Abby Jimenez is fast becoming a favorite author of mine. I can really only describe her writing as a warm touch -- cozy and inviting. Even in moments with great angst, I felt so secure in Jimenez's ability to create conflict that wouldn't ruin this couple for me.

Reading Jacob and Briana's love story felt like a gut punch. 

A lot of romance novels rely on big declarations to make their pronouncements of love seem grounded. And don't get me wrong, I love that! But there's something a little bit marvelous about Jacob and Briana's love declaration, -- both just coming out of complicated and painful romantic relationships --being one of harm reduction. I love them. I love them so much and I think they are perfect for each other.

I also want to thank the author for the content warning at the beginning of this book. Although I am not particularly sensitive to the issues Jimenez deals with in this book, I can definitely see how the inclusion of big topics can be triggering to people. The final quarter of this book in particular took me by surprise and I wish that we had received a hint of it earlier in the book. I will place the content warning here:

This book has a lot of heart, plenty of funny moments, and love letters!!! Please pick this up.

I think this is a case of this just not being for me.

My enjoyment, or lack thereof, is partly my fault. I knew that this book would have a deception plot. I was lured in by the epistolary element, and the fact that it's with people who are in the publishing industry. And the cover! However, I really should not have picked up this book. The more I read and the longer the deception went on, the more pissed at Nick I got. So, just right off the bat, I am not a fan of one of the main characters. Although there were cute moments between Lily and Nick, I wasn't actually rooting for them for most of the book. I also found the ending to be a little drawn out and I (personally) didn't need the epilogue. Something about the writing style also wasn't my favorite. It felt clunky at times -- particularly the dialogue was overly-expository. It felt a little unnatural. 

But it was cute, I guess? I'm a little lukewarm on that right now.

The craziest thing about this book is that for a solid 75 percent of reading this, I was genuinely having a good time. Then the third act came and WOOSH, everything goes to shit. A good enemies-to-lovers book that is ACTUALLY enemies to lovers (as opposed to rivals-to-lovers, mild dislike-to-lovers,  and my most hated deception, misunderstanding-to-lovers) is so hard to come by. And Twisted Hate really delivers on the premise of tension-filled scenes and witty dialogue. It was so great! But that third act? It was a little much for me and made the hero a little unredeemable in my eyes. Others obviously might not have a problem with it, but it soured my experience and dropped this from being a 4/4.5 read to a 2 star. So disappointing.