Much Ado About Hating You by 
Honestly, the cover for Much Ado About Hating You by Sarah Echavarre Smith is what sucked me into picking this up. Then, I saw JF Harding was a narrator and I was very excited to give the audiobook a listen. Unfortunately, this was a bit of good stuffed around immature and nonsensical plot/behavior and cringe fake fanfic.
While there was a spark between Aidan and Micah, and I think they would’ve made a really hot and great romance, too much noise got in the way. For the sake of creating over the top conflict, Aidan was turned from a fairly normal and smart guy, to someone that was an absolute idiot. Most of the professors were turned into buffoons actually. I just could not understand how they took out all their frustrations on Micah who is there at the behest of the university to do a cost analysis of their department. If it wasn’t her, it’d be someone else. If it wasn’t someone else, it’d be paycuts and pink slips. Like, why aren’t they more upset at the university looking to quantify their worth? Why not organize and rally against the board in charge? It just didn’t make sense and felt like it was thrown in to force conflict. It would’ve read smoother if the conflict was solely internal. Aidan freaking out over possibly losing his job and having his insecurities instill by an overbearing father reinforced. Micah having to decide between doing a good and thorough job that could potentially fire people she’s grown fond of and a romantic partner she’s grown to love. That would’ve been so much more effective, and in fact was the most effective part once we got there about midway through the book.
Then, we have the fanfic aspect. God, this was the worst and made me want to die. Reading fake fanfic within a romance story was just too much. It seemed like it was thrown in just to introduce spice and steam early on and it was just unnecessary. Then, we have the characters flirting and starting to almost fall for each other via fanfic website but it never seemed to address their ages. There are so many underage fanfic writers which made this just such a weird interaction. Neither Micah nor Aidan know how older the other’s online alter-ego is. For all they know, they could’ve been chatting with a 14 year old. It doesn’t seem like this was really well thought out.
Narration wise, JF Harding did a great job reading for our MMC Aidan. He really brought the tension and frustration to the forefront with that underlying yearning by the end. On the other hand, this was my first time listening to a book narrated by Cindy Kay and the direction she took Micah’s voice was just not it. She did amazing portraying other characters during her sections (this was dual and not duet style narration.) When she read Micah, she really made her sound petulant and immature. It felt very valley girl, which didn’t really feel like it fit with her character at all and was a bit of a turn off.
With all these negatives, you might be wondering how did this still manage to get three stars. Apart from the cringe fanfiction part and the childish antics of the characters, once they realized who they were, things got really good. It was great to see their relationship build up. I loved seeing Micah stand beside Aidan as he deal with his family issues. Plus, seeing Aidan support Micah’s dreams and try to build her up was really tender to see. The romance, at it’s core, was good and sweet. It did not need all of the extra stuff which only served to weigh it down.
Much Ado About Hating You by Sarah Echavarre Smith might be a book that I’d recommend checking out from the library rather than purchasing for yourself. It’s got a solid romance but the fanfic and immaturity it gets wrapped in makes it difficult to get into at first and leaves a bit of distaste throughout.