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A review by bookstolivewith
Loathe at First Sight by Suzanne Park
funny
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Synopsis: Melody Joo just landed her dream job as a video game producer but the company she works for is full of issues, including but not limited to its CEO and the new handsome intern, who happens to be the CEO’s nephew. On top of all this, her jokey game pitch is now becoming a reality — and the pressure is on, especially when someone leaks top-secret intel and the internet trolls come after her. Failure is not an option.
I really, really wanted to like Loathe At First Sight by Suzanne Park and it had some great elements — but something kept holding me back. At first, I thought it was that I just don’t care about video games, but after some consideration, I think I just didn’t really like Melody or really many of the other characters? That sounds incredibly harsh, and I did like Melody’s go-getter attitude, intelligence and how dedicated she was to not letting the bullies get her down, but she wasn’t particularly nice to her friends, in like a concerningly old-fashioned women-hating-women way that acted as an antithesis to the overall message of “girl power” that the book was trying to push, and I felt like I never got to know her on more than a surface level. The male characters also felt somewhat underdeveloped, something I didn’t mind when it came from the sexist CEO, but irritated me when I wanted to know more about the romantic interest.
I also think that this book comes across from the cover and description as somewhat of a romance and I want to warn everyone that it’s an incredibly small portion of the overall plot. Primarily, it deals with the extremely sexist and racist aspects of the gaming industry and how hard it is to be a woman, much less a Korean-American woman, in any male-dominated industry. I want to issue full TWs for sexist and racist remarks, including slurs, threats of violence, and doxing.
So for me, I’d recommend this one if you’re a woman in the gaming industry, wanting to learn more about the gaming industry or love video games — otherwise, I’m just not sure what I missed because I felt like I should’ve liked it and just didn’t.
I really, really wanted to like Loathe At First Sight by Suzanne Park and it had some great elements — but something kept holding me back. At first, I thought it was that I just don’t care about video games, but after some consideration, I think I just didn’t really like Melody or really many of the other characters? That sounds incredibly harsh, and I did like Melody’s go-getter attitude, intelligence and how dedicated she was to not letting the bullies get her down, but she wasn’t particularly nice to her friends, in like a concerningly old-fashioned women-hating-women way that acted as an antithesis to the overall message of “girl power” that the book was trying to push, and I felt like I never got to know her on more than a surface level. The male characters also felt somewhat underdeveloped, something I didn’t mind when it came from the sexist CEO, but irritated me when I wanted to know more about the romantic interest.
I also think that this book comes across from the cover and description as somewhat of a romance and I want to warn everyone that it’s an incredibly small portion of the overall plot. Primarily, it deals with the extremely sexist and racist aspects of the gaming industry and how hard it is to be a woman, much less a Korean-American woman, in any male-dominated industry. I want to issue full TWs for sexist and racist remarks, including slurs, threats of violence, and doxing.
So for me, I’d recommend this one if you’re a woman in the gaming industry, wanting to learn more about the gaming industry or love video games — otherwise, I’m just not sure what I missed because I felt like I should’ve liked it and just didn’t.