Better Hate than Never

De: Chloe Liese

Narrado por: Stephen Dexter, Charlotte North

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
A Best of the Month Pick from:
Amazon · Apple · LibraryReads

Childhood enemies discover the fine line between love and loathing in this heartfelt reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

Katerina Wilmot and Christopher Petruchio shared backyards as kids, but as adults they won’t even share the same hemisphere. That is, until Kate makes a rare visit home, and their fiery animosity rekindles into a raging inferno.

Despite their friends’ and families' pleas for peace, Christopher is unconvinced Kate would willingly douse the flames of their enmity. But when a drunken Kate confesses she’s only been hostile because she thought he hated her, Christopher vows to make peace with Kate once and for all. Tempting as it is to be swept away by her nemesis-turned-gentleman, Kate isn’t sure she can trust his charming good-guy act.

When Christopher’s persistence and Kate’s curiosity lead to an impassioned kiss, they realize “peace” is the last thing that will ever be possible between them. As desire gives way to deeper feelings, Kate and Christopher must decide if it’s truly better to hate than to never risk their hearts—or if they already gave them away long ago.

Another great Shakespeare reimagining

Can’t decide which story I liked better, so I recommend both. The first one was a bit funnier, but the bravery/honesty in this one (ie low angst) really made me happy. Love the 10 Things I Hate About You references and the use of a neurodivergent MC.

Feminist soapbox, but still wants a masculine man

I was really looking forward to this book after the first one but wow, I was disappointed. The feminist droll went on way more than the story needed. I literally couldn’t finish this book, I was so over the emotional damage monologue.

Good-ish

I enjoyed this one, but the first one was better. Ms. Liese does a very good job of writing Kate. I really disliked her. You know an author is good when you feel strongly about her characters!
The female narrator mispronounces SO MANY WORDS! And outs the wrong inflection on sentences. She definitely took some of the joy out of both this one and Two Wrongs.
As always I appreciate the realness of Ms. Liese’s characters! She does neurodiverse characters better than most. If you enjoy found family, good familial relationships, emotional growth, real friendships, and communication…this book is for you.

Good Rep

I felt like Chloe Liese was trying to retell the story so much that I couldn’t connect with Kat and Christopher. The novel started out okay, but there was a disconnect somewhere within the narrative. I did love the migraine and the ADHD rep, which both were done very well.

Representation

I loved the ADHD rep as well as the demisexuality. The use of “inexperienced” instead of virginity was noticed and appreciated!

Chloe kills it with her modern take on a Shakespeare classic 😍

This time around Chloe has given us her take on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew with real representations of characters with medical issues, ADHD and more, that sheds an honest light on living on the spectrum.

Kat and Christopher have known each other their entire lives and have antagonized each other for most of it, a true enemies to lovers situation, but that just makes watching them fall for each other even more fun. With witty banter, clumsy interactions and steamy scenes, Chloe has written a book I couldn’t put down, or should I say I couldn’t stop listening. As narrators Charlotte and Stephen brought these two to life in the best possible way.

This is the second book in Chloe’s Wilmot Sisters series and it is too good to miss! With one final book in this series I’m excited to read Juliet’s story!

Their hate for each other makes zero sense?

I found this book really frustrating and hard to follow. It had zero plot and the motivations of the characters were unclear. DNF’d at 50%

Very Disappointed

The author went to extreme lengths to promote sexual equality, gender equality, and what she deems is appropriate behavior. Unfortunately, in her quest, she often overwhelms the story with confusing pronouns and excessive monologs. It becomes very difficult to follow. At the same time, while spouting all of these ideals, she makes unkind jokes about other people's religions, and writes that the concept of virginity is a patriarchal concept.

The lead felame acts as though stating she is a "virgin" because she has never participated sexual intercourse is a dirty word. She writes as if calling oneself a virgin is derogatory. I found that concept to be disturbing and judgmental, Worst of all, it's confusing to add such obscure concepts to the dialog of what are supposed to be intimate conversations.

How can a writer who claims to be so open minded be so closed minded to everything else at the same time? It is not only distracting in a literary way, it often feels preachy and judgmental to those of us who also respect the values of others but have more traditional values of our own.

From a purely literary perspective, it becomes very confusing to use pronouns that describe more than one person for characters who are not even substantive enough to the story to have names.