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A review by sabrielreads
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
2.0
Am I fucking tweaking that this is the book everyone has given 4/5 stars and saying it's so cute and fun?
This review will be littered with random spoilers so beware; I'm so pissed I logged onto my computer to angry-fast-type it.
The two stars are for the first 50% of this book, and the first 50% alone.
This started off SO strong. The POV is only from our FMC Olive, so we didn't get much of an insight into how our MMC Ethan was thinking or feeling. I honestly think that would've been the only thing that redeemed his behaviour because what a fucking idiot.
The first half was a really slow burn. Olive is slowly warming to Ethan and realising he's not actually the spawn of satan, and that her attraction to him is inevitable. The situations they're put in while they're fake honeymooning had me giggling and kicking my feet. I was hoping for the sex scenes to be a bit steamier, but they were fade to black; I don't mind this as long as the relationship makes me swoon enough.
It all goes downhill when Ethan reveals that Dane has been cheating on Olive's sister Amy, their entire relationship (or at least up until the engagement, that he's aware of).
Ethan seems to be under the impression that Amy was okay with this for the first two and a half years of their relationship.
Am I FUCKING INSANE? Is this man deranged?
What follows is a very quick slide into "what the fuck am I reading?" that I haven't experienced in such a long time that I simply had to stay up and finish this book in the vain hope that there would be a massive redemption at the end (spoiler: there isn't).
Whilst on the vacation, Olive and Ethan fight in the hotel room the day after they sleep together for the first time. Ethan essentially gaslights her into thinking she is a pessimist and thinks the worst of every situation, and so she can't possibly be correct about his brother Dane cheating on Amy, or that he was trying to keep Ethan and Olive from getting close so that the info wouldn't let slip.
Olive believes this and every time she brings it up again (and bless her, with less and less confidence), he brushes her off again and seems to think that his brother's behaviour is absolutely normal and "none of their business". This continues until Olive comes to her own conclusion that she will keep her mouth shut because she doesn't want to be the negative person all the time and convinces herself to give Dane the benefit of the doubt.
I don't blame Olive for feeling this way - when someone gaslights you that strongly then you do start to doubt yourself and your own thoughts and feelings about a situation despite your intuition (and evidence) saying otherwise. This made me SO ANGRY, but I hoped that once they got home all would be revealed in good time.
Boy, was I wrong!
What follows this is essentially Dane hits on Olive at the bar while Ethan is in the bathroom (albeit in a very vague way, but to ANYBODY listening it is obvious he is hitting on her by suggesting they "swap twins"), she tells Ethan and he basically calls her a liar and again, gaslights her into thinking she's crazy/the pessimist/always takes everything the wrong way or sees everything in a negative light.
Oh, did I mention that in both of these arguments he calls her angry and bitter? and doesn't apologise for either incident?
Olive goes home (rightfully) upset, and the next day she decides to tell Amy everything.
Amy reacts in the exact same way that Ethan did, and says some nasty things to Olive. Personally I can forgive this more easily as there is a good redemption for this later on, but also it was reactionary in the moment. This was a very realistic situation that happens all the time where a husband has been an arsehole and the wife just cannot see it even when presented with straight facts, because it is easier for them to live in a deluded world where everything is fine and of course my sister is the one with the problem because my husband would never!
Like I said, this reaction from Amy makes more sense to me (even if she is quite mean in this argument), because her whole world has just been torn apart. I think an overreaction and/or improper reaction is almost guaranteed in this scenario.
We then get YET ANOTHER SCENE where Ethan comes over to talk to Olive about this and YET AGAIN he doesn't believe her, essentially calls her crazy and then breaks up with her.
All without having asked Dane about it at all. Not a single question or query. No critical thinking, no thinking for himself and investigating. I don't know about you but if my sibling had been accused of something like this I would never blindly believe them, especially when confronted with cold hard facts. Olive confirms to Ethan in this conversation that Amy had no idea about any non-exclusivity for the first 2.5 years, and Ethan KNOWS that Dane was sleeping with people at that point - but for some reason he still refuses to believe Olive????? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE I AM LOSING MY MIND
A scene follows where Amy snoops on Dane's phone, she finds texts to these women, invites them over to their marital home (as well as Olive and Ethan) and basically it's big drama. This scene was ok, I thought it was a fine way to reveal it.
For a few weeks after this, Olive receives texts from Ethan but she is standing firm in her own self and has decided to not see him again or forgive him. But wait! She's trying to be a less negative person!but I thought we established you aren't a negative person and everyone was just gaslighting you - no, ok
The final scene is probably the worst reunion after a third act breakup I've ever read in my life.
