Thank you NetGalley for the chance to review this eARC!!

I love loved this book!

It was a classic look on life through the lens of the lovely Katherine Center. This book did a great job of focusing on all kinds of different loving relationships Katie, the FMC, had in her life without sidelining them for the romantic love she was feeling. This left slightly less time for the reader to watch the characters have their happily ever after, and there was certainly no spice, which left the whole book feeling like it catered a bit to a younger audience, but that didn’t detract from the story at all! The MMC, Hutch, was tall, stoic, kind and had me kicking my feet 😍.

I found myself laughing out loud at several points, and at other times catching all the feels from Katie’s revelations on her healing journey. There were also a couple of huge plot twists that I really didn’t see coming (just so good all around!)

I noticed that Katherine Center leaned into the style of having the protagonist address the reader in her inner monologues, and I think it added such a sense of familiarity and kinship between the FMC and the reader 🫶

EDs are discussed in this book, and this is done really tastefully. Without giving too much away, Katie’s revelation at the end was really moving but the reader is left imagining all the intentional work the she would have to put in for a lasting healing journey—I might have liked to hear her say she’s going to counselling.

The only thing missing from the experience was hearing Patti Murin read it to me (luckily I plan to reread so it’s ok)

The Love Haters
By: Katherine Center

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

🤍romcom
🤍hero MMC
🤍family trauma
🤍happily ever after

💋Dramatic Thoughts💋

Thank you Katherine Center, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Fact: Katherine Center makes me laugh out loud every time. The Lover Haters was no exception on the laughter front! And THEN Katherine went + tugged on my heart strings - so much so that I even teared up at one point.

I won’t spoil anything by discussing them but there were so many little sentimental details in this book that were so well thought out!! Overall, definitely a fun and heartwarming read that you should add to your TBR list! This book will be such a great read while you’re sitting by the pool or on the beach. The Love Haters comes out on May 20th, 2025, just in time for summer!

💥Character Spotlight💥

Katie - I honestly could relate to the body shaming piece of Katie’s story because been there, done that sister! Going on this assignment to the Keys and meeting the people there, pushed Katie out of her comfort zone in all the best ways!

It feels like it’s time to mention my favorite supporting character - George Bailey..I beg you to try and disagree! 😉

Katie is a filmmaker sent to do a recruitment video for the Coast Guard but she's lied about being able to swim and she can't even put on a swimsuit due to crippling body issues caused by a hyper critical stepmother and exacerbated after all of social media skewered her looks when she dared look like a normal person at a red carpet event. Like most Center novels this is a romance that also centers on the woman's healing and personal journey. Katie's is a little...simpler...than many Center heroines: she must learn to love her body and her self and find joy in her life again. The brightly colored world of Key West is the perfect local for this journey and Hutch is the largest hero (too perfect, really, which at least Center acknowledges). A pleasant romance.

I typically love Katherine Center, but I just didn’t love this one. In my opinion, the characters lacked depth and chemistry, which made it hard to buy as a rom-com. The best character in the entire story was the eccentric aunt Rue and her group of friends. I had a hard time caring much about Katie and Hutch. The two supporting characters, Cole and Beanie, did not vibe with the main characters at all.

Most Katherine Center books get 5 stars from me, so I look forward to what she does next! Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my thoughts on the book.

Mrs. Katherine Center has DONE. IT. AGAIN. I would read a car manual if this woman wrote one. I've read seven of her books now and I think I can say that this one has taken the lead for my favorite.

Katie was so sweet. She was relatable to me because I feel like we all have things we dislike about ourselves because we never see each other the way those around us do. We don't see the way we look when we laugh or are full of joy. We don't hear the things that those who love us think about us. Katie, like we all do at times, had to slowly teach herself to love the way she was made.

Don't even get me started on HUTCH. Between the way he spoke to Katie and encouraged her, the flipping of the chair to sit on it backwards at the bar, and the helicopter scene in the last chapter? I can't express how much I loved him.

I cannot wait for this book to be released so I can go out and buy the physical copy to read again and again. Thank you to the publisher and to Katherine Center for giving me the pleasure of reading this ARC!

This was rough. It was so hard for me to get through and it pains me to say because I usually love Katherine Center’s books. I almost DNF multiple times.

Katie is so body conscious and while I can appreciate and relate, I hate that it was her entire personality. We were reminded of it so often that it became tiresome.

Hutch doesn’t speak. He is broody and when he attempts to have some sort of emotion, he ends up laughing at Katie. He calls her a, and I quote, “hot fudge sundae.” Wait, what?

Where was the chemistry between the two main characters??? I kept searching the pages for it and found none.

Don’t get me started on the dynamic between Cole and Hutch. Is there a redeeming character in this novel?

