They Hate Each Other by Amanda Woody
Dylan and Jonah have a long history of despising each other. Their friends have long insisted that the boys secretly have the hots for each other, though. So Dylan and Jonah agree to fake date for a while, and then they can break up and go about their lives without their friends trying to get them together. Except while they’re ‘dating’, they get to know each other — that Jonah works too much because his sisters are everything to him and he doesn’t want them to be taken away, and that Dylan has a brother he hasn’t even talked to in years because of something that happened in their past. And as they open up to each other, they find that maybe friendship — or more — could actually be there after all. This is a poignant story that is as much about Dylan and Jonah’s separate trials as it is about their romance, which makes it that much more satisfying when things work out for them.
They Hate Each Other by Amanda Woody, (List Price: 18.99, Viking Books for Young Readers, 9780593403099, May 2023)
Reviewed by Melissa Oates, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina