If you closed The Hating Game and immediately felt the void that only a perfect slow-burn romance can leave, you are not alone. Sally Thorne’s 2016 debut did something quietly radical: it reminded a whole generation of readers that romantic comedy, done right, is one of the most demanding and rewarding forms of fiction there is. Since its release on August 9, 2016, The Hating Game has accumulated over 752,800 ratings on Goodreads with an average of 3.88 stars, earned a 4.5-star rating from more than 40,000 Amazon reviewers, landed in the Washington Post‘s top 20 romance novels of that year, became a top-ten finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards, and was adapted into a film starring Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell. It has sold in over twenty-five countries. For a debut novel, that is not a trajectory. That is a detonation.
What makes people keep searching for books like it, years later, says something important: The Hating Game scratched an itch that most romance novels never quite reach. It is not just an enemies-to-lovers story. It is a study in proximity, in the strange intimacy of shared workspace, and in how we use antagonism to avoid admitting that someone has gotten under our skin. Joshua Templeman and Lucy Hutton are not enemies because they dislike each other. They are enemies because they feel too much, and that distinction is everything.
This list is for readers who understand that difference. I have read widely in this genre, and I want to save you from the books that promise banter and deliver boredom. Every title below earns its place not because it checks a trope box, but because it delivers something genuine: characters who feel like people, tension that actually costs something, and endings you believe.
Why The Hating Game Still Matters in 2026
NPR Books said it plainly: “If you miss romantic comedies, the kind that were so funny, you would pay $15 to see them in the theater… this novel will make you very happy indeed.” And NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour called it “sharp, sexy… candy-like in the best way.”
The reason this novel has staying power is not nostalgia. It is craft. Kirkus Reviews, which gave it a starred review, noted that Thorne delivered “something nearly impossible: an entirely predictable plot that is also completely fresh, original, and utterly charming.” That is the actual challenge of the rom-com: you know where it is going, and the skill lies entirely in making the journey feel alive anyway.
“The trick is to find that one person who can give it back as good as they can take it.” That line from the novel captures exactly what readers are chasing when they look for similar books. They want someone who matches. They want a relationship that feels earned.
The enemies-to-lovers trope has genuinely reinvigorated the contemporary romance genre, as multiple literary critics have noted since the book’s publication. And the demand for quality titles in this space has only grown. In 2026, publishers are releasing entire summer catalogs built around this trope, from HarperCollins UK to major American imprints. The appetite is real, and it is not going anywhere.
What Makes a Book Truly “Like” The Hating Game?
Before diving into the list, it is worth being honest about what this phrase actually means. A lot of recommendations float around online that are technically enemies-to-lovers but miss the specific flavor of The Hating Game. Here is what I think actually defines it:
The tension is verbal before it is physical. The banter is not just decoration. It reveals character. When Lucy and Joshua trade barbs, you learn who they both are.
The setting matters. Forced proximity is doing heavy lifting here. The shared office, the unavoidable daily contact, the fact that neither can escape creates a pressure-cooker dynamic that pure coincidence-based romance cannot replicate.
The heroine is funny and self-aware. Lucy Hutton is not passive. She is opinionated, occasionally ridiculous, and entirely self-aware about her own contradictions. That is rare and valuable.
The hero has hidden depth. Joshua Templeman appears cold because he is protecting something. The slow reveal of who he actually is forms the emotional spine of the book.
Keep those four elements in mind as you read through the recommendations below. I will flag when a book nails all of them, and when it delivers only some.
The 11 Books You Should Read Next
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
This is, without question, the closest spiritual successor to The Hating Game published in the last decade. Ali Hazelwood’s debut novel hit the New York Times bestseller lists immediately upon release in 2021, with The Love Hypothesis earning over 62,000 ratings on Amazon at 4.5 stars and becoming one of the most-recommended romance novels in the genre’s recent history.
The setup: PhD student Olive Smith kisses the first man she sees to convince her best friend she has moved on from a crush. That man is Dr. Adam Carlsen, notoriously the most intimidating professor in the biology department. They agree to fake-date. Then, of course, nothing remains fake.
What Hazelwood does brilliantly is root the comedy in a world she knows intimately. She is herself a neuroscientist, and the academic setting feels lived-in rather than decorative. Adam Carlsen has the same contained intensity as Joshua Templeman, the same quality of appearing cold while actually running very hot underneath. And Olive, like Lucy, is funny precisely because she is too honest and too aware of her own mess to ever be truly cool about anything.
The Love Hypothesis is the rare romance novel where the science is not a prop. It is structural. The fake relationship is not just an excuse for proximity. It has professional stakes, ethical complications, and an ending that feels genuinely earned rather than manufactured.
If you read one book on this list, make it this one.
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
Helen Hoang wrote the first draft of The Kiss Quotient in ten weeks, then spent eight more months revising it after entering the online pitch contest Pitch Wars. The result was named one of the Washington Post‘s 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2018 and one of Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2018. It currently holds a 4.3-star rating on Amazon from over 6,700 reviewers.
