The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Genre: Realistic Fiction/Romance
Blurb (on back of book):
Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, 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.
MY OPINION: **
This book blew up on TikTok last year but I haven't always had the most enjoyable experiences with Christina Lauren, so I wasn't sure if I would ever get around to this one. However, it's spring break and I was bored so I picked it up (and finished it in a day). That being said, I wouldn't say it was as good as I had hoped it would be based on everyone else's raving reviews.
Olive and Ami are twin sisters with "opposite luck" (basically, Ami wins everything and gets whatever she wants and Olive catches bad luck wherever she goes). When I first read that, I laughed. This was already shaping up to be a cheesy book (spoiler alert: it was.).
Ami is getting married to a really crusty and annoying man (right from the get go, he sucked). However, at the wedding, basically every single guest gets extremely sick from the free shellfish Ami won except Olive and the groom's annoying brother, Ethan. Ami and her newly-wed husband are not able to attend their (free) honeymoon and so Olive and Ethan decide to go (not together but together).
The first half of this book was great. It just follows Olive and Ethan on their fake honeymoon and all the cheesy antics you could imagine (lying to the hotel staff, the one bed trope, etc). They start to fall more and more for each other but Olive HATES this man because of some rude "stare" he gave her years ago. TBH, while it might sound overdramatic, I'm with her. I never forget when someone wrongs me. She was real for that one.
As a lot of people who weren't fans of this book said, the second half was just so... why?? Olive and Ethan return from their "honeymoon" more together than before and suddenly the book is devoted to us finding out how much of a prick asshole Dane (the groom) is. Like, it felt like Christina Lauren (two authors btw) decided they just didn't care anymore about building up the romance in a ROMANCE novel and focused on trying to insert a third-act conflict for the drama. However, it just felt like I was reading an entirely different book.
The fact that neither Ethan nor Ami believed Olive in the end was just so. Wtf. I thought they were supposed to love her unconditionally (in different ways obviously). But to me, it felt like the sister was being a bitch and Ethan was definitely not the dreamy hero we were starting to love. (Me personally, I never liked him because he was very bland. The only thing that the heroine talked about him was his abs and I don't even like abs.)
Everyone in this book was honestly really immature and it threw me off. I was not supposed to be believe these were twenty-something year olds because they felt like college kids. The chemistry between Ethan and Olive was nonexistent.
The only redeeming factor about this book was that it was so short and I finished it in one sitting. And the first half was fine. If the entire book was just focused on this honeymoon and just building up that tension for a final "I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU" type of scene, this book would definitely have been one of my favorites.
Anyways, I'd recommend for Christina Lauren fans (they sure have a lot). Me personally, I think this one just sealed the deal for me in deciding I am just not one of them.
Main Character: Olive
Sidekick(s): Ethan, Ami, etc
Villain(s): Dane, misunderstandings, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was very real to life.
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