Katherine Center

4.75 | This might be my favorite Katherine Center book so far.

Unpopular opinion? Maybe. I really don't care.

If you've paid any attention to my Goodreads/Fable updates this year, you know I've become quite the fan of Katherine Center. She's become the contemporary romance equivalent of Beth Brower. I have yet to rate any of her books lower than three and a half stars because she just seems to hit the ball out of the park every single time. Yet The Love Haters still managed to surprise me.

I show more know people get irritated at this book for a variety of reasons: People hate the miscommunication, they’re irritated by Katie’s body dysmorphia, and they claim there’s no chemistry (that last one is just objectively wrong). And while the miscommunication conflict is frustrating (the only thing standing between me and a five-star rating of this book) it is handled masterfully.

Common Complaint #1: The Miscommunication

Two tropes will make me DNF a book instantly: One is a love triangle, and the other is miscommunication. However, this was not your basic, run-of-the-mill miscommunication. It was a twist that managed to redeem the trope. Was it frustrating? Hell yes. But did it ruin the book? Hell no. In fact, my only real frustration was that Hutch forgave her so quickly, no questions asked.

Common Complaint #2: The Body Dysmorphia

This book hit me at the perfect time. In the last year, I have experienced drastic changes in lifestyle, health, and ability. I went from working in an intensive manual labor job that put me in shape to being unable to work out at all due to chronic back pain and physical therapy. Throughout this time, my weight has fluctuated, along with my own self-image. While my issues were never as serious as Katie's, I still hit a new low.

Enter: This Book.

Watching Katie wrestle with, and then heal from, her own body dysmorphia was deeply cathartic. Before I knew it, I was crying in the car while I listened to the audiobook.

I've seen a lot of reviews saying Hutch "fixed" Katie's relationship with her body. But this is a wild misreading of the novel. Instead, Katie decided to love and care for herself, choosing to believe she was beautiful and valuable no matter what anyone said. In the end, when she finally, fully reconciled herself to her body, it was without anyone else's affirmation. Katie decided to make peace with herself and her body so that she could finally live life to the fullest. All Hutch did was agree. It was beautiful. It was healing. And I walked into work that morning with puffy eyes.

Concluding Thoughts

Katherine Center uses wit and romance to speak to the human experience. She draws you in with fun characters and meet-cutes, but she keeps you hooked with genuine emotional experiences. And this is why she's made it into my Top Three Favorite Authors list. I have a pretty good feeling that she'll stay there, too.

All-in-all, The Love Haters was an insightful, romantic, and hilarious novel that encouraged each of its readers to take each moment as a gift, and to gently love themselves through it all. It may not be her most popular book, but it is a magnificent addition to Katherine Center's portfolio.

4.75/5 show less

I love firefighter romances and this one is definitely going in my favorites!! Fun voice in this one! A firefighter from Austin is forced to relocate to Boston to care for an ailing parent. Strong female characters, great firefighter camaraderie and good family dynamics.

This one hooked me from the start with the great storytelling. Cassie is strong, one of the guys, doesn’t let stuff get her down, and is snarky and smart to boot. I LOVED all the firehouse pranking and the relationship show more between her and “Rookie” as they settled into their new firehouse in Boston. And as that relationship developed, it was such a great romance. Really good backstories that worked and added to the overall story, and the mystery plot line that came in later was awesome. This book was just a complete win from start to finish. 5/5 stars.

Trigger Warnings: rape, cancer, abandonment

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader. show less

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

✨ Second chances | Healing from family wounds/loss | The power of laughter and love✨

The Rom-Commers follows Emma Wheeler, a hardworking aspiring screenwriter who lands the opportunity of a lifetime — teaming up with her writing idol, Charlie Yates, to save a struggling romcom script. But behind the laughter and banter, both Emma and Charlie are carrying heavy burdens. As they work (and spar) together, they find healing, hope, and a love story of their own show more — reminding us that happily ever after doesn’t mean perfect… it means real.

Characters:
Emma is witty, resilient, and full of heart — the kind of main character you instantly want to be friends with. Her journey, especially around her family, felt incredibly relatable and emotional.

Charlie is the perfect broody, complicated love interest — and without giving spoilers, there’s a BIG reveal toward the end that seriously had me shouting “No, no, NO!” out loud. (Prepare yourself!)

Their chemistry was great — all the banter and vulnerability was perfection. Loved the 🐹 guinea pig!