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I’ve got a confession: I love the Victorian novel. OK, maybe not a confession, as such, and certainly not controversial, but there’s something so satisfying about starting a book and knowing that no matter what trials and tribulations (a phrase I ban my own students from using but wholeheartedly indulge in myself when I’m teaching them about the Victorian novel) the protagonist goes through, they will have a happy ending. In short, the good will be rewarded, the bad punished, and everything is tied up in a neat, little bow. I guess it’s not much of a confession, in that my preferred contemporary genre is the romantic comedy, which fits these requirements to a T.

Even still, I couldn’t help but feel that Katherine Center’s The Love Haters, which features mid-level commercial videographer Katie, who’s on assignment to record a Coast Guard recruitment video of rescue swimmer and bona fide hero Hutch, was heavily influenced by novels written for hopeful audiences nearly two centuries ago. In short, Katie’s job is on the chopping block. Her slightly senior colleague, Cole, tells her the best chance of proving her worth in the oh-so-sexy and apparently cutthroat world of mid-level video production, is to interview Hutch, who lives in the Florida Keys and rose to internet superstardom when he risked his life to rescue a dog. Jennifer Anniston’s dog, in fact. Cole warns Katie that her subject is gloomy, taciturn, wears a perma-frown, and, oh yeah, hates love. How does he know this? He’s his brother. His estranged brother.

Katie’s no stranger to her own battles with love, having been publicly cheated on by her boyfriend, a former coffee shop musician who became a TikTok celebrity and chart-topping singer / songwriter overnight, plunging her into a very cruel public spotlight. As a jilted woman, Cole assumes that she too hates love. And, he’s not exactly wrong. Katie’s real issue, however, is that she hates herself. Hate might be too strong a word. She certainly doesn’t love herself - her appearance, to be specific, and seems to suffer body dysmorphia that can be traced back to a stepmother who essentially made her bathing-suit-phoic. Her issues were only exacerbated by being subject to internet trolls when she caught strays by didn't of her relationship to her ex. Her fear of swimwear has had an impact on her life that suddenly becomes much more relevant: she never learned how to swim. Granted, there are huge swaths of the population who can’t swim (my own children, bless their adolescent hearts, amongst them), but when you’re, you know, shooting video of Coast Guard rescue swimmers, that’s a non-negotiable.

What’s a girl to do? It gets worse for Katie - a card-carrying chromophobe who’s entire wardrobe consists of basic black - when she arrives in Key West sans luggage. Fortunately, she’s staying with Rue, Hutch and Cole’s aunt who never met a color she didn’t like and owns the charming trailer park, and seemingly half the town, that will house Katie throughout her assignment. Also fortunately, or unfortunately in Katie’s mind, she owns a boutique that features Floridian patterns that look like something out of a unicorn’s fever dream and provides her with an ORANGE! kaftan to wear. It’s when she’s spinning in said garment (without underwear, due to a coffee incident) that Katie comes face to face with Hutch. This, however, is their first encounter but not their meet-cute as such. That comes on their second encounter, as Katie, who has to be talked down from the edge and into a Rue-provided swimsuit by Beanie, her cousin and true hero of the novel, is run down poolside by a Great Dane and skids across the wooden dock. The dog’s owner? Hutch (obviously). The result of George Bailey’s, yup, that’s the dog’s name, enthusiastic hello? An ass-full of splinters. For someone who hasn’t worn a bathing suit for the better half of their life, it’s a lot for Katie to have the unfairly sexy Hutch pull each individual piece of wood out of her nether-regions. Yet, as they have their first real face-to-face, or face-to-haunch, as it were, we, like Katie, realize that Hutch is loquacious, charming, capable (more competence porn!), and a genuinely nice guy. So much so that she can’t bring herself to tell her SWIMMING INSTRUCTOR that she’s the one who will be pretty much stalking him - for work purposes, of course, for the next few weeks.

Suffice it to say, when she shows up to shoot the recruitment video the next day, there’s an adequate amount of awkwardness when he realizes who she is. That awkwardness reaches peak levels when, after weeks of budding attraction and one relatively sanitized but sweet make-out session, Cole comes to town - the first time he’s done so in over a year - claiming that he’s Katie’s boyfriend. This explains Hutch’s hot-and-cold behavior towards her AND compounds the tension between the already distant brothers. There’s, you guessed it, a backstory there - one that explains Cole’s dismissiveness and conviction that Hutch, the cooler older brother who is better than him in just about every way, hates love - but I’ll leave the reason for their fallout for you to discover. To compound matters, Cole hasn’t told Katie that they’re fake dating, which puts a real crimp in her plan to finally put her lust for Hutch to bed, literally. But neither Cole nor Katie can come clean about their impromptu fake relationship. For lots of reasons, a few of which are to save poor, sick Rue’s heart and health from deteriorating (gotta have a sick elderly female relation in harebrained fake-dating schemes) and to save Katie’s job, as her name was on their boss, Sully’s, short-list for termination. Katie’s too good to care only about her career, however - so very Victorian, putting others ahead of herself - and goes along with Cole’s fake-dating fiasco for Rue. Thus, we’ve got ourselves a love triangle, folks. Let the fun begin.

