The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren on May 14, 2019
Genres: Fiction / General, Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy, Fiction / Women
Pages: 432
Format: Paperback
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“And I get it. As much as I hate him . . . I think I’m starting to like us.”
“It’s so exhausting pretending to hate you.”
“love is exhausting.”
This book follows Olive Torres. Her and her twin sister Ami. Ami is the lucky one, while Olive has always been the unlucky one. But during Ami’s wedding, ciguatera toxin takes out the entire wedding party, bride and groom included, and Olive suddenly becomes the lucky one unaffected. Coincidentally enough, and the man she hates most, the groom’s brother Ethan, is also the only other one left standing. With the honeymoon nonrefundable, Olive and Ethan begrudgingly agree to pose as newlyweds to get to Maui and plan to spend 10 days in tropical paradise, separately. Things get complicated when Olive runs into her soon-to-be boss and Ethan bumps into his ex girlfriend, meaning that they’ll have to be a little more convincing as husband and wife. The all-expenses paid vacation is dependent on their posing as bride and groom. If anyone gets wind that they aren’t who they say they are, they have to pay out of pocket for the cost of the entire trip. 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.
The Unhoneymooners is an enemies to lovers romance set in a romantic destination. It has humor and witty, but there was a plot twist and tonal shift that knocked me off balance and left me unable to regain my footing. The novel started out so light and witty, the perfect rom-com novel. Their romance was such a joy… until they leave Maui. Everything kind of goes up in flames after the change of scenery, both for the characters and overall feel of the book. I was not expecting this change to happen with the novel, but it did shift the overall mood of the book.
I gave this book a 3.5 star rating. This book was a little difficult to review since the first part of the novel so was different from the second. My only complaint would be that I was wanting so much more from them. Family played a huge part in the conflict of the story that made me wanting more of the backstory.