Books Like The Hating Game

More office wars, prank battles, and rivals who can’t stop keeping score.

Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman sit across from each other at work and have names for the games they play to get through the day. They stare. They copy each other’s movements. Then a promotion opens up, and whoever gets it will be the other’s boss. Imagine losing the staring game and having to ask the winner for Friday off.

If you miss watching rivals keep score long after a normal person would have called it a day, start with Sarah Hogle’s prank war. For another romance where somebody’s job depends on getting along with the last person they’d choose, go straight to The Worst Best Man.

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01
You Deserve Each Other
by Sarah Hogle
Naomi and Nicholas both want out of their engagement, and whoever calls it off has to pay to cancel the wedding. So they set about making life at home unbearable for each other. Naomi has been quietly paying a mechanic in cash to keep up the fiction that she takes care of her own car. When she gets a flat, she’d rather walk to work than give herself away.
This is the closest match for Lucy and Joshua’s habit of digging in over every little thing. Naomi and Nicholas already know how to hurt each other, though, and they spend a good while doing it before there’s much of a thaw.
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02
I Hope This Finds You Well
by Natalie Sue
Jolene types what she really thinks of her coworkers at the bottom of her emails, then changes the font to white. One day she forgets. IT intervenes and accidentally gives her access to everybody else’s messages, just as layoffs are looming. Pick this for the office grudges. There’s a romance with an HR colleague, but Jolene spends a good deal of her time snooping for a way to save her job and finding out what everybody else has to worry about.
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03
The Worst Best Man
by Mia Sosa
Max Hartley was the best man who told wedding planner Lina Santos that her own wedding was off. Now he’s helping her pitch for a hotel job. She blames him for talking his brother out of marrying her. She can make him squirm all she wants, as long as she can still make him look competent in front of the client. There’s room for Lina’s Brazilian family alongside the pitch, and the love scenes are steamy.
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04
The Rom-Commers
by Katherine Center
Emma Wheeler has six weeks away from caring for her dad to fix a terrible romcom script. The man who wrote it is her idol, an action writer who has very little faith in love. Emma has to explain to him why anybody would want to watch a love story in the first place. The research calls for line dancing and kissing.
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05
Mr. Wrong Number
by Lynn Painter
An anonymous text gives Olivia a chance to flirt with somebody who hasn’t seen the mess she’s made of her life. She answers a come-on with a picture of family underwear. The stranger is Colin, the man she’s been trading insults with in the apartment she shares with her brother. He figures it out first. Now he knows how much Olivia likes him when she doesn’t know it’s him.
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06
Love Your Life
by Sophie Kinsella
Ava and Matt fall for each other at an Italian writing retreat where the guests go by aliases and keep their lives to themselves. Back in London, Ava starts to see the drawbacks of dating a man who likes an empty room. Where’s all the furniture she rescues supposed to go? Then there’s Harold, her beagle. The friction starts after they’ve already decided they like each other.
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07
How My Neighbor Stole Christmas
by Meghan Quinn
Cole Black hates Christmas. Then Storee Taylor enters the Christmas Kringle contest and he decides to outdo her at being festive. She can get under his skin without even trying to win. She calls him Connor and lets him correct her.
Go here if you wanted Lucy and Joshua’s games to have an official winner. Expect fake dating, explicit sex, and a narrator who chimes in with rhymes.
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08
Accidentally Amy
by Lynn Painter
Izzy claims a latte meant for Amy and spills it on the man who turns out to be her new department’s vice president. This is the flirtier office pick. At one point she stops an elevator to keep a conversation going.
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09
Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating
by Christina Lauren
Josh and Hazel set each other up on blind dates and come along to see how it goes. The dates tend to go badly. The friends keep going out anyway. If you like watching people find an elaborate excuse to spend time together, this is the warmest pick here. Hazel is also the kind of person who keeps vases in the oven to protect them from her parrot.
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