Initial Thoughts:
I needed a break from my fantasy reads (Castles in Their Bones) and this was exactly the light, feel-good story I craved. I listened to the audiobook and HIGHLY recommend it — the narrator brings the characters to life SO well and adds even more emotional depth.

Final Thoughts:
This book is everything I love about a great romcom:
✔️ Laugh-out-loud funny
✔️ Clean and sweet romance
✔️ Real-life depth underneath all the humor
✔️ Feel-good vibes with heart and healing

It made me laugh, tear up, and feel all the good feels. If you’re looking for a quick, joyful, and meaningful escape, The Rom-Commers absolutely delivers.

5 sparkling stars from me! ✨

Memorable Quotes:
“I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we are looking for- adventure, excitement, emotion, connection-we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we’re struggling with- sometimes ones so deep, we don’t even really know we’re asking them- we look for answers in stories”.

“Whatever story you tell yourself about you, that’s the one that’ll be true.”

“That's just life.
Tragedy really is a given.
There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way. So it can't be where you're going that matters. It has to be how you get there. That's what I've decided.
It's all about the details you notice. And the joys you savor. And the hope you refuse to give up on. It's all about writing the very best story of your life. Not just about how you live it—but how you choose to tell it.”

“It’s not like any of us ever gets to a place where we’ve solved everything forever and we never have another problem. That’s not how life works. But that’s not what a happily ever after is, anyway. Poor happy endings. They're so aggressively misunderstood. We act like "and they lived happily ever after" is trying to con us into thinking that nothing bad ever happened to anyone ever again. But that's never the way I read those words. I read them as "and they built a life together and looked after each other and made the absolute best of their lives.”

“Choose a good, imperfect person who leaves the cap off the toothpaste, and puts the toilet paper roll on upside down, and loads the dishwasher like a ferret on steroids—and then appreciate the hell out of that person. Train yourself to see their best, most delightful, most charming qualities. Focus on everything they’re getting right. Be grateful—all the time—and laugh the rest off.”

“There it is. The whole trick to life. Be aggressively, loudly, unapologetically grateful.” show less

What I wish for is that Katherine Center will just keep on writing amazing books like this. The blurb describing What You Wish For sounds so average, just a normal love story about choosing joy. But come on, the author is Katherine Center after all, so you know you will get something more than that. But a few chapters in I had the “Aha!” moment again as I always do with one of this author’s books and started to realize just how much more I was getting – and it kept on like that, one show more more amazing thing after yet another amazing thing. I was oh so hooked.

Katherine Center populates her novels with people that are unusual, uncanny, quirky - but quirky isn’t really the right word. Somehow she makes them seem average so that we are able to connect with them, to feel their pain, and their joy, but at the same time they are so much more than average. They are everyday people in everyday circumstances but they’re not. Turns out they are just the most amazing characters you’ve ever met, with traits and behaviors and qualities, and yes, quirks, that keep revealing themselves layer after layer, like peeling back that proverbial onion.

Samantha is a young woman who is bright and sunny and happy and bold and quirky, loves her job as a school librarian, loves the kids, loves the principal and his wife. Samantha loves life, except some of that is a façade and she works hard each and every day to be sunny and bright.

Duncan could have been the love of her life except that he didn’t know it. She remembers him from her previous school as bright and sunny and happy and bold and quirky. She left that school when Duncan got engaged and used him as her inspiration to be bright and sunny and happy and bold and quirky, to choose joy even when her heart was breaking over Duncan.

So when tragedy strikes at Sam’s school and she learns Duncan is to be the new principal she believes that that might be the silver lining in the tragedy of the death of the former principal. But this Duncan is not her Duncan. This Duncan is rigid and harsh and seems afraid to break any rules. What happened??

There is tension – and a mighty attraction – between them every single time Sam and Duncan are on the page together. The chemistry jumps out at you. What Samantha has been through in her life, and the huge secret she keeps, and what Duncan has been through and is afraid to reveal, and what’s in store for the school and its already joyful children is a wonderful story skillfully crafted by the author. There is always a point in one of Center’s books when I am almost overwhelmed with sadness, both for what has happened to these people I’ve come to love and also for what I’m afraid is about to happen – or won’t happen – to them. What You Wish For is just like that.

The characters are strong, deep, surprising and the plot so smoothly and flawlessly developed that you turn page after page after page, enjoying every word, looking forward to and afraid of what will happen all at the same time.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of What You Wish For, and thanks even more to author Katherine Center for writing another marvelous book that I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend without hesitation. Read this one and everything else she has written. Note: All opinions are my own. show less