Swimming lessons, a hot coast guard rescuer, Key West charm, plus a 160 lb great dane? The Love Haters by Katherine Center has a recipe of elements perfect for a sweet and bubbly summer cocktail of a read. Featuring a fun and light-hearted plot with a bit of added substance from heavier topics like body image and public scrutiny, The Love Haters delivers a solid romcom experience, despite being a bit formulaic and predictable. Although I had a few minor nitpicks regarding the overall pacing and how the novel executed some of its more dramatic moments, I still found it very entertaining and worth reading. 

Mixing the tropes of a fish out of water (or in this case, surrounded by water) with the disheartened and romance skeptic, Katie’s story is one that’s both fun to read as well as one that’s quite relatable. Apart from the main plot involving Katie trying to produce a promotional film featuring an unwilling real-life hero in an effort to keep her job, there’s a secondary storyline involving body image and self-acceptance. While the former serves as the main hook, it’s the latter that I found pleasantly surprising and effective. While the two storylines seemingly have little to do with each other on paper, they both gradually begin to play off and eventually compliment each other, providing great character development as Katie discovers her own self worth next to the unsmiling yet perfect Hutch. Rather than merely settling with just being funny, Katie’s time in Key West quickly becomes a journey to self-appreciation and love, adding additional intention and depth to the story, albeit executed in a casual manner without the ambition or finesse to make it a standout feature. I went into The Love Haters having previously read Center's The Bodyguard which I considered to be an excellent romcom, and unsurprisingly got a few good laughs in this book as well, though the humor isn’t quite as funny here (Hannah is a more amusing and entertaining MC). However when compared, The Love Hater’s back-half definitely had a bit more substance while The Bodyguard was mostly just a good fun time. 

Immediately obvious from the get-go, one of The Love Haters’ highlights is the sunny and pastel-tinted portrayal of Key West and its far-removed, relaxed feel. Despite only one sentence of the synopsis advertising the story’s setting (along with the Coast Guard, another element incorporated well), I found Center’s choice of Key West to not only be a great narrative choice given its proximity to NAS Key West, but also for flavor and quite literally extra color. Having lived in “paradise” for the majority of my life, I’ve become accustomed and quite tired of how generic and all-encompassing tropical vacation locations like Key West are often portrayed in media. In The Love Haters however, Center’s approach and descriptions of Key West goes much further than what I was expecting for the story. Obviously romanticized for the feel-good nature of the novel and genre, I consistently found the descriptions and movements around the island to feel truly lived-in and well-researched, particularly Key West’s signature building style and distinctive colorful fashion. While not necessarily being the most lyrical or poetically beautiful descriptions I’ve read, Center captures the lifestyle and image of the island perfectly and many important plot elements simply could not work without the Key West location and warm portrayal. 

Another aspect of The Love Haters that I enjoyed was the portrayal and inclusion of the Coast Guard rescue operation that was cleverly integrated into Katie and Hutch’s story. Although it provided a lot of great slapstick comedic material and a narrative reason for pairing them off outside of “work”, I was impressed how Center was able to connect the military angle back to Katie’s personal demons. Aside from the obvious and overdone inability to swim element (providing plenty of Hutch eye candy scenes), I found a particular rescue helicopter flight protocol requirement very cleverly utilized for Katie’s self image storyline, particularly it’s takeaway message. While stereotypical, Hutch’s Coast Guard background also worked in the story’s favor as an understandable layer to his resistance to initial attraction, rather than merely being another generic standoffish aloof love interest. And while completely predictable and almost obligatory for the genre, the rescue motif near the conclusion also provides excellent romance opportunities if you know what I mean. 

