Format: Paperback
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Page Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books (May 14, 2019)
Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mr. Darcy‘s Rating: “You have bewitched me, body and soul.”
A Chasing Mr. Darcy Review
The Unhoneymooners by the dynamic duo Christina Lauren came very very very highly recommended...so I was a bit nervous about reading it. What if I didn't like it? Would the book community turn against me for not falling in love with its darling? Well, the good news is I freaking loved this book!!
Here’s a summary from GoodReads: 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.
This book has my whole heart and soul. Ethan and Olive reached out from the pages and captured my soul in their hands, and I don't want them to give it back. Olive is my soul sister. I understand her on an elemental level. She's not the most positive person in the world, but I GET that. She's always waiting for the other shoe to drop because that is literally her life. Her sister is the lucky one, and Olive is the unlucky one. Hello, Christina Lauren, did you base this on my life?? ANYWAY, I relate to Olive. She misreads people, she assumes she's not valued, and she jumps to conclusions. I am that person. I can't tell you the number of times I've read too much into a person's facial expression, for example, and Olive is the queen of that. In fact, it's that specific misunderstanding that led to years of animosity between her and Ethan.
And that brings me to Ethan...Oh Ethan, how I wish you could jump off the page and let me steal you from Olive. Ethan is the book boyfriend of all book boyfriends, and I think he might have broken me for any future book boyfriend. He is perfection personified on the page, and I will fight anyone who says differently. I almost melted so many times during this book. During the massage scene? Melted. During his drunken mai tai excursion? Melted. When he grabbed Olive's forearm in the bedroom? Melted. You get the gist. Ethan left me in a big pile of melted Ethan-love goo. That dark hair falling over his forehead, those blue eyes, yum.
What I loved equally about this book, though, is the for every time I melted over Ethan I also laughed out loud at something Ethan or Olive did, said, etc. Olive said it best in the book when she said something along the lines of how smart they were separately and how stupid they were together. Their hair brained schemes never ended right, and each disaster only brought them closer together. The scene where they traded the bed? Lol'd. The scene where they played paintball? Lol'd. The bathroom scene on the boat? Lol'd. Anytime Ethan turned into a juvenile and called Olive by the name Oliver, Olivier, Olivia...Lol'd.
I rave about a lot of books, but this book really is just this good. I think Christina Lauren hit gold with this creation because they've given me two characters that I just adore. For every steamy or LOL moment, there was also a tender moment that pulled at my heart strings, softly cheering me on to root for Ethan and Olive to give into their feelings, their passion, their friendship, anything if it meant they would be together. There are so many more things about this book I could discuss, but just please read it. Read it and love it as much as I do!
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