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An ARC copy of this book was provided to me in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts are my own.
Dare You To Hate Me was an emotional journey through my own self-reflection with issues I’ve dealt with in the past and an amazingly well written story about the lives of Ivy and Aiden and everyone else in their lives. I’m not even sure where to start as this story was complex and emotional in so many ways that I needed to take some time to reflect on what I had read. I actually finished it almost a week ago and am just now sitting down to try and capture all my thoughts.
Ivy was the perfect main character because she symbolizes a very common person in our world today that no one wants to talk about.
She symbolizes those that suffer from ideas and actions of self-harm as an outlet to release the pain they feel inside. Celeste does a phenomenal job of representing these challenging issues and giving them the seriousness and credit they’re due. Specifically, from the characters vantage point of what drives them to do those kinds of things. Then you pair that with Ivy’s unique back story and character development and you have an all-out home run character.
Now for the male main character, Aiden, he’s a star football player and really is the main driver of this being a sports romance rather than a contemporary romance or new adult.
Anyone that reads this story will tell you how different it is from other sports romance stories because it actually incorporates sports.
I mean… it actually includes a lot of sports references including the team mates, the coach and playing the aforementioned sport. Which, if you’re in touch with the sub-genre communities, is a bit lacking in this department. Aiden is an amazing person all around though, not only is he the star athlete in this story, but he cares deeply about people. His team mates, his family and of course – Ivy.
Now take all those dynamics and wrap them up into a one-of-a-kind story that incorporates sports, family issues, self-harm and fated love and you’ve got the makings of one of my top reads this year already with Dare You To Hate Me.
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