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NetGalley Review of Hate You, Maybe

Posted on November 27, 2025November 22, 2025 by caritagardiner
Screenshot 2025-11-21 at 10.21.03 PM

title: Hate You, Maybe

author: Julie Christianson

publisher: independently published

publication date: September 20, 2025

pages: 350

peppers: 1 (on this scale)

warnings: past trauma

summary: Sayla wants to win the big grant for her theater program, so when her boss tells her that she needs to prove she's a team player by going on a woodland retreat with her nemesis, the Athletic Director at their high school, who also wants the grant, she knows she can make it work.

tropes:

  • enemies-to-lovers
  • forced proximity
  • only one room
  • but we work together
  • learned walls from my broken mother
  • mother's getting married
  • envy the big family

what I liked:

  • hmor
  • high school politics
  • the ReBoot retreat humor

what I didn’t like:

  • she seems immature and too stubborn at first

overall rating: 4 (of 5 stars)

As always, you can click on the photo above if you want to buy the book.

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WHAT I DO

I serve as a class dean and teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. I’ve earned a Bachelor of Arts (Amherst College), an Education Master in Learning and Teaching (Harvard University Graduate School of Education), a Master of Arts in English (Bread Loaf School of English), and most recently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a certificate in the online teaching of writing (Southern New Hampshire University).

As a writer, I hope to capture the complexity and joy of life in the New England boarding school world. On this site, I share what I know about trying to write fiction while deaning, teaching English, coaching, and doing the other tasks associated with helping to raise over six hundred other people’s children.

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Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • 362. Why Have a Motto
  • NetGalley Review of An Academic Affair
  • NetGalley Review of Hate You, Maybe
  • 361. Why Life’s Going to Life
  • NetGalley Review of Something Wicked
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