Hate Me Like You Love Me
by itsvlada
👩❤️👨 A good girl-bad boy campus romance that explores deep feelings and obsession…
- Genre
- New Adult
- Chapters
- 120
- Status
- Completed
- Reads
- 20K
18+Review by Julia ·
Serena is a survivor. Her mother died of cancer. Her dad moved on too fast.
Caleb is a boy she was raised with. He was a constant threat with sharp words and calculated humiliations. He had a reputation built on hurting people.
These two were brought together by circumstance and became enemies. Their forced closeness exposes wounds they never wanted to share. What begins as banter turns into something more intimate and dangerous. She is the virgin who should know better, and he is the magnetic bad boy who wants more.
Themes Discussed in Hate Me Like You Love Me
🤕 Bullying
😍 Obsession
❌ Forbidden attraction
🕊️ Self-worth and redemption
🥀 Loss and grief
Reasons to Read Hate Me Like You Love Me
⚔️ Enemies to lovers trope
🩹 Healing trauma and growing from pain
💪 Surviving bullying
🔥 Slow burn where every look matters
Meet The Main Characters
👧🏻 Serena
Serena controls her world tightly because losing control is not an option in her world. She understands Caleb is dangerous because he sees exactly who she is. Serena is a survivor who is quiet and a virgin, not by innocence but by self-preservation.
👦🏻 Caleb
He knew early in life that being wanted for his body is easier than being known for scars. He is a feared golden boy who is cruel and reckless in his decision-making. The relationship with Serena is complicated but real.
When love heals and hurts at the same time. This campus romance will make you reflect on your teenage years 🖤
Hate Me Like You Love Me synopsis
Serena is the good girl who learned early how to survive loss: a mother taken by cancer, a father who moves on too fast, and a house that no longer feels safe.
Caleb is the boy she was raised beside and taught herself to fear—cruel words, calculated humiliations, a reputation built on breaking rules and breaking people.
Forced into each other’s orbit by family and circumstance, they sharpen themselves into enemies… even as something dark and unspoken coils between them.
Grief makes cracks, and secrets slip through.
Serena’s carefully controlled world fractures under constant proximity, bullying disguised as banter, and a boy who touches everyone but looks at her like she’s forbidden.
Caleb wears the mask of a rake because it’s easier than facing the violence he escaped as a child, easier than believing he could be anything but broken.
She’s the virgin who should know better. He’s the bad boy who doesn’t deserve redemption. And yet hatred turns intimate, attraction turns dangerous, and the urge to fix him feels as reckless as it is irresistible.
Read Hate Me Like You Love Me – Chapter 1
* One year ago *
POV Serena
The summer before senior year is supposed to belong to me—SAT prep books stacked on my desk, college essays waiting to be drafted, a future I can still shape with my own hands.
Instead, I find myself wandering through Westmont Prep's abandoned hallways, hunting down the one person on this planet who makes me want to commit a felony.
Your mother's best friend asks you for one favor, Serena. One.
Catherine can't reach her precious son. Lacrosse practice ended an hour ago, but Caleb isn't answering his phone. And somehow, somehow, that's my problem.
Our parents have been inseparable since childhood. Catherine is my godmother. My grandfather walked her down the aisle when her own father refused to come.
They raised us side by side, convinced we'd grow up as close as they were.
They never noticed when it all went wrong.
I pass the trophy case where Caleb's lacrosse photo sits front and center, that infuriating smirk preserved behind glass. Six years of cruelty hidden behind family dinner smiles.
"What's wrong, princess? Going to cry to Mommy? Oh wait, she’s…"
The boys' locker room door is propped open. Steam drifts out, carrying the scent of soap and something unmistakably intimate.
I hear a feminine moan before I see anything.
The wet sound of mouths and skin meeting, echoing off tile walls. A low, masculine laugh that I recognize instantly, the sound burrowing under my skin and settling somewhere it has no right to be.
Turn around, Serena. Text Catherine that you couldn't find him. Walk away.
My feet carry me forward instead and through the gap in the door, I see them.
Tropes
- Love Triangle
- Enemies to Lovers
- Obsession
- Campus Romance
- Forced Proximity
- Bad boy
- Bullying
- Virgin girl
- Bully Love