Review: The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

Hey all, Dani here.

You are all utterly amazing! I have to start today’s post with a huge thank you to everyone who has followed, liked, and commented on my blog. I just reached 600 followers, and I can’t even begin to describe how thankful I am for all of you. I started this blog in January 2016 because I wanted to talk about books, and because I needed something to help me deal with my grandma’s death. I honestly never imagined that I would get to the point of having 600 followers, to be receiving over 1,000 views each month, or to be having enough to say to where I needed to post every single day. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

All right, now let’s move on to the review.

Summary

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.

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

This was yet another very quick read for me. I absolutely love Christina Lauren’s writing, and I get so invested in the story.

Let me just start by saying that I love the presence of family in this book. Okay, yeah, so it’s actually a fairly minor part of the story, as most of the novel takes place on the “honeymoon” in Hawaii, but still. No matter what was going on in the story, whether it was romantic issues or job/career issues, I loved how Ami and Olive’s family handled everything. Oh, you just went through a rough breakup? The whole family shows up at various random times, typically bringing food. Oh, you lost your job? Again, the family rallies around you, feeds you, and you’re almost immediately offered a job at one of the cousins’ restaurants. I loved how they were there to help each other out, no matter the situation. It was beautiful.

Also, I just thought it was fun and adorable how Ethan kept calling Olive by alternate names, like Olivia. The banter and interactions between the two just kept me thoroughly entertained, which was awesome. A lot of Olivia’s worries and anxieties and inner monologue was just completely relatable for me as well.

Oh, and can I say that I really like (but am also completely jealous of) all the Christina Lauren characters who have advanced degrees and either already work their dream job or find their dream job in the course of the novel? Since a number of the characters are in their late-20s and early 30s, this also gives me hope that I can find a job that fulfills my soul and will get me out of the monotonous factory job I’ve been stuck in for the last six years.

So basically I’m really enjoying these fun rom-com style stories and I’m in the mood to read more. If you have any recommendations, please let me know in the comments.

Where to Buy

You can pick up your own copy of this book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, or your local independent bookstore.