The premise is genuinely original: Stella Lane, an autistic econometrician who is highly successful professionally but deeply uncertain about intimacy, hires an escort named Michael Phan to teach her how to date. Hoang, who was herself diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder during the writing of this book, brings a precision and empathy to Stella’s interiority that gives the novel a texture most romance fiction never achieves.
This is not The Hating Game‘s adversarial dynamic, but it earns its place on this list because of the same quality that made Thorne’s novel memorable: the central tension is rooted in genuine character, not just plot mechanics. Stella and Michael are not playing games with each other. They are both trying to navigate real vulnerability, real need, and the terrifying prospect of being known.
Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review and called it a novel that “takes romance to the next level.” That is not hype. Hoang knocks it out of the park, and anyone who loved watching Joshua Templeman’s walls slowly come down will recognize something similar and equally satisfying in Michael Phan.
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
Elena Armas is a Spanish author writing in English, and that particular outside-in perspective on American romantic comedy conventions does something interesting to her prose. The Spanish Love Deception is a workplace romance built on a fake-dating premise: Catalina Martin needs a date for her sister’s wedding in Spain and is forced to accept the offer of Aaron Blackford, her irritating, infuriatingly competent coworker.
This book is unabashedly slow-burn. The enemies-to-lovers tension is not resolved quickly, and readers who bounced off certain other recommendations because they moved too fast will find Armas’s pacing deeply satisfying. Armas understands that the anticipation is the point, and she extends it masterfully across a transatlantic journey without ever letting it sag.
Aaron Blackford is a textbook grumpy hero with hidden warmth. He is tall, terse, apparently indifferent, and secretly doing things for Catalina that she does not know about. If that sounds familiar, it is because it works, and Armas’s version of it holds up.
The book currently holds a 4.3-star rating on Amazon from over 35,000 reviews, which is a genuinely remarkable achievement for a debut novel that originated as a fan fiction. That origin story is relevant: the book has an instinctive feel for what readers of this subgenre actually want, because Armas was one of those readers for years before she became a writer.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Christina Lauren is a writing duo (Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings), and The Unhoneymooners is their most consistently recommended title for Hating Game fans. The premise is absurdist in the best possible way: when the entire guest list at her sister’s wedding gets food poisoning, Olive Torres is one of two surviving attendees. The other is Ethan Thomas, the groom’s brother, who Olive cannot stand.
They end up in Hawaii together, pretending to be newlyweds to use the non-refundable honeymoon package. The fake relationship is more comedic than most, and the book commits to its premise with impressive consistency.
Christina Lauren’s dialogue is fast, the banter is sharp, and the Hawaiian setting is deployed effectively rather than just being scenery. If the enemies-to-lovers tension in The Hating Game was the office, here it is enforced vacation proximity, and the authors understand what that particular kind of togetherness does to people.
“Their mutual antipathy grows,” as Kirkus might say, “until it doesn’t.” Readers who want something slightly lighter and more comedic than The Love Hypothesis will find The Unhoneymooners an ideal choice.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Emily Henry may be the most consistent writer working in this genre today. Book Lovers is not technically an enemies-to-lovers novel. It is closer to a rivals-who-keep-running-into-each-other story, but what makes it feel adjacent to The Hating Game is the fact that both protagonists, Nora Stephens (a literary agent) and Charlie Lastra (a brooding book editor), are people who have built walls out of professional competence.
Henry does something that relatively few romance novelists attempt: she writes heroines who are genuinely driven by their careers, and she does not punish them for it. Nora Stephens loves her job. She is not going to abandon it for a man in a small town. The novel is aware of and in conversation with the tropes of its own genre, which gives it an intellectual dimension that readers who appreciated the publishing industry setting of The Hating Game will enjoy.
The banter between Nora and Charlie is precise and revealing. It shows you who they are before it shows you that they are falling for each other. That sequence, banter first and attraction second, is exactly what Thorne got right, and Henry replicates it.
If you have not read Emily Henry yet, start here or with Beach Read. Either is an excellent entry point into her work.
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Yes, two Emily Henry novels on one list. That is not a coincidence or a marketing impulse; it reflects the reality that she is simply that good at the specific combination of wit, emotional depth, and romantic tension that readers of The Hating Game are looking for.
Beach Read pairs January Andrews, a romance novelist going through a crisis of faith in happy endings, with Augustus Everett, a literary fiction author who thinks commercial romance is beneath him. They are neighbors for the summer. They make a bet: she will write a literary novel, he will write a romance, and each will try to convert the other to their genre.
The genre commentary is genuinely interesting and never gets in the way of the romance. Henry has a gift for writing grief and loss into what look like lightweight books without making them feel like a bait-and-switch. Beach Read is funny, it is sad in the right places, and it builds to a conclusion that feels surprising even though you could see it coming from chapter three.
The opposites-attract setup echoes The Hating Game‘s dynamic. The slow shift from antagonism to understanding follows the same emotional logic. And Henry writes male characters who feel like whole people, which remains a rarer achievement than it should be.
The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon
The Ex Talk is a workplace romance with a premise that is almost perverse in its cleverness: radio producer Shay Goldstein pitches a new show format to save her struggling station. The concept is that two exes give relationship advice on air. The pitch is accepted, with one complication: Shay has never dated her proposed co-host, Dominic Yun, whom she actively dislikes.
