It's so hard to write this review because I love Katherine Center. All of her books so far have been five-stars reads for me. Unfortunately, this one fell short. It was a super slow start and slow all around. It did not grab my attention. I find myself distracted and not wanting to pick it up. Forced myself to read, but I just can’t. The story cannot hold my attention long enough to continue. I think I will try again later, or maybe an audiobook. But this was a letdown. It’s breaking my heart to write this because I love Katherine Center.

Will I continue to read her books? Yes. Absolutely. I think she’s an amazing author and storyteller. Maybe I’m the problem because I’m a mood reader. However, I’ve never not wanted to read her books, so this is strange for me.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.25 🌟

Can I adopt Aunt Rue and The Gals?! ❤️

While not my favorite Katherine Center book, I really enjoyed The Love Haters. This book is more about personal growth than the usually romance heavy romcoms, which I enjoy. I wanted to like Hutch ... and I did but his character did feel a little stereotypical. This will be a fun, summer read for many!

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

The Love Haters is a perfect mix of self acceptance and adventure with a touch of romance.

When Katie is given the opportunity to create a promo video for the coast guard she is so excited. She gets even more excited to find out that she will be working closely with local hero Hutch Hutcheson, who is really her coworkers brother. Katie is not going to let the little fact of not knowing how to swim risk her chances of getting fired from her company for not being able to create the promo video.

Armed with an all black wardrobe, Katie heads to the Florida Keys. She soon befriends Rue, a vibrant middle aged woman with a painful past that is woven around that the Hutcheson family. As Katie and Hutch spend more time together, their romance begins to blossom but they both have a painful past that threatens to keep them apart.

This was my first time reading a Katherine Center book. I really like her writing style and this book kept be relatively intrigued the entire time. I found that Katie was the only character that we saw development from. Hutch was very flat. I wouldn’t call this a typical romance book, I felt it was more about self acceptance. There should also be an eating disorder trigger as that is mentioned a few times. The ending of the book was interesting and I overall felt that it was a fun read and a unique concept.

3.5 ⭐️ This one just didn’t hit the mark for me. The romance of course was done with perfection but I struggled with the heavier topics being woven throughout. Cole was a bit much for me. Especially when he showed up in Key West. I think the dog, George Bailey is my favorite.

I really love reading Katherine Center books. They are a funny, romantic, easy read on the surface, yet manage to pack a punch with deeper concerns. This one tackles body image and how childhood comments can distort how one feels about themselves all through life. Katie has a lot of shame around her body and constantly battles her inner demons who tell her she isn’t pretty. She is also plagued by social media comments that are extremely cruel. Fortunately she meets Hutch and Rue who help her see her strength and herself beyond the physical, yet also give her confidence to accept her body and learn to love it.
This one won’t be in my Top 3 favorite Center books. Katie’s internal monologue was jarring and repetitive to me. I understood that inner thoughts are exactly that way but would have preferred less pages of it. Cole was a character who I felt needed a little more padding and I would have loved to learn more about Rue who deserved to be a bigger character. Maybe this one was rushed out before the author and editors could get their teeth into it?
Still, if you love romance and also have that inner monologue of ‘No-one should ever see me in a swimsuit’, read this book and learn to love yourself like Katie did.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Rounded up from 4.5 stars. Katherine Center is an auto buy author for me, so I was thrilled to get an ARC of The Love Haters from NetGalley. While not my favorite book by Center, this story is very charming and has some of the funniest scenes I’ve ever read. The Com in RomCom is strong with this one. I also loved the body image storyline. The dog is a crucial piece of the plot, so animal lovers will love George Bailey. Watch for The Love Haters in May.

Katie heads to Key West to desperately try to save her job. She has no idea the family drama she’s about to be a part of but is quickly swept away by the people she finds there.

Hutch doesn’t want to be called a hero. He’s a member of the Coast Guard, he’s just doing his job. When Katie arrives to film a commercial about the Coast Guard featuring Hutch, he’s reluctant as they come.

Katie’s on a path of self discovery and Hutch is on a path of letting down his guard. Will their paths ever truthfully cross?


This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This was my first Katherine Center Book. I was not impressed. This book was boring! Even for a romance novel, this was exceptionally boring. Truth is I couldn't finish it. Life is too short for boring books. 😴

“We’re here to be alive. To feel the sun on our skin. To breathe deep in the wind. We’re here to feel it all. To love and cry and love some more. We’re here to rescue ourselves—and everybody else—in every way that we can.”
—
Rating: 4.5✨
—
Katie Vaughn takes a gig in Key West to save her job - there she meets people who remind her what it’s like to take up her space and to love and be loved, in all the ways that she deserves.

