Review - 'The Unhoneymooners' by Christina Lauren


You guys are messing with me, right? Because there is no way The Unhoneymooners is Christina Lauren's most popular book.

Going in, all the gushing reviews would have me believing this is a sure bet, that I was in for a fun time the likes of which only this author duo can deliver. After all, I enjoy a good love/hate relationship as much as the next girl. But coming out, I'm left wondering if I read the same book as everyone else.

The story starts off strong. The initial pages were bubbly and charming as events unfold that lead to Olive and Ethan ending up in Maui together. But not soon after, the awkward train arrives, and my enjoyment of this book completely falls apart.

You guys, I don't understand this coupling at all. There is no chemistry between them. They're cold towards each other one moment, then hot the next. Love/hate relationships are only fun if I can understand the whys of one and the other, but all I got here was whiplash trying to follow along.

As far as I can tell, Olive likes Ethan solely because he's attractive. On every page, Olive mentions his muscles, his abs, his biceps, his beautiful face, his long lashes, his blue eyes... it goes on and on. Yeah okay, I get it, he's a good looking dude! At the same time, she hates him because she thinks he doesn't like her. And the only reason Ethan gives for liking Olive is her boobs. I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were back in the eighth grade again.

What's more, the supposedly flirty banter between them makes me cringe in embarrassment, especially for Olive. She tries so hard in their interactions to be snarky, but it comes across as forced, inappropriate, and awkward. And she reads into everything he says and ends up incorrectly interpreting almost everything. It was exhausting. And Ethan doesn't help, giving signals he's thinking about his ex, then acting like a clueless dumbass when Olive is hurt.

Usually a romance either has a few explicit steamy scenes or the author can chose to let it all happen behind closed doors, and either is fine with me. But this book oddly tries to straddle both. There's no explicit scenes shown, but instead we are told constantly at random, unrelated times that they happened, a lot. Yes, cue even more awkwardness.

And on top of all this, the last 100 pages took a complete left turn into Stupid Town (population: this book), for no reason I could discern. The story was pretty much all wrapped up, and then it kept going right off of a cliff. When someone you care about tells you that they got an unwanted advance and it made them uncomfortable, your response should not be in the vein of, "I don't believe it. Really it's he said/she said. And what does it matter what the truth is anyways?" Come on, you guys, am I really supposed to cheer for these clowns?

As you can see, I'm a little bit baffled. Try as I might, I just can't seem to find the love for this book that everyone else clearly adores. Boring, cringey, and awkward are not words I want to associate with my romcoms, not to mention whatever the last 100 pages was.

This is my second book by this author duo, and at this point, I'm starting to wonder if maybe they aren't for me. In both, silly main characters doing questionable things make it hard for me to see them as viable romantic leads, which ultimately defeats the purpose of a romance anyways.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

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