First of all he comes to her work. Second of all, her entire family are there... in wigs? Pretending to be other customers?
She is clearly uncomfortable at him being there and basically is like "what the hell are you doing", and not in a good way. He gives a half-arsed apology, shows that he's wearing a top made from the ugly bridesmaid dress she wore at the start, and this apparently convinces her to give him another chance.
So public place, no real apology or redemption, in front of all her friends and family, at her PLACE OF WORK I'M GOING TO THROW MY LAPTOP-
Then we get an epilogue of him trying to propose 2 years later blah blah couldn't care less because what the fuck did I just read
The worst part is Olive tries to reconcile all these issues I have in the book/in her head, which shows the authors have thought about each point and basically tried to come up with a rebuttal or a way for Olive to excuse it/explain it away and I'm sorry but none of the reasons are good enough.
After the way he treated her I expected a longer portion of the book to be dedicated to him truly showing up for Olive. Not just a "sorry" but a true apology and explanation for his actions, and multiple ways of him trying to make it up to her. Instead I got more and more angry as the last half of the book went on because how fucking dare you treat somebody like that?!
I know I have a strong personal sense of justice, and maybe gaslighting is just a real trigger of mine, but I felt like I WAS Olive in these moments and it was driving me fucking crazy that not only did nobody believe her, but to top it off they belittled her and said nasty things to her and about her when all she did was try and be honest. Multiple times Olive thinks "I did nothing wrong" and YOU ARE RIGHT GIRL, STAND UP??????
I am seething. This could have gone such a different way if a) we had an Ethan POV and b) the ending was made longer to include more sincere apologies and making-up actions. Because currently it reads as "a guy did and said shitty things to me that were about quite a serious situation, but he's pretty so I forgave him".
I don’t even want to get started on the fact that I couldn’t tell you anything that these people liked about each other, other than that they find each other hot. I dare you to tell me one thing in the comments.
He also tries to tell her he fell in love with her during the time they “got muay thais together” - you fell in love with a girl after a week of actually getting to know her? GET FUCKING REAL if someone said that to me (at my workplace, in front of everyone I know) I would tell them they’re insane. Also they didn’t get Muay Thais together, HE got drunk on Muay Thais and she had to drive him back to the hotel; this was not a fun date or moment they shared together.
I didn't even get to rant about the fact she got fired on day 1 of her job over a stupid fake honeymoon
This review will be littered with random spoilers so beware; I'm so pissed I logged onto my computer to angry-fast-type it.
The two stars are for the first 50% of this book, and the first 50% alone.
This started off SO strong. The POV is only from our FMC Olive, so we didn't get much of an insight into how our MMC Ethan was thinking or feeling. I honestly think that would've been the only thing that redeemed his behaviour because what a fucking idiot.
The first half was a really slow burn. Olive is slowly warming to Ethan and realising he's not actually the spawn of satan, and that her attraction to him is inevitable. The situations they're put in while they're fake honeymooning had me giggling and kicking my feet. I was hoping for the sex scenes to be a bit steamier, but they were fade to black; I don't mind this as long as the relationship makes me swoon enough.
It all goes downhill when Ethan reveals that Dane has been cheating on Olive's sister Amy, their entire relationship (or at least up until the engagement, that he's aware of).
Ethan seems to be under the impression that Amy was okay with this for the first two and a half years of their relationship.
Am I FUCKING INSANE? Is this man deranged?
What follows is a very quick slide into "what the fuck am I reading?" that I haven't experienced in such a long time that I simply had to stay up and finish this book in the vain hope that there would be a massive redemption at the end (spoiler: there isn't).
Whilst on the vacation, Olive and Ethan fight in the hotel room the day after they sleep together for the first time. Ethan essentially gaslights her into thinking she is a pessimist and thinks the worst of every situation, and so she can't possibly be correct about his brother Dane cheating on Amy, or that he was trying to keep Ethan and Olive from getting close so that the info wouldn't let slip.
Olive believes this and every time she brings it up again (and bless her, with less and less confidence), he brushes her off again and seems to think that his brother's behaviour is absolutely normal and "none of their business". This continues until Olive comes to her own conclusion that she will keep her mouth shut because she doesn't want to be the negative person all the time and convinces herself to give Dane the benefit of the doubt.
I don't blame Olive for feeling this way - when someone gaslights you that strongly then you do start to doubt yourself and your own thoughts and feelings about a situation despite your intuition (and evidence) saying otherwise. This made me SO ANGRY, but I hoped that once they got home all would be revealed in good time.
