The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren

Publication: Gallery Books; May 14, 2019

unhoneymooners About the book:

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.

With Christina Lauren’s “uniquely hilarious and touching voice” (Entertainment Weekly), The Unhoneymooners is a romance for anyone who has ever felt unlucky in love.

My Review

I always love the amazing writing duo that is Christina Lauren and The Unhoneymooners is certainly no exception. Initially, I found the premise of the novel a little bit silly, I was annoyed with Ami and her fiance, Dane, but I quickly fell in love with this novel and all things involving Olive and Ethan.

The main characters were perfectly witty, smart, and romantic in this one – so prepare yourself to only want good things from them early on in the story. One of my favorite things in the world is to be pleasantly surprised by someone when the first impression wasn’t that great, which is exactly what happened with Ethan.

Other characters surprised me in awful ways, but I’m not going to spoil that for you!

Olive is funny, smart, quirky, clumsy, and at times, downright embarrassing. But all of her imperfections made her that much more likable. My only issue with her was that I never had a clear picture of her in my mind. There was mention of dark hair, more freckles and curves than Ami, yet I still struggled visualizing her character. Ethan wasn’t much clearer in my mind. But maybe I was more focused on the dialogue and events rather than character descriptions?

When I started reading this yesterday, I was looking for something light-hearted and fun to unwind with at the end of a long day at work. The Unhoneymooners was the perfect read at the perfect time. I highly recommend this one to rom-com fans, and look forward to reading more from this flawless writing duo in the future!

*Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review!