When I started The Love Haters, I was expecting a feel-good book about this larger-than-life man serving in the Coast Guard and a video producer with her guard up, learning how to live her best life. What I wasn’t expecting, was a book that would have me second guessing all my self-hate.

Katherine Center perfectly described Katie’s relationship with herself: an enemies-to lovers trope. To see this character going from wanting to be invisible to being unapologetically herself and exuding big main character energy was a healing journey in itself. I think so many people can relate to being at war with themselves and feeling like it’s just so hard to internalize all those positive affirmations and self-love mantras. But to see a character actually doing it and to come out on the other side of it had me sitting in my reading chair thinking, if she can do it, why can’t I?! And so I let yet another fictional character teach me something about life and about love.

On another note, Katie and Hutch’s story really was a feel-good one. We had a definite smitten like a kitten MMC but because of the web of lies being spun around the characters, this sweet man was all over the place. Oh what I would give to have had Hutch’s POVs throughout this book!! While I would have loved more development of Katie and Hutch’s romance, this book really developed Katie’s self-love journey, and isn’t that just as important?

Katherine Center also included fantastic side characters in the form of Katie’s soul-sister/cousin, Beanie, a great dane and a lady named Rue who absolutely tugged on every single one of my heart strings.
As for the setting, Key West was truly magical and felt not at all cliché, which was honestly so refreshing as the “move to a small town and finding yourself” vibe can sometimes feel tired and overdone, but that wasn’t the case at all here!

Towards the end I found myself literally yelling at the book and thinking to myself WHY IS THIS HAPPENING, JUST GIVE THEM HAPPINESS! But when I thought about it, the plot was pretty realistic and overall so well written.

I also just want to take a moment to acknowledge the sheer beauty of Katherine’s author note.
I re read it multiple times (oops) and I still can’t get over how authentic and true to the human experience it felt.
I think so many of us read fiction and romance, specifically, because of what she wrote about in this author note. So PLEASE please don’t skip it!!

Overall, if you love:
⛴️ Journey to self-love
⛴️ Loveable side characters
⛴️ The sweetest rescue dog
⛴️ Hilarious banter and character internal dialogues

Then this one is for you♥️

Sending a huge thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press & Katherine Center for this e-arc✨

Another Katherine Center book I truly enjoyed and will recommend to others. I love getting lost in the stories and characters she writes.

I’ve read two books by Katherine Center so far—and if I’m being honest, both have felt pretty underwhelming for me. That’s not to say this one was a bad read, but I also wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it as a great one either. Maybe I should’ve adjusted my expectations from the beginning, especially since the first book I picked up by her didn’t impress me all that much.

The Love Haters follows Katie, a video producer who pretends her way into keeping her job just to avoid getting laid off. Because of that decision, she ends up tangled in some family drama—mainly due to the strained relationship between Cole and his brother, Hutch. Along the way, a few lies are told that only make everything more complicated than it already is.

Katie. Her character was relatable—though only to a certain extent. There were moments when reading from her point of view felt a bit overwhelming. She was too much in her own head, and at times, it made the story drag for me. That said, I did appreciate her journey of self-realization. I liked how she eventually had her epiphany and chose to make things right—not just for others, but for herself.

Hutch. Yes, I get it. He’s dreamy and charming in that classic way. But honestly, some of his scenes came off a little cringey, even if they were meant to be cute. It’s not that I didn’t like his character, I just wish things weren’t as predictable as they turned out to be. There’s more I could say about him, but it would spoil the story—so I’ll just leave it at that. He was overall okay.

This book had a lot of potential, and I truly wanted to love it, but one of my biggest issues was the lack of chemistry between the main characters. They had their sweet moments—don’t get me wrong—but those were the only times I actually felt like they belonged together. Another thing that didn’t work for me was the miscommunication trope. It’s one I absolutely hate, and I just wish they had addressed the situation like actual adults instead of overthinking everything and letting it pile up.

Despite my critiques, I will say that this book had some bright spots. I appreciated how it handled themes like self-love, grief, and friendship. It may have been underwhelming overall, but I still made it to the end. Just like the first book I read from Katherine Center, the story picked up its pace near the end—finally giving me something to hold onto, even if it came a little too late.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and the author for the ARC in exchange of my honest review.

THE LOVE HATERS

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

NO NOTES.

I have run the gamut of emotions with this book. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, I cheered. It’s one of those books where you finish it and immediately want to start over and read it again. Katherine Center is one of my favorite authors and I can’t recommend her books enough.

*Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

So this is my third Katherine Center book and we are now 2/3 for books I've really hated. The Romcommers pleasantly surprised me when I read it last year and then Hello Stranger was one of the most infuriatingly unrealistic books I've read in a while. Unfortunately, this one was a huge dumpster fire because of the main character's view/stance on body image and weight. I didn't appreciate how it was handled and it heavily influenced my rating of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an early review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.25⭐️ Where to start on this book. I had all the emotions. It was heartwarming and sweet, it just didn’t feel as romantic as I wanted. I got into really quickly. Katie is funny and charming, over the top at times but in a way that brought a smile to my face. I found her body image issues relatable even if I found myself wanting to move past them quicker than the book did.

