Publication Date: May 14, 2019
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: ★★★★★
Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, 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.
Review:
Thank you to NetGalley, Christina Lauren, & Gallery Books for a free copy of The Unhoneymooners in exchange for an honest review!
The Unhoneymooners was my third Christina Lauren book that I have read. After finishing this new release, I can surely say that the dynamic duo of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings is becoming one of my favorite authors. My favorite things in all of the books I’ve read by them is the fact that they write love so well. Do not wait to read this one.
It doesn’t take me much to connect with a character. Usually, it’s right from the first few sentences whether I know if I am going to enjoy the characters or not. From the first minute, Olive was a character I connected with. Her attitude and her love of food (I really associate with this) is something that I really enjoyed throughout the entire novel. Also, something else I really love throughout a book is character development. I feel like Olive was the queen of character development. Every different thing that happened in this book, she took differently and it was really refreshing to see the maturity come to life.
I read a ton of romance novels, and one of my favorite themes is enemies to lovers. I feel like this might be in my top 5 of enemies to lovers. The resentment and comments between both Olive and Ethan were hilarious and feisty. From calling each other different names to just being overall spunky, these two had a undeniable connection. I’ve read a ton of enemies to lovers novels and it’s true for me to say that Ethan and Olive’s connection was one of the best I’ve ever read.
Something I absolutely adore about enemies to lover novels is I know what is going to happen. Some might find that uninteresting to keep reading the same plot, however, I know that in my heart that every single book with this plot is different. Is there angst? Is it a quick realization? Is it a slow burn? Is it their friends that show them that their good together or do they figure it out on their own? Those are only some of the possibilities. Christina Lauren really hit the nail on the head. I feel like everything I just listed was in The Unhoneymooners. It was the perfect amount of everything rolled into one perfect book.
Overall, I am ecstatic that I read this quickly and within the first month of the publication date. I love the fact that I can tell everyone about this book and to read it as soon as possible. I felt every part of this book from start to finish, and I believe that each part was so perfectly detailed to where I felt every emotion. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up right away.
Lacey's Library 