Dear Love, I Hate You by Eliah Greenwood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It all started with an anonymous letter. 
 
He wasn’t supposed to find it—no one was. And he definitely wasn’t supposed to answer it.
 
We end up talking through letters and sticky notes in a book. One sticky note. Two sticky notes. Ten sticky notes. All baring our darkest, deepest secrets.
 
It’s all fun and games until I find out who my pen pal is…
 
Xavier Emery. King of my basketball-obsessed town, my childhood bully, and the guy I am in grave danger of falling in love with.
 
But the rules were clear: we can never know who we’re talking to, and the confessions can never, ever get out. Seriously. It would destroy lives. 
 
Fine by me. Even if Mr. Popular does find out his confidant is little old me, it’s not like he’d ever love me back…

Right?

Dear Love, I Hate You

Sins and confessions!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😠😚😁😍
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Duet Narration

The heroine: Aveena (a.k.a. Vee) – She is doing her best to get a scholarship so she can get out of town next year when her evil teacher assigns her a 20-page paper worth half her grade on a book of poetry. She is so angry she pens a hateful letter to said teacher and accidentally leaves the letter in the book and leaves the book in the library. All she can think of is getting that letter back before someone finds it.

The Hero: Xavier – He is the star basketball player on the team at Easton High. His mother is the principle at the school and his father is a teacher. He recently saw his mother cheating on his father and it screwed with his head, he acted out and lit a stink bomb in school because he was so angry. His girlfriend Bri just happened to be filming a video and caught the act on camera and so Xavier got caught. The relationship was over after she posted it on Snap Chat.

The story: Vee hates Xavier. They used to hang out as kids because their moms used to be friends, and Xavier used to bully Vee. That was up until they were 8 years old when he started going to a different school. He returned for high school, but they haven’t talked since then. Their last interaction was when they were 8 and he pushed her on the playground.

Vee has a lot going on in her life, she lost her v card to her sister’s ex-boyfriend Logan and thinks she is a horrible person. Her sister, Ashley is a prodigy and Vee has always lived in her shadow. Now she finds out her sister is dating Logan again and Vee doesn’t want her sister to find out. When she was 9 years old, she found her dad in the garage after he committed suicide.

Vee does end up finding the book of poetry and it has her letter which she didn’t want anyone to find, but it has a note on the back. So, she removes the letter, puts in a note to the bully who replied and puts the book back. Then starts a conversation with an unknown person via notes in a book. Until she finds out it is Xavier that she is talking to.

I liked the story despite the fact that many of the letters and texts between the two main characters are so obviously high school. That actually lends to the authenticity of the storyline since they are in high school. Though so many books like these have the characters behaving more like thirty year olds than high school students. I liked the storyline and the back stories of both main characters. They each have things going on in their lives and their pasts that made them perfect for each other.

This book was told in dual points of view via duet narration and was narrated by Michelle Sparks and Lucas Allen. I love duet narration and props to the author for doing it this way. Way too few books are narrated that way. I love Michelle Sparks soft, feminine voice which is terrific, and Lucas Allen had a good voice as well and totally sounded age appropriate for this book. Though his narration was a bit stilted at times, it was still good.

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