RATING
It could have been a charming little rom-com but sadly… some things are not okay.
(Full disclaimer, The UnHoneymooners was widly loved by the romance community, so we seem to be in the minority here.)
Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion . . . she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.
Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.
Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is . . . Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.
Author : Christina Lauren
Title : The Unhoneymooners
Series : –
Number of pages : 272
Publisher : Gallery Books
Release Date : May 14th, 2019
Genre : Contemporary Romance
As plots go by, this one started rather stereotyped, heroine has a twin sister, her twin gets severely sick during a rom-com set wedding and is unable to travel to her honeymoon. They end up switching IDs so the heroine can enjoy the honeymoon with the best man, pretending to be the married couple for the sake of a non-refundable honeymoon prize. The best man she’s “forced” to spend time with is the groom’s brother and her own archenemy. They hate each other.
I’m all for enemies to lovers tropes! I was pretty happy reading this then.
Sometimes along the way,halfway into the book maybe—after all the comical situations had been delivered, after all the bearable tension had been imparted, after all the banter had been issued, I started to lose interest in the romance, finding the chemistry between Olive and Ethan tepid at best. I also I started to feel outraged on behalf of Olive.
I adored the heroine. Probably so much so that I couldn’t stomach the way she was being treated throughout the story by people that should have been LISTENING to her. According her the benefit of the mother-effing doubt. She was being constantly disregarded and made fun of. Well, fuck that.
Not even the hero’s POV offered at the end could make me forgive his behavior.
It seems I’ve been afflicted with a case of “inability to suspend all disbeliefs” lately, unfortunately, I could have done with a temporary fix for my affliction reading this book. I’m not saying this was a bad story, I’m saying it had nothing new to offer and I’ve had real issues dealing with the offhanded way the heroine was belittled. I just couldn’t let go of my grounded/realistic point of view reading The Unhoneymooners.
Yes, there are two of us! Lauren (on the left) and Christina (on the right).
Lauren Billings (but everyone calls her Lo) has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and before she made writing her full-time job, would spend her days doing nerdy research-type things wearing a lab coat and goggles. She is silly Mommy to two littles, wife to one mountain biking homebrewing scientist, and an unabashed lover of YA and romance.
Christina Hobbs (but you’ll always hear Lo call her PQ) used to spend her days in a junior high counseling office surrounded by teenagers. These days you can find her at her desk, writing or watching BTS videos. She lives in Utah with her husband and daughter, thinks she’s the luckiest person in the world to write books with her best friend, and is an unapologetic lover of boy bands and glitter.
