‘The Spanish Love Deception’

I liked this…when it was called The Hating Game. Obviously, tropes are to be expected in the rom-com genre, but this was honestly sooo similar. Someone needs a date for a sibling’s wedding, office enemies except he’s secretly in love with her, a promotion that puts everything at stake, even a goddamn elevator-emergency-stop kiss.

The premise was enticing but ultimately, this book missed the mark. Despite its myriad similarities to The Hating Game, Spanish Love Deception had none of the charms. It was also just not written very well. The dialogue was stilted and unnatural, which I first attributed to the fact that English was Lina’s second language and generally when you’re taught a new language, you speak more formally than a native speaker, but then I realized it was every character that was talking like that. I also don’t know a single thing about the love interest, Aaron, except that he used to play football, so I didn’t really care about the plot anyway. I struggled to get through the last few chapters.

OH and I forgot the very poorly handled disordered eating plotline. She gets obsessive about eating to where it adversely affects her health. Aaron finds her passed out and says, like, “nooooo don’t have an eating disorder ur so sexy ahaha,” and he gets her dinner and it’s never mentioned or referenced again.

This was disappointing because I know this was really big when it was new and I just can’t see the hype.