When she goes off at Josh's father towards the end of the novel for negatively judging Josh without even trying to get to know him, she goes off.

Beware the Nice Ones: Lucy is, if not polite, at least understanding to everyone note except Joshua over the course of the story.

Josh even invokes this trope, saying Lucy has to give Danny a chance and decide she doesn't want the ' Nice Guy' before he'll move forward with her.

Betty and Veronica: Danny is the Betty to Josh's Veronica for Lucy.

She assumes that they were from her date.

Apology Gift: After he makes Lucy cry, Josh sends her roses and an anonymous note stating 'You're always beautiful'.

The Hating Game provides examples of the following tropes: but the tension between Lucy and Joshua has also reached its boiling point, and Lucy is discovering that maybe she doesn’t hate Joshua. Now up for the same promotion, their battle of wills has come to a head and Lucy refuses to back down when their latest game could cost her her dream job. Joshua is clearly baffled by Lucy's overly bright clothes, quirkiness, and Pollyanna attitude. Lucy can’t understand Joshua's joyless, uptight, meticulous approach to his job. And they have no problem displaying their feelings through a series of ritualistic passive aggressive maneuvers as they sit across from each other, executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman hate each other.

An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.

The Hating Game is a 2016 romance novel by Sally Thorne. This is just another one of the games we play.

The hating game book