🌧grumpy/sunshine☀: the most elite romance trope?

Helloo 👋

The grumpy/sunshine dynamic between two characters is elite in any circumstance but it’s ten times better in a romance. I don’t know what it is about a grumpy character only being soft for their love interest that makes me all happy inside but it is what it is.

Because I love this trope so much, I wanted to make an effort to read some grumpy/sunshine romance’s lately. I decided to read: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, and The Fine Print by Lauren Asher.

And of course because you’re reading this, it means I’m going to do a lil mini-review for each 🙂

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The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

Everybody and their goddamn mother has been reading this lately and, besides from the tropes it contains, feeling left out was a big part of why I wanted to read it. (Also I found out this was originally Star Wars fanfic and, despite never having watched the movies, I wanted to check that out).

I’m very happy to say it loved up to the hype though. This book made me so happy!!

By far my favourite thing about this book was Olive. Her narration was so entertaining and endearing, she reminded me of a hyperactive puppy. I fell in love with her from the prologue and saw a lot of myself in her … if you ignore that she’s a grad-student in STEM and I graduated high-school with a failing grade in maths.

I also, of course, loved Adam and his relationship with Olive. Besides from grumpy/sunshine, this also features fake-dating and I loved how self aware the book was with that. There’s a bit of an age difference between them which I’m normally a bit “eh” about, but it worked in this book. They honestly felt so real and I was rooting for them the entire time.

The one thing I kept at cringing at was Olive’s friend constantly pushing them to do PDA, especially when it was in like a professional environment. Sure it made for some “this is awkward but I’m feeling sparks” moments between the characters, but I wish Olive had sat her friend down and said something along the lines of “please stop!”.

I wasn’t aware of this so I’m just going to mention here (while avoiding spoilers): trigger warning for sexual harassment.

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The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Yes the movie trailer made me want to read this. Please don’t judge me too hard.

The Hating Game is one I’ve heard about for a little while now and yes, what finally prompted me to pick it up was a mix of the movie trailer dropping, and this new found need for grumpy/sunshine dynamics. Mixed in with that we also have office-romance, a bit of hate to love and even the slightest hint of fake-dating.

I’m going to be honest I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as I was expecting to. In total contrast to the first book I read for this post where I loved the main character, I wasn’t a huge fan of Lucy. It kind of felt like she was going around in circles in terms of her relationship with Josh. Like she’d notice these nice things he was doing and then be like “he wants to destroy me”. Babes no (I mean maybe he wants to destroy your you-know-what but that’s it).

I don’t know if I’m articulating that very well so I’ll just sum it up with: I didn’t feel the chemistry between them as much as I would have liked to.

In terms of the grumpy/sunshine dynamic I thought this was quite unique and different. In my eyes instead of the sunshine character making the grumpy one crack a smile and be soft the roles were reversed with Lucy becoming being more business like and competitive when she was around Josh which was a cool twist.

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The Fine Print by Lauren by Lauren Asher

I am very much on the side of “eat the rich” when it comes to billionaires. Billionaires shouldn’t exist. That being said, I don’t have that philosophy when it comes to fictional billionaires.

I wasn’t planning on using this book for this list/round of reviews (whatever the hell this is??). I didn’t even realise it was grumpy/sunshine until I started reading it. What originally made me want to read this was because I follow the author on Tik-Tok and this book just sounded fun and it really was!

The grumpy/sunshine trope in this is *chefs kisses*. Rowan actually has a lot of reasons for being Grumpy™ and it was so entertaining to not only see him fall for Zahra and open up, but FALL FIRST!! She has him wrapped around her little finger without even knowing or trying. He draws for her for crying out loud.

Zahra herself was my favourite. Her style, aesthetic and overall humour made me very happy. She was a literal ray of sunshine but also had an edge to her. She didn’t let Rowan get away with his asshole-ish behaviour and called him out on his crap. I appreciate that.

The sequel following the eldest Kane brother is set to come out next year I think and after loving this so much I’ll definitely be reading it.

I had a lot of fun going out of my way to read these books because of the specific trope they all share. I am definitely going to be doing a part 2 of this. I was actually hoping to include a few more books into this batch of reviews, but I waffled on more then I was expecting and I thought it would be a bit much.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings on any of these books. I’d also love to know what other books have grumpy-sunshine dynamics that I should read, as well as your thoughts on the trope overall. Thanks for reading :))

Elli xx