The Unhoneymooners

The Unhoneymooners
By Christina Lauren
Release Date:  May 14, 2019
Publisher:  Gallery Books
standalone
Number of pages:  416
Kindle Edition
Source: MCL
Contemporary Romance M/F
Rating: R
Read 7/2/19 to 7/3/19

 

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.

While I like the bickering banter between Olive and Ethan, I felt it went on a tad bit too long before some truths were finally admitted.  It was a good choice to keep that little bit of contention with this couple, even when their feelings came through.  I really enjoyed these two more when they were working together rather than contradicting everything.

The first half of this book was just okay for me.  Nothing earth shattering, but still fun and interesting. It’s the second half of the story where things really came alive for me.  I finally started feeling the emotions I had been reading about up until that point. Olive goes through the wringer and had me blinking back tears on multiple occasions.  It was interesting to watch her figure out who she was.  Not who she always thought she was, not who her family thought she was, but who Olive really and truly was in her soul. 

While I hurt for Olive and, quite a few times, got angry at Ethan, there was still some sympathy I felt for him.  He had to totally change the way he thought about multiple people.  Everything he’d been told and all his mind told him was true over the years was a farce.  He was hurt in multiple ways and it’s a testament to his character that he could learn to trust anyone again.

These authors are new to me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  And while the story, tone, and writing style weren’t quite what I had anticipated, I still enjoyed the book.  I’m sure I’ll pick something up by them again in the not too distant future.

3.5 stars