from its start to its release. I find this style interfering with how good the story is because there were many climaxes in the story, and they seem to vanish for a while or get solved easily; some were even ignored. Nothing much happened in the first 50 percent of the book, which made me want to DNF it. But the rest of the book is interesting because all the elements of the story (i.e. the game, the romance) made progress. Towards the last 10 percent or so, there were some major events and plot twists that happened which made me excited to finish it. On the other hand, the main theme of this book is important since feminism is a very talked-about topic in the present, so it stands out from her last book, which is The Perfect Escape.

Second, the characters in this book gave me a wide range of emotions. Almost every moment was funny, which I did like. Melody had instances where she wanted to give up, so I felt sad for her during the times that I read those parts. I was annoyed at how Ian refuses to be open-minded about women in the gaming industry and was uncertain about specific characters like Asher and Jane. There are also some characters that I can relate to, especially Melody. We also see different kinds of relationships in this book – family, friends, lovers, and enemies. All of these were written beautifully throughout the book.

Thirdly, here are some spoiler-ish side thoughts that I had while reading it:
• In the part where Ian told Melody that Nolan’s internship was nearly ending, her reaction wasn’t reasonable for me because, yes, you can be sad about it, but it’s not a thing to be angry at. Plus, internships always end at some point.
• Why did Melody go to the cat-themed café if she knew that she was allergic to cats? I mean, she could’ve said it to Kat.

Overall, I rated this book four out of five stars because of some issues with the plot stated above. I’m really impressed with how the author, Suzanne Park, did a lot of research about the gaming community before writing this.

Melody Joo is frustrated with the sexiest pigs running the gaming company who always create degrading female characters and act the same way in the office. One day, while venting with a fellow female in the gaming industry, she sarcastically says they should create a game that shows the reverse of what the industry is used to seeing a game and have male strippers and clothed females. Well when top chauvinist himself, CEO Ian McKenzie tries to save himself, he pitches Melody's parody idea and the board loves it! She's now forced to work on a too tight timeline, budget and expectation to get this game out all while figuring out how to navigate her family, feminism and Nolan McKenzie.

This book hits on some topics that will touch a few people VERY close to home. As a female who works in a male dominated field, I empathize with Melody throughout this entire book. The scenario that Park creates about women is not an exaggeration in the least bit, from the objectification to the automatic doubters. I loved Melody's conquering of her role and determination to continue despite all obstacles. Her journey through her feminism is heartwarming to see.

I will say though to not go into this book thinking it's going to be a romance. It has been wildly mislabelled as contemporary romance. Sure, there are feelings expressed between two people, but I see a relationship with self grow much more than a romantic relationship.

Thank you Avon Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

A fun hate-to-love romance that also touches on racism, sexism, and nepotism in the gaming industry.

This was such a cute book, first heck yes to the female gaming community! I’m not truly in the gaming world but I love me some game time for sure.

Melody’s character really went through it in this book, from cyberbullying to trolls! and death threats, the fact that this actually happens. I really enjoyed her character and to see how she interacted with her parents as well. That was very interesting.

Nolan, I thought would be this jerk the whole time trying to sabotage her game but he turned out to be pretty awesome and completely swoon-worthy! This was such a cute read, I really enjoyed it.