Here comes my favorite trope again—enemies to lovers! Christina Lauren’s The Unhoneymooners follows Olive Torres, a perennially unlucky woman whose twin sister marries the brother of Olive’s arch-nemesis, the handsome and affable Ethan. When the newlyweds are unable to attend their honeymoon due to an unfortunate bought of food poisoning at their wedding reception, Olive and Ethan are gifted the nonrefundable Hawaiian honeymoon. Reluctant to go, but forced by their respective siblings to accept the trip, Olive and Ethan squabble and verbally spar with one another until shenanigans and hi-jinx force them to work together. Will they finally admit their feelings for one another? (Spoiler: yes).
I read this book previously. It feels like a lifetime ago, but upon checking I realized I bought it just last March at the beginning of the pandemic madness. Time is truly weird in these crazy times. Groundhog’s Day jokes aside, I suppose I really did come full circle. That being said, I remember enjoying The Unhoneymooners and not much else about the book (much like many things these past twelve months). I am currently in a bit of a reading funk, tackling too many books at once, so naturally I decided to start yet another, and that meant to reread a romantic book about a non-honeymoon for a bit of a brain vacation.
I appreciated the romantic slow burn and thought the romance was well developed. Olive shows growth by the end of the book and I found her character to be surprisingly dimensional. This book is light, funny, romantic, silly at times, and truly what I needed in order to just sit back and relax. And then live the day all over again. (Aye yai yai, are we there yet?)
