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.