Review: “Hate The Player” by Max Monroe

Book Title: Hate The Player

Author: Max Monroe

Rating: 5⭐

Release Date: July 21st, 2020

Synopsis: Birdie Harris is going from country music sweetheart to Hollywood starlet and it just so happens that her co-star is Andrew Watson, who believes he’s god’s gift to womankind. Working on a movie about an upcoming country musician who gets her big break and falls in love with the charming veteran country musician is a little too close to home for Birdie and Andrew. But things are about to get really interesting when the cameras aren’t rolling and you’re all invited to watch this unfold.

Review: Max Monroe have this way of creating characters that are both hilarious and heart wrenching. Their last few books have delivered characters and storylines that have left me in splits and then in tears. But all in all, I am absolutely in love with the way they manage to keep you hooked with every book.

To give you a rundown on the characters – we’ve got Birdie Harris who is the sister to Billie Harris (Luca Weaver’s fiancee and baby mama). Birdie is a well known country music star who has a pretty good fan following for her music. She’s feisty, funny, gorgeous and incredibly talented. Then we’ve got Andrew Watson, friends with Luca and one of Hollywood’s hottest and most eligible bachelors. And in true bachelor sense, he’s also a bit of an asshole. Their first meeting is all kinds of hilarious, because Birdie has gotten a earful from Billie and Raquel (Weaver, married to Harrison Hughes and sister to Luca Weaver) about Andrew and she knows that she’s going to dislike him right off the bat and he makes it seriously easy for her to slap him during an audition. The very same audition that gets her the part in the movie that was written almost for her.

Enemies-to-lovers, indeed. Just in case you’re wondering how Birdie really feels about Andrew, here’s a little taste:

“Have you ever had someone ring your doorbell and you get all excited, thinking it’s something great, only to find out they’ve ding-dong ditched instead leaving behind a seemingly innocent but actually nefarious box full of human feces? Well, if you have, that’s a perfect metaphor for Andrew Watson.”

Like the other two books in this series (it’s not really a series, but these characters are in each other’s books and in my head it feels like a series), the characters are so vivid and hilarious. Birdie is not taking any of Andrew’s shit and Andrew can’t stop torturing her because he’s that kind of guy. Their chemistry is hot like molten lava right from the moment they meet and it only gets hotter as they go along. Birdie doesn’t play Andrew’s game, but somehow he seems to be falling into her trap. And it’s not like Birdie is doing it on purpose either, she’s just the feistiest woman he’s ever met and Andrew wants her. I mean, you can’t blame him.

The dialogue is witty and smart and hilarious too. Birdie’s inner monologues are made of gold and I spent a good part of the first book just laughing because she’s ridiculous. She’s nothing like Billie or Raquel, but she’s also in that same league of being smart mouthed and sexy all at once.

While Andrew can be a bit of a jerk and you want to save Birdie from him constantly, there’s all this underlying charm and chivalry just waiting to surface. And when it does, oooooh boy, you can’t ignore it for very long. At a time when Andrew could be a real jerk and not care about anything or anyone, he steps up to the plate and he takes care of Birdie and to watch that shift happen is quite something. Especially since you’re expecting things to go in the other direction. But, surprise, Andrew is a good guy!

“We’re a weird mix of foreplay and conflict. I’ve been around us for at least two hours total, and I still haven’t figured out our dynamic.”

As a reader, watching the two characters fall in love on the page is one thing, but fall in love while playing other characters is a whole other experience. The words Birdie and Andrew are saying to each other aren’t their words, but the emotions and feelings are all real and you feel just how much they want and need each other even if they both know that things are going to be complicated. Because how can two people who are in the spotlight have a relationship without everyone getting involved and having an opinion on the matter?

Don’t even get me started on sexual chemistry. If I was reading a physical copy of this book, I bet the pages would have caught fire by now. Good god. It was just so intense. And while it’s ‘just sex’, it also isn’t. And it’s crazy intense. I swear, Max Monroe up their sex scenes with every book and Birdie and Andrew really do take the cake with just how a slow burn can explode.

“Her kisses are greedy and erratic and only make me feel more addicted to her. Like she is the only one who can give me what I need, what I want. Like she’s everything I’ll ever need, filling all the voids and missing parts in my life. Like she’s it for me. Because she is.”

Max Monroe have done it again, with an absolutely magical book featuring familiar faces and characters that are so explosive and interesting. I can see why they released this book a whole month early, because everyone needs to get their hands on this hilarious sexy read. Sell your souls to Birdie and Andrew and you won’t regret it.

Thanks to Max Monroe and Social Butterfly PR for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.