For What It's Worth


Thursday, May 16, 2019

Review: The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren



Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Amy, 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. ~
Goodreads

Source: e-arc provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Review: I don’t always love Christina Lauren books. Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating was on my 2018 favorites list, while My Favorite Half-Night Stand, well…will not be on 2019’s list.

The Unhoneymooners is definitely more Josh & Hazel than Half-Night Stand. Both in my love for it and in tone.

It has the fun, slightly over-the-top rom-com vibe, sweet, swoony characters who have wonderful chemistry and crackling banter.

Olive is the bridesmaid (for her twin sister Amy)  and Ethan is the best man (for his brother Dane) at their siblings wedding. During the reception, all the guests get food poisoning, except for those two - thanks to allergies and a buffet phobia. Amy won an all expense paid honeymoon to Hawaii and doesn’t want to see it go to waste and insist that her sister go in her place.

Olive is sure that she has the worst luck ever (she does!) and it’s only proven when her arch enemy, Ethan, is given the other ticket to join her on the vacation. They figure they’ll just go their separate ways once they get there.

In true rom-com fashion, they run into her new boss and his wife and have to play a real married couple to fool them and then it snowballs - first with Ethan’s ex, who also pops up at the resort and then with the staff - and they have to keep up the ruse.

Everything about this “un”honeymoon is hilarious and the way they start to fall for each other and start to see each other in a different light is wonderful.

But, there has to be an obstacle, and they get a doozy once they get back. I saw it coming right from the start– and I’m going to stay vague about it here – but I liked it. It wasn’t your obvious – back to reality and back to hating each other plot.  The conflict went beyond just Olive and Ethan - testing several relationships. I was infuriated by a lot of the characters actions (even though I understood where they were coming from and how difficult their situations were). Poor Olive is all I’m going to say.

The conflict here was not easy to resolve and it’s one that will be present forever if they stay together – which leads me to my few gripes about this one.

SPOILER -> I didn’t think Ethan groveled near enough. It was a good public apology but I felt like what happened demanded more that just a silly over the top rom-com gesture. It was good but I would have liked to also see them have a serious discussion about Dane and how they would move forward with him still in the picture. And the epilogue – it was sweet and a solid HEA, but from Ethan’s pov, and for some reason his voice was dull to me. And it felt like…here’s a list of all the things that happened that provethis an HEA. END SPOILER
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My complaints are SUPER mild and did not ruin my love for this book at all.

26 comments:

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    1. Blogger and I are fighting this morning lol

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  2. I’m so glad you enjoyed this one! I’m not usually a big of hate-to-love but man did CLo make it work for me here. I loved the banter between Olive and Ethan and their time in Hawaii was just priceless. The stuff back at home... yeah, sorta saw that coming. And I understood the reactions even though it made me hurt for Olive. I can understand how you felt about wanting more from the ending but I admit I was a total sucker for the grand gesture. LOL

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    1. I love love to hate but it has to be done well and I think it was here.

      I liked the grand gesture too - I just thought there should have been a bit more real talk. They put Olive through a lot. But I loved it overall!

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  3. I think that spoiler bit might throw me over the edge (I read it, I'm evil like that). I just don't have the patience anymore. *sigh* Great review though.

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    1. It's such a minor thing - not worth skipping the book at all. It had a good ending but the conflict was pretty serious and I wanted to *see* how it was dealt with not just told.

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  4. I've seen this one everywhere this week and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. I'm a big fan of those loathing to lovers type storylines and fake it until you make it romances and I love the snark and banter. I'll be adding this one to my wishlist and hopefully can grab a copy shortly. Great review Karen, really enjoyed it!

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    1. Witty banter is my reading catnip! I hope you love it Kelly :-)

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  5. The Bathroom of Doom!! Hahaha! I still laugh whenever I think about that. I agree with what you said... when they went back to their lives, they didn't go back to hating each other. They tried to make their relationship work, and Olive was even willing to look past some series shit concerning he-who-shall-not-be-named. I really liked what happened to him in the end, but didn't think it was severe enough. Someone needed to kick him in the balls.

    I also agree with what you said about Ethan. Olive caved too easily without first having a serious discussion with him. He-who-shall-not-be-named is going to be in their lives one way or another, and he did some pretty shady stuff. I think it all needed to be addressed before his grand gesture.

    Still... really loved this one overall!!

    Lindsi @ Do You Dog-ear? 💬

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    1. this book had so many laugh out loud moments.

      Yeah - I'll have to text discuss this with you more lol but yeah...I thought it warranted more than a funny romcom grovel moment

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  6. Everyone seems to be liking this one.

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  7. This one was a lot of fun, and I loved that Olive discovered so much of herself along the way. Her family definitely added to my enjoyment too.

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    1. Olive was awesome! And I like how she discovered her self worth and didn't compromise on it.

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  8. I am glad this one was an improvement from the last one you tried by them! It's on my wishlist as well so I am glad it is so good. It has a lot of tropes in it that I enjoy in my rom-com reads ^.^

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    1. I either LOVE or HATE their books lol but when they're on - they're hilarious, sweet and swoony.

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  9. I'm getting fatigued of reviews on this one, I think almost everyone I follow has reviewed this in the past week or two but I have to say I'm still not totally convinced abour picking this up and after reading your spoiler? Yeah, I might give this a miss. I know the spoiler is not major and many seem to have enjoyed the book anyway, but I think I was finding excuses to give this one a miss because they're really the only ones who don't get sick? Really?

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    1. Oh I know. I tend to stay away from books for a while until the hype dies down so I totally get it.

      That aspect made total sense actually. She was allergic to shellfish and ate something else and he just won't eat from buffets.

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  10. I didn't read your spoiler because I hope to read this one sooner than later, but you've got some sooo curious about this conflict that they have to live with!

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    1. I thought it was pretty cool - a REAL conflict - that isn't easily dismissed.

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  11. Everyone seems to be lovng this book, but I don't know if it might be too romancey for me. I don't want to waste a Hoopla borrow on it. Ha ha. 😛

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    1. I just got hoopla and found out it's only 5 books a month so yeah...you need to be into funny rom-coms if you're going to waste it on this one. It was worth it to me but it depends on what you like really.

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  12. I'm really curious as to what the shady stuff is now...

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