The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Published by Gallery Books on May 2019Genres: Adult Fiction, Romance
Pages: 432
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
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Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Amy, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.
Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.
So. Much. Fun.
This is a classic Christina Lauren about two people who can’t stand each other. Until they can. Oh boy.
It’s a quick read and fully engaging. Olive and Ethan wind up on their sibling’s honeymoon to enjoy the very free trip to Maui after an unfortunate seafood buffet food poisoning. They think they’re going to stay away from each other…
I really really like Olive. She is very realistic, a bit of a downer and cautious. She thinks she has bad luck (like real bad luck) and it’s made her prickly and negative. I liked that about her. She wasn’t bubbly. She has an edge and her comments towards Ethan are hilarious and sharp. Ethan can be pretty clueless sometimes, but overall he is a typical misunderstood hero. That’s not a bad thing given some of the drama that is happening around these two characters.
This is also a book that is only told from Olive’s perspective, which was fun. Usually, this writing duo writes from both characters’s perspectives, but I really enjoyed only having Olive. Her quirks and missteps and insecurities were stronger than Ethan’s and I was able to really bond with her as a character.
I really like the secondary storyline between Ami and her husband Dane. It provided a lot of drama and really brought out Olive and Ethan’s characters. There’s some heartbreak and misunderstandings and some steamy fun.
This was a hit for me and most of the book was set in Maui, which just added to my love.
Overall, this is a great addition to my Christina Lauren collection. I recommend this book to many of my friends.
Kimberly majored in Songwriting and currently works full time in the music industry. When she's not listening to music, knitting or writing, you can find her outside reading her favorite genres: Young Adult, Adult Fiction, Mystery, and Romance.
I love their work. They usually write in dual POVs, so I’m interested to see how to reads since it’s all under one POV.
Hiya! Thanks for commenting! I kinda think the story would have benefitted a little bit with the double POVs, but that’s just a thought.