So they fake being exes. And then they fall for each other. And their actual evolving feelings happen to parallel the relationship advice they are giving listeners, which is either deeply ironic or deeply fitting, depending on how you look at it.
Solomon understands that a good enemies-to-lovers story needs professional stakes alongside the romantic ones. Shay’s job is on the line. So is her professional reputation. The tension between what she is performing on air and what she is actually feeling off it creates a layered dynamic that keeps the book from ever becoming predictable even when it is technically following a familiar template.
The radio station setting is specific in the way that the publishing house setting in The Hating Game is specific. It creates a world with its own rules, politics, and pressure. That specificity matters enormously. Generic settings produce generic tension. Solomon avoids that entirely.
From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata
Mariana Zapata is the acknowledged master of the truly long slow burn, and From Lukov with Love is her best book. Figure skater Jasmine Santos has been paired with Ivan Lukov, her longtime rival and the person she has resented for years, as her new skating partner. They must train together intensively, spend more time together than most people spend with their closest friends, and somehow make it look effortless on ice.
This is not a banter-heavy book in the way that The Hating Game is. Zapata’s version of the trope is quieter, more accumulative. The romance develops the way real familiarity develops: slowly, through small moments, through watching someone show up consistently in ways you did not expect.
For readers who felt that other recommendations moved too quickly, this is the answer. Zapata never rushes. She trusts the tension to hold. It does.
From Lukov with Love is also notable for its treatment of athletic ambition. Jasmine is good at her sport and cares about it deeply. The romance does not eclipse her professional identity. It grows alongside it. That is rarer than it should be in any genre.
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata
A second Zapata title because The Wall of Winnipeg and Me and From Lukov with Love appeal to slightly different readers within this same audience. Here, Vanessa Mazur works as a personal assistant to Aiden Graves, a famously gruff NFL star. She quits. He asks her to stay, with a proposal she cannot refuse.
The workplace dynamic is more directly analogous to The Hating Game than any of Zapata’s other novels. The power imbalance, the professional proximity, the heroine who has been invisible to a man who now suddenly sees her: all of it maps cleanly onto the emotional territory that Thorne charted.
The football world is rendered with an unusual degree of authenticity, and Aiden Graves is one of the most genuinely compelling grumpy heroes in the genre. He is not brooding for effect. He is a person who has organized his life around a specific thing and is now watching it be complicated by another specific thing. That is actually relatable, and Zapata treats it with full seriousness.
The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel
The Trouble with Hating You deserves wider readership than it has received. Biochemical engineer Liya Desai is brilliant, fiercely independent, and deeply resistant to the arranged marriage her family keeps pushing on her. Attorney Jay Shah is the man her family set her up with, and after their disastrous first non-meeting (she runs out the back door when she realizes what the dinner is), fate deposits him in her professional life.
What Patel does here that is genuinely distinguished is to place the enemies-to-lovers dynamic inside a specific cultural context, that of the Indian-American community, without either exoticizing it or treating it as a problem to be solved. The community is not the villain. Liya’s resistance is not portrayed as simply correct. The novel holds complexity without tipping into melodrama.
Liya is one of the most interesting heroines in recent romance fiction: brilliant, funny, difficult, and carrying real damage from her past that explains without excusing her behavior. Jay, for his part, is the rare male lead who is allowed to be genuinely good without being boring.
If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane
British novelist Mhairi McFarlane brings a different energy to this genre: dryer, sharper, slightly more emotionally complicated. If I Never Met You follows Laurie, a lawyer who is devastated when her decade-long relationship with her co-worker ends badly. Her solution, after the office dynamics become unbearable, is to propose a fake relationship with the most eligible bachelor in her firm.
McFarlane’s rom-coms have more social observation in them than most American entries in the genre. She is interested in how workplaces function, in professional politics, in the way gender operates in competitive environments. The Hating Game readers who appreciated Thorne’s “astute command of office politics and the often demeaning realities of workplace dynamics for women” (as Kirkus put it) will find McFarlane’s sensibility very familiar.
The humor is drier here, the emotional beats less explicit. But the payoff is proportionally larger, because McFarlane earns everything she delivers.
A Note on What This Genre Does
The enemies-to-lovers trope is, at its best, a story about the risk of being fully seen by another person. The hostility at the beginning of these narratives is not really about dislike. It is about defense. Lucy Hutton does not hate Joshua Templeman. She protects herself from him, because on some level she knows he could matter.
“Watching you pretend to hate the nickname is the best part of my day.” That line from The Hating Game is funny. But it is also the most intimate line in the book, because it means: I have been watching you closely enough to know the difference between what you show and what you feel.
That is what readers are looking for when they search for books like The Hating Game. Not just banter. Not just a grumpy hero with abs. The experience of watching two people move from defended to open, from strangers who share a room to people who share a life.
The books on this list do that work with varying styles and settings, but they all understand that this is what the trope is actually about. Read them in any order. But I would start with The Love Hypothesis, because it will slot directly into the space The Hating Game left, and then expand your reading from there.