While I enjoyed reading the novel which went by very fast, upon completion I felt that pacing and the overall focus of the story to be a little misplaced. While the first two thirds of the story was entertaining enough and Katie/Hutch had good chemistry, it mostly felt like fun in the sun slapstick fluff. That may seem like an odd thing to point out considering some of Center’s other novels mostly consist of quality, yet still slapstick content. However, once the novel hits the 60% mark, the real meat of Katie’s character story begins. The final third of the story abruptly shifts the tone and focus, which felt quite jarring compared to how relaxed the rest of the story felt. Additionally, the “lies” highlighted in the book’s synopsis and character relationships honestly started to feel quite chaotic, particularly nearly all of Katie’s coworker Cole’s character motivations and the conflict with his older brother Hutch. Their strained relationship, uncomfortable reunion, and all the conflict that follows felt quite manufactured and unusually forced due to a lack of foreshadowing or context clues (the exact same note I had with the love interest and familial discourse featured in The Bodyguard). The deceptions and plot progressions felt progressively more over the top, not to mention rushed and out of left field. To Center’s credit, the progressions were unexpectedly twisting and certainly amped up the story, invoking the worst thing that can happen trend. I fully believe that the plot and developments in the back of the story could’ve completely worked if more of Hutch/Cole/Rue’s backstories were incorporated into the first half of the story instead of revealing all of the cards in the moment, or if this narrative shift occurred far earlier in the story. Its current placement causes the chapters before it to feel like wasted pages underutilized while everything afterwards rushed and excessive. 

While Katie is given good character growth potential which culminates in a dramatic and unexpected ordeal with Hutch’s great dane George Bailey (while the good, it could’ve been great with more time), Hutch on the other hand didn’t feel as developed. While there’s a lot of interest revolving around his Coast Guard career and image-breaking moments with his dog and Rue’s gal pals, I was a bit disappointed that his character ultimately ended up simply being Mr. Perfect and morally flawless. The novel’s entire setup revolves around the world finding him attractive and perfect after a rescue video he’s in goes viral (much to the ire of Cole), but I was surprised that the story didn’t actually capitalize or twist that public image for narrative purposes and greater depth. While that’s slightly to be expected given the story’s feel-good tone and genre, this is again another point of criticism I had with The Bodyguard and its love interest Jack Stapleton; both male love interests felt too perfect and by extension, bland and forgettable. 

The side characters are another area that I felt hindered the novel’s enjoyment and the author’s ambition to be more than just a romcom (see Center’s extended author notes). While I found Rue to be lovely, decently developed, and having great character moments with Katie and her worries, Katie’s relative and friend Beanie (forgot what their relation was, perhaps a sign of what little impression she left) felt noisy and distracting to the story. Their girl talk gossipy phone calls about Katie’s time in Key West constantly felt like interruptions to the flow of the story and didn’t feel like they added anything of value. I realize how this sounds given I’m a male reader criticizing gal pal banter, however other reviews by female readers also share similar opinions of Beanie and her phone calls. Beanie’s narrative purpose in the story was clearly intended to be a foil to Katie’s self-image doubts and to help her reframe her opinion of herself, but the execution of their conversations felt underwhelming and lacking depth, given the weight of the topic. This is made all the more noticeable when Katie finally has her “ah-hah!” moments which feel less than satisfying when her support from Beanie all feels so trite. I almost would’ve preferred if Beanie was axed completely and her contributions to Katie’s growth were left solely to Rue, or less predictably, maybe even Katie’s boss Sullivan (the one who may fire her constantly). There’s a perfect opportunity near the end of the story where Katie and Sullivan have a brief heart to heart that could’ve strengthened both Sullivan’s character and the story considerably had it been fleshed out more. The same could be said about Cole whose lies and motivations felt all over the place. While the plot developments and conflict technically make sense on paper, the actual execution and my reaction to them while reading ranged from bafflement to confused amusement due to the lack of setup. The ARC version obviously may be different from the actual published version, but the ebook copy is not very long and certainly could’ve been longer if it allowed greater development to make Cole’s actions more believable. As it currently is, Cole becomes the scapegoat for every plot twist that feels like a narrative stretch under the guise of “I had to do it for you to keep your job”. The story falls back on this explanation far too many times, particularly since the initial reason for Katie taking on the Key West job in the first place is for that same repetitive reason. 

Despite some concerns about the pacing and side characters, I found The Love Haters to still be an entertaining read and an above average romance novel that’s awfully close to being an excellent one. The vibe and content is very much on-brand for what readers have come to expect from Katherine Center’s novels. The vibrant Key West setting and constant swimming-related events paired with a sexy tall Coast Guard also makes it a perfect summer vacation read, likely intentional given its announced late May publication date (also on-brand for me reading the summer story in Winter much like my Xmas themed reads in July). Overall, The Love Haters is a very easy book to pick-up and is a safe recommendation for most romance or chick lit readers.