A review by thephdivabooks
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

5.0

The combination of enemies to lovers and a fake relationship—with outstanding characters, fantastic writing, and a bit of a twist—made this book a quick favorite for me! This is the second book by Christina Lauren that I’ve read, and I enjoyed The Unhoneymooners even more than the last one! This is a must-read vacation book, or even just an after-work unwind sort of book. I can’t recommend it enough!

In the spectrum of romance, this one is more rom-com than anything else. It has a bit of heat, a lot of laughs, and so much charm! I love how spunky the women in Christina Lauren books are—they always have that great mix of intelligence, sass, and imperfection.

About the Book

Olive and her sister Ami may be identical twins, but these two couldn’t be more different. Ami has it all together—the job, the man, the poise. Olive is a bit more of a mess—she is chronically unlucky, both in love and in life. She recently lost her job and she is in a skittle green satin bridesmaid dress serving as her sister’s maid of honor, when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from infected seafood.

Everyone, that is, except for Olive and Ami’s husband’s brother Ethan, both of whom avoided the seafood (Olive is allergic and Ethan is bougie about buffets, of course). Now they find themselves pushed into taking the all expenses paid honeymoon that Ami won in a sweepstakes, despite the fact that they pretty much loathe one another.

But as they arrive in Maui as fake husband and wife, they soon realize that maybe they don’t hate each other quite as much as they thought. Maybe they misjudged one another, took signals the wrong way over the years. And pretty soon witty banter and teasing may start to turn towards something more… But there are some twists headed their way and it may throw a wrench in everything!

Reflection

One thing I really loved is that Olive and Ami don’t resent one another even a bit. Despite the fact that Ami had it all most of their life and Olive was the mess, only for things to turn the other way on them, these sisters love and support one another above all else! I’m a girls girl so I was so happy to see such a strong female bond! I also found their entire family to be absolutely hysterical and charming!

Ethan is also a really great character. He was a bit hard to figure out at first, mostly because we see him through Olive’s eyes. Getting to know the real him throughout the story was wonderful. I’d have to say, really every character (even the ones I didn’t like) were outstanding! On my second book by Christina Lauren, it seems creating likeable characters that feel like people you’d know in real life is one of their strengths.

I can’t recommend this book enough! Thank you to Gallery Books for my copy. I read this with the book besties, and we all loved it!