Hutch is quite dreamy. He is almost too good and don’t get me started on how much I loved George Bailey. 🐶🥰But the connection between them felt like wasn’t as developed as much I needed it to be.

Rue & the Gals were one of my favourite part of this book, I am ready to retire to Key West with them anytime. 🌴🍹

Thank you to NetGalley, Saint Martin’s Press & the author Katherine Center for the advanced reading copy. All my opinions are my own.

I love how Katherine Center loves rom coms and how much she loves her readers. I do truly get the sense that she writes for them, which is such a lovely and humble sentiment for an author to have.

I just didn’t love this one. The body positivity theme is super heavy (no pun intended) and just kinda wears on you after a while. Some of the fun or lighthearted aspects of this one felt silly to me, and the improbable ending was far too improbable for me to appreciate.

If you love romance and throw this into your beach bag with low expectations, you may be pleasantly surprised. But with books like The Bodyguard and Things you Save in a Fire this is a bit of a letdown.

Rounding up to 3 because of my love for KC.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press.

I laughed out loud reading this! Katherine Center writes such wonderful characters and stories, I feel like they’re my friends by the time I finish the book, real friends that I’m truly happy for. I finished this book with so many good feelings in my heart!

Katie, at risk of losing her job, agrees to travel to Florida at the request of her coworker in a last ditch effort to prove her professional worth. Her assignment is to create a video featuring her coworker’s brother, Hutch, and once met sparks quickly fly between the two.

Overall this was a quick, easy read. I enjoyed the setting and plot of the story. The romance in this story felt a little flat for me, maybe because we didn’t get to know Hutch as deeply as I would have preferred. Katie struggles with her body image through the book and while I appreciated the representation, her journey to improved acceptance felt a little rushed and unrealistic. This book makes for a great beach read but wasn’t anything that will stick with me in the long term.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. All views provided are my own.

This book was so fun, and a great summer time read! I would have loved to get more into her project and how that impacted their relationship. I loved the addition of Aunt Rue and her gal pals, they were so fun. The drama was there at the end! WOW, I was on the edge of my seat with some of those scenes! I felt like it was a little rushed afterward, though.

I find the title a little confusing becaue she's not a love hater? That was only said about him.

My review will be on Instagram May 1st.

Thank you to the publisher for letting me read this ARC via net galley!!

The beginning of this book was a little slow for me but after about 30% I was OBSESSED. The miscommunication in this book did make me want to rip my hair out but I feel like it really portrays what it’s like to unlearn unhealthy behaviors regarding your body and to decide that self love is really, really worth all the work!

Hutch the man you are🥵 I am in love and he just might be my new favorite book boyfriend!

Overall this was a really fun, inspiring read!!

I have nothing but love for The Love Haters!

The Gist: Attempting to save her flailing career as a video producer, Katie jumps at the chance to go to the Florida Keys and film US Coast Guard rescuer Hutch, who doesn't like being in the spotlight. He begrudgingly agrees to be filmed in the hopes of promoting the US Coast Guard but finds having Katie following him around is more than he bargained for.

My Take: This story has humour, heart, a delightful slow burn (non-spicy) romance and a fantastic cast that includes a toad loving Great Dane, a couple you'll root for, a gaggle of sassy 'ol broads and their wonderful community in the beautiful Florida Keys.

The strength of this book is in its characters and its messaging. Hutch is a damn fiiiiine leading male character and I enjoyed seeing Katie's growth as Center explores issues of self-love, body positivity, and going after what makes you happy.

The secondary characters are also well-developed, and I especially loved Rue (and her elderly crew). Rue is the person who is pulling all the strings behind the scenes (with a colourful flair!) as she patiently helps others find their way. Beanie, Katie's BFF, on the other hand takes a more direct (albeit long-distance) approach as she tries to counteract Katie's negative self-talk with a regime of nagging (with love). May we all have a Rue and a Beanie to watch our backs and lift us up!

"Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time."

This is my favourite Katherine Center book to date (with The Bodyguard a close second). It's an easy read that's a wonderful blend of wholesome, happy and hilarious that addresses important social issues, long-buried emotional conflicts, Mother Nature's wrath, a rescue and splinters in the most embarrassing of places. It's a story that will leave readers with smiles on their faces.

Disclaimer: Thanks to St Martin's Press for the advanced digital copy of this book which was given to me in exchange for my honest review.

** This review was posted on my blog, socials, GoodReads, Indigo.ca and StoryGraph on April 17, 2025.