And, it is fun. Not for the characters involved but for us, the audience. Cole and Hutch’s strained relationship, however, is surprisingly deep. Yes, they’re sad orphans - VICTORIAN NOVEL, Y’ALL - who have become kinda sad adults, but the reason for their schism goes back further than a recent misunderstanding. Center’s best work is with the family dynamic between Cole, Hutch, and Aunt Rue. As much as this novel is a love story - we know that Katie and Hutch will get their HEA - it’s also a story about family and self-love. (And not of the usual kind I write about. This book is about as spicy as porridge.) Thus, while there’s a dramatic hurricane - it’s the Keys, of course there’s a hurricane - that thrusts our heroine into the literal eye of the storm and a death-defying rescue, it’s not the action or the inevitable relationship between the leads that make an otherwise cute story something more poignant.

Yet, as much as I appreciated the nuance in the brother’s relationship and absolutely adored the tertiary characters - aforementioned cousin Beanie, “the Gals”, Rue’s rag-tag bunch of rowdy retirees, and Sully the cougar, who’s joined Cole on his trip less to check up on Katie and more to check out Hutch - I wasn’t down with Katie’s body issues and journey of self-discovery. I know that we, as a society, certainly need to examine how we still portray women and hold them to impossible beauty standards, which, despite having come a long way since the Victorian era, are still a whisper in every girl’s ear, even in an age of body positivity. But, Katie’s own battles were so overwrought and featured so prominently that I found myself flipping through these pages to get to the parts of the story I wanted to see, namely those that featured Hutch. This felt too didactic and, in this, was maybe the most Victorian part of the book: the overt moral that doesn’t quite ring true.

That aside, I’d certainly recommend The Love Haters if you’re NOT a love hater. If not for the lovers themselves, then for Beanie and her ORANGE! pillows, which were a harbinger of the very large, loving, and colorful life that Katie carves out for herself.

This is going to be a great summer beach read! I love that Katherine Center brings together characters in unique ways and her characters are always so real. The book follows Katie who is a videographer sent on assignment to Key West to film a promotional video for the US Coast Guard. She has some complicated feelings on love from past relationships and learns to face her fears and love herself again while in Key West. This was a heartwarming story that kept me engaged throughout. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eARC.

So on this one Katherine. Center let me down. She is one of my favorite authors but I could on,unread so much material about how much the main character hated wearing bathing suits! The RomComers her last book was my all time fave. But this one not so much. still a good read I guess just not as good as the rest of her books.

I love Katherine Centers books and even though this wasn’t my fave of hers it was still an enjoyable read. I enjoyed Katie, a down on herself woman who is sent to key west to interview and tape Hutch, a beefy rescue swimmer.. the plot points were certainly over the top but most of these types of books are. I think if it had been just a little more realistic (there is a plot point about a bad accident that was a bit action movie that kind of made me roll my eyes) I would bump this up in my rating. But, I’m a sucker for key west and dogs so I’m gonna give this 4 stars..

There just isn’t much substance to this book. I found that I wasn’t really routing for the characters to get together.

Wow, just wow. This book reminds me why I love this author so much and why I scoop up all of her new books as soon as I can. She has a unique way of tackling complex situations and human emotions through her creation of such relatable and lovable characters.
A light romcom on the surface, however nothing in life is exactly as it seems and it tackles some tough challenges.
Bravo, Ms. Center, you've done it again!

Thanks to netgalley for the advanced read of this book.

Katherine Center has a way of writing believable main characters that continues with “The Love Haters”. The characters were dynamic and believable and helped to move the story along. Highly recommend this book!

The Love Haters was such an amazing book. Katherine Center is a go to author for me when it comes to romance. Katie has been jilted by her ex fiancé and is trying her best to grow through it. She is further challenged by an assignment that could be the only way to save her job but plays on her fears and insecurities. This leads to the insistence of her cousin Beenie to learn to appreciate and accept her body. This deeply resonated with me because like most women I have been through this. There was so much wisdom in these pages on self love and for this I am grateful. Cole and Hutch’s aunt Rue immediately takes Katie under her wing when she arrives in Key West and begins to show her a new and colorful way of life. As Katie meets the star of her new assignment, who happens to be her coworker Cole’s brother, she realizes that almost everything he said about his brother Hutch was true. He is handsome, strong and very close to perfect minus the love hating thing lol. He is also a US Coast Guard rescue swimmer. As she gets acclimated she realizes there is a bit more family drama than she anticipated and she is kind of in the middle of it. Katie does her best to just do her assignment but soon gets wrapped up in Cole, Hutch and Rue’s lives. Along the way I think she finds herself, the evolved version and she takes back her power. She realizes that loving herself just as she is the most important thing of all and to embrace herself without trying to be perfect.
This book was colorful, super funny and it had me tearing up so many times. I loved the characters, the wise quotes, the lessons and the relatability. The authors note at the end is a must read. I know that Katherine Center puts her heart into her books and I’m grateful for having the privilege to receive this ARC. Such a beautiful story and a great ending!!
Thank you Net Galley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review. And thank you Katherine Center for another wonderful book!! 💖

