REVIEW: PS: I Hate You by Lauren Connolly
In this splendidly bittersweet romantic comedy, enemies forced together by a mutual loss are led on a cross-country journey toward a second chance.
Maddie Sanderson would be proud to honor her older brother’s dying wish, that she scatters his ashes over eight destinations that the adventurous 29-year-old never got to visit before he died from cancer. But in his will, Josh assigned her an impossible partner to help complete the mission—Dominic Perry. Seriously, if Maddie weren’t already at her brother’s funeral, she would have killed him for this.
Sure, Dom was Josh’s life-long best friend. He’s also the infuriating man who broke Maddie’s heart back when she was naïve enough to give it to him. But since Dom insists on following the rules and Josh didn’t leave much room for Maddie to argue the matter, they embark together on a series of farewell trips that span thousands of miles, exploring new places and revisiting their complicated history along the way.
After a snowstorm leads to a shared bed, Maddie starts to wonder if her brother might be matchmaking from the grave. But when grief also reopens old wounds between them, Maddie will need more than Josh’s ghostly guidance to trust Dom again.
Author Note – This book deals with emotionally difficult topics, including child neglect, verbal and physical abuse, a car accident, suicidal thoughts, miscarriage, loss of a loved one, anxiety, and potentially unhealthy relationships with food. Any readers who believe that such content may upset them or trigger traumatic memories are encouraged to consider their emotional well-being when deciding whether to continue reading this book
Dear Ms. Connolly,
Let me just kick things off by saying Maddie Sanderson is fucking exhausting. I will also say that I can understand a lot of where Maddie is coming from but she’s not the easiest heroine to read about. More than once Maddie talks about the “bitchy zombie virus pumping through my veins.” Yeah. It does. There is also a lot of miscommunication/misunderstandings. I mention this in case it’s a reader pet peeve.
And yet, I love the way that the characters are a product of how they were raised, what experiences have gone into them. None of this stuff is dumped too early, nor broadly hinted at. Rather the little things that have shaped (mainly) Maddie and Dom are slowly revealed over the course of the book. Still as I started reading it, more than once I wanted to shake Maddie and nearly gave up on her. Maddie is, at times, a mess of a person – an honest mess of a person but still a mess. Obnoxious, insufferable, annoying and immature are adjectives I’ve seen used for her in other reviews and honestly I can’t say those word choices are incorrect.
Maddie is someone who could easily post her story at AITAH and get people to sympathize with her about her toxic mother, grandmother, and father. Okay, dad really isn’t in the picture much at all and we never really learn why he ditched his children along with his [insert terrible adjective of choice] wife. Mom and especially grandma ought to have been reported to CPS. Due to this background, Maddie needed to do a lot of self examination and growth in this story. Thankfully she (finally!) does and there is professional therapy involved in this.
Why did I keep reading? I love the relationship that we discover Maddie and her brother Josh shared. Josh is amazing but also not perfect either. Dom, the brother’s best friend who Maddie has had a crush on for years, is closer to (improbably) perfect, or at least he puts up with Maddie’s childishness far longer than I would have. Dom’s two younger brothers are sweet as well. Maddie’s two Seattle friends are basically two dimensional props there to unwaveringly support Maddie even though she lies to them and withholds important information from them. But she’s got cheese which is apparently enough for them to stick with her and ignore how she treated them.
Right, back to Josh. Writing this review is revealing to me that the dead brother is my favorite character. Josh’s instructions that Maddie and Dom choose to follow show that he knows them well and loves them wholeheartedly. The things he wants them to do would hopefully, even in the absence of any romance, bring them some closure over Josh’s early death. And yet either Josh doesn’t also do something equivalent for the woman he loves (and it’s not really a secret as I sussed it the moment it raised its head in the story) or it’s not mentioned so, huh, maybe Josh was a bit of a dick, too.
Whew – why did I keep reading? The way we learn about what makes Maddie and Dom tick is well done. Their actions might annoy me at times but I can understand what drives them. There were no “where did that come from?” moments. There’s also a hella lot of smoking hot sex and I applaud Dom’s reasons to hold back on that for so long.
I would recommend this book to readers who want a lot of angst and who don’t mind a bit of overwrought to go with that.. Also to people who enjoy watching relationships implode before being put back together. The first half was stronger for me. Read the author’s note which I’ve cut and pasted above to see if you might have issues with the things that are mentioned. Then decide if Maddie’s “tantrums on a loop” as she discovers what winds her tighter than an eight day clock are worth it. I stuck with it mainly because of the Maddie/Josh sibling relationship. This is a hard one to grade but I’ll go with an averaged C.
~Jayne
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