In this splendidly bittersweet romantic comedy, enemies forced together by a mutual loss are led on a cross-country journey toward a second chance.
Maddie Sanderson would be proud to honor her older brother’s dying wish, that she scatters his ashes over eight destinations that the adventurous 29-year-old never got to visit before he died from cancer. But in his will, Josh assigned her an impossible partner to help complete the mission—Dominic Perry. Seriously, if Maddie weren’t already at her brother’s funeral, she would have killed him for this.
Sure, Dom was Josh’s life-long best friend. He’s also the infuriating man who broke Maddie’s heart back when she was naïve enough to give it to him. But since Dom insists on following the rules and Josh didn’t leave much room for Maddie to argue the matter, they embark together on a series of farewell trips that span thousands of miles, exploring new places and revisiting their complicated history along the way.
After a snowstorm leads to a shared bed, Maddie starts to wonder if her brother might be matchmaking from the grave. But when grief also reopens old wounds between them, Maddie will need more than Josh’s ghostly guidance to trust Dom again.
P.S. I Hate You is an emotionally compelling contemporary romance that adeptly blends humor, loss, grief, and second chances. The story follows Maddie Sanderson, who embarks on a journey to honor her late brother Josh’s final wish: to scatter his ashes in places that were meaningful to him across eight different states. To complicate things, Josh requested that her travel companion be Dominic Perry, Josh’s best friend and Maddie’s former love, whose past betrayal has left a lingering scar on her heart. The story is well-paced, character-driven, and features popular tropes including forced proximity, found family, and second chance romance.
The characters in this story are complex and flawed, and the family dynamics are particularly unhealthy. Maddie is a character that readers may have a love-hate relationship with. At the start of the story, she has a lot of unresolved emotional grief and pain—not just from her brother’s death but also stemming from abandonment issues, childhood trauma, and heartache from Dominic’s betrayal years ago. She often speaks rudely and impulsively and comes across as childish and arrogant—the complete opposite of the inner monologue going on inside her. Dominic is also flawed but is much more easygoing—his layers gradually unravel over the course of the story, revealing the depths of his regret and love. It does take a while for the sparks to reignite between them, so readers have to be patient—when they do, Maddie sabotages the romance as she can’t yet let go of her past pain. On the positive side, the dialogue between Maddie and Dominic is filled with sarcastic, witty banter, including hilarious email exchanges that will have readers smiling. As Maddie and Dominic travel together to scatter Josh’s ashes, she realizes that saying a final goodbye to her brother is only part of her healing process and begins working on herself.
The novel’s road trip setting serves as a perfect backdrop for Maddie and Dominic to confront their tattered relationship. The abundance of descriptive prose of the beautiful and mysterious landscapes adds further intrigue to the story, and readers may easily find themselves researching the intriguing destinations. As the story takes place over a couple of years, the relationship between Maddie and Dom evolves from guarded and angst-filled to open and heartfelt, and it feels very believable and natural from a reading standpoint. Later in the story there are some spicy scenes that will delight open-door romance fans. By the end of the novel, the character arcs for both Maddie and Dom are well pronounced, and there is a pleasing resolution to their conflict, albeit some of it becomes quite predictable.
Overall P.S. I Hate You is a heartfelt second-chance romance that explores the complexities of unhealthy families, love, loss, and starting over. The emotionally charged prose and richly developed characters make this a must-read for contemporary romance lovers. Narrator Karissa Vacker brilliantly portrays Maddie through all the stages of her healing journey and greatly elevates the story with well-placed emotion and dramatic effect. If you enjoy second-chance stories with engaging characters that will make you laugh and cry, give this book high consideration.