Boy, was I wrong!
What follows this is essentially Dane hits on Olive at the bar while Ethan is in the bathroom (albeit in a very vague way, but to ANYBODY listening it is obvious he is hitting on her by suggesting they "swap twins"), she tells Ethan and he basically calls her a liar and again, gaslights her into thinking she's crazy/the pessimist/always takes everything the wrong way or sees everything in a negative light.
Oh, did I mention that in both of these arguments he calls her angry and bitter? and doesn't apologise for either incident?
Olive goes home (rightfully) upset, and the next day she decides to tell Amy everything.
Amy reacts in the exact same way that Ethan did, and says some nasty things to Olive. Personally I can forgive this more easily as there is a good redemption for this later on, but also it was reactionary in the moment. This was a very realistic situation that happens all the time where a husband has been an arsehole and the wife just cannot see it even when presented with straight facts, because it is easier for them to live in a deluded world where everything is fine and of course my sister is the one with the problem because my husband would never!
Like I said, this reaction from Amy makes more sense to me (even if she is quite mean in this argument), because her whole world has just been torn apart. I think an overreaction and/or improper reaction is almost guaranteed in this scenario.
We then get YET ANOTHER SCENE where Ethan comes over to talk to Olive about this and YET AGAIN he doesn't believe her, essentially calls her crazy and then breaks up with her.
All without having asked Dane about it at all. Not a single question or query. No critical thinking, no thinking for himself and investigating. I don't know about you but if my sibling had been accused of something like this I would never blindly believe them, especially when confronted with cold hard facts. Olive confirms to Ethan in this conversation that Amy had no idea about any non-exclusivity for the first 2.5 years, and Ethan KNOWS that Dane was sleeping with people at that point - but for some reason he still refuses to believe Olive????? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE I AM LOSING MY MIND
A scene follows where Amy snoops on Dane's phone, she finds texts to these women, invites them over to their marital home (as well as Olive and Ethan) and basically it's big drama. This scene was ok, I thought it was a fine way to reveal it.
For a few weeks after this, Olive receives texts from Ethan but she is standing firm in her own self and has decided to not see him again or forgive him. But wait! She's trying to be a less negative person!
The final scene is probably the worst reunion after a third act breakup I've ever read in my life.
First of all he comes to her work. Second of all, her entire family are there... in wigs? Pretending to be other customers?
She is clearly uncomfortable at him being there and basically is like "what the hell are you doing", and not in a good way. He gives a half-arsed apology, shows that he's wearing a top made from the ugly bridesmaid dress she wore at the start, and this apparently convinces her to give him another chance.
So public place, no real apology or redemption, in front of all her friends and family, at her PLACE OF WORK I'M GOING TO THROW MY LAPTOP-
Then we get an epilogue of him trying to propose 2 years later blah blah couldn't care less because what the fuck did I just read
The worst part is Olive tries to reconcile all these issues I have in the book/in her head, which shows the authors have thought about each point and basically tried to come up with a rebuttal or a way for Olive to excuse it/explain it away and I'm sorry but none of the reasons are good enough.
After the way he treated her I expected a longer portion of the book to be dedicated to him truly showing up for Olive. Not just a "sorry" but a true apology and explanation for his actions, and multiple ways of him trying to make it up to her. Instead I got more and more angry as the last half of the book went on because how fucking dare you treat somebody like that?!
I know I have a strong personal sense of justice, and maybe gaslighting is just a real trigger of mine, but I felt like I WAS Olive in these moments and it was driving me fucking crazy that not only did nobody believe her, but to top it off they belittled her and said nasty things to her and about her when all she did was try and be honest. Multiple times Olive thinks "I did nothing wrong" and YOU ARE RIGHT GIRL, STAND UP??????
I am seething. This could have gone such a different way if a) we had an Ethan POV and b) the ending was made longer to include more sincere apologies and making-up actions. Because currently it reads as "a guy did and said shitty things to me that were about quite a serious situation, but he's pretty so I forgave him".
I don’t even want to get started on the fact that I couldn’t tell you anything that these people liked about each other, other than that they find each other hot. I dare you to tell me one thing in the comments.
He also tries to tell her he fell in love with her during the time they “got muay thais together” - you fell in love with a girl after a week of actually getting to know her? GET FUCKING REAL if someone said that to me (at my workplace, in front of everyone I know) I would tell them they’re insane. Also they didn’t get Muay Thais together, HE got drunk on Muay Thais and she had to drive him back to the hotel; this was not a fun date or moment they shared together.