Does Katherine Center know how to write a book that isn’t 5 ⭐️?! No. The answer is no.

Katie is sent on what seems like an impossible mission to film a video for the Coast Guard when she can’t even swim, in hopes to save her job. She meets Hutch, the Coast Guard, also deemed the “love hater.” Cole is the mastermind behind the whole thing and quite an unlikeable character.

Hutch and Cole’s Aunt Rue and the dog were my favorite characters. They bring so much brightness and joy to the story. There’s a lot of references to body image issues, so I appreciated the lightness that they added.

Classic rom-com, but it was also full of bravery and facing your fears. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital reviewer’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Love Haters by Katherine Center is a charming and heartfelt contemporary romance novel that explores themes of love, self-discovery, and second chances. The story follows Katie, a woman who navigates her complex feelings toward love after a series of heartbreaks. Center's writing shines with warmth and humor, making the characters feel real and relatable, specifically Katie and Hutch. The book offers a balance of emotional depth and lighthearted moments, capturing the intricacies of modern relationships. While it may feel a bit predictable at times, the engaging characters and uplifting message make it an enjoyable read for fans of romance and personal growth stories.

3.5 ⭐️
The main female character, Katie, has recently been through a breakup with a rockstar. Social media comments from his fans become detrimental to her health and she develops extreme body issues. At the same time, the company she works for is laying off a lot of workers. Katie is determined to save her job. That’s how she ends up in Key West with a rescue swimmer in the coast guard- Hutch and his dog George Bailey.

This book snagged me right away with the likable side characters and witty older ladies at swim class. I was following along well enough until about 60% through the story. The family drama between Hitch and his brother was pretty over the top for me. It felt like the story dipped into cringy daytime drama territory and I questioned how old the characters were twice a minute. I understand the need to cause conflict but this is my 7th read by Katherine and I know she could’ve created a better scene than that. It really caused me to dislike the story. The last scene conflict really saved the story for me and I’m glad I didn’t DNF it. Apologizing to the 911 operator for calling during an actual life or death emergency is sadly so relatable.

I enjoyed the body image representation and how the MFC overcame that, the heroic MMC, the supportive found family side characters and of course the dog turned Cupid, George Bailey.

Four really strong stars for this one! I absolutely love Katherine’s writing style. This romance reminded had me laughing, near tears for a toad, and rooting for the love “haters”.

Thank you to SMP for this opportunity to read early and review in exchange for an eArc!

I've remained a pretty steady fan of Katherine Center books, and this was no exception! I was giggling, laughing, feeling introspective, swooning, giggling some more and just FEELING.

Never in my life did I think I would get a bit weepy over a toad btw???

George Bailey was the clear star matchmaker here and I'm thankful to him.

(My boyfriend's name is Cole, and mine is Katie so at first I was like YEAH!! HAHA ITS US and then I had to remind myself it wasn't and then Cole was kind of a dumb idiot which was even more ironically accurate and hilarious to me)

Katherine has such a wonderful way of weaving stories to be heartfelt and emotional without sacrificing a 'good time'. I even learned things about the Coast guard! and what pie slices are called!

If you're scared of open water like I am though, just, be warned**** lol

Anyway literally no notes, I loved this, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to let people know they should pick this up.

4.75 stars

I found this book completely delightful!

In order to save her job, Katie travels to Florida to meet Hutch, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. Her task is to follow him around, creating a marketing video for the Coast Guard. Hutch thinks it’s his brother coming to do the project and is not happy when that’s not the case. And Katie isn’t completely truthful when she agrees to the assignment.

I LOVE all of the characters! The story is told from Katie’s perspective and we get a great look into how she sees herself, including her past and present body issues. The relationship she has with her best friend, Beanie, is 100% #friendshipgoals. The group of older ladies that Katie finds herself surrounded by are the best. And Hutch is heroic perfection.

I found myself laughing out loud multiple times, with an occasional emotional tear. A perfect balance.
Katherine Center’s The Rom-Commers was one of my favorite books of last year and I was hoping this book would be another winner. It did not disappoint!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.