THE UNHONEYMOONERS

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a high hype book that did not disappoint!

The Unhoneymooners is everywhere right now and for good reason. It's funny as hell, cute, and features an intelligent heroine who doesn't roll over when everyone wants her to. All of these things combined in one contemporary romance book–and done well– is hard to find.

So, first things first, hats off to Christina Lauren and all of my bookstagram friends who recommended it. Y'all did good.

Olive is unlucky. Seriously. She lost her job and her roommate in one day, she's known for being the kid that got stuck inside a claw machine, and she's fallen down the stairs because someone else fell down the stairs and knocked into her. That person walked away unscathed. Olive? Not so much. Olive's identical twin, Ami, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. She wins literally everything, including all of the necessities to her upcoming wedding, which Olive is just hoping to get through without another incident. It's bad enough that she has to wear a skittle-green dress and walk the aisle with her nemesis, Ethan, the best man.

In a twist of luck, the entire wedding gets food poisoning from the buffet and the only people unaffected are Olive and Ethan–the two with custom meals. It's the first good bit of luck Olive's had since she was six. And when your indentical twin wins an all expenses paid honeymoon to Maui, well, you can't let that slip away. It's free, and in paradise, after all. The only catch is that Ethan has to go, too. Olive can suck it up and suffer through Ethan's presence for 10 days, right? She'll just avoid him. He can do his thing, she'll do hers, and they'll try not to kill each other. Except that when they're forced to pretend to be the newlyweds, it doesn't feel forced at all.

I loved Olive and Ethan. Their banter was witty and funny, snarky in a way that made me laugh out loud. I loved that it took half the book for them to really start getting to know each other and figure out that they might not be enemies at all. It's so hard to find a good slow burn romance these days, and slow burn it is. And the transition from enemies to cute was done well because they never lost that snarky hilarity.

Olive as a character is great for a few reasons: she's got real insecurities around her identity as a twin and what she wants to do with the rest of her life, she's over 30, and she's smart. Sure, she's got bad luck and is kind of awkward but she's also got a PhD in Biology and she's not some weak ass girl. She doesn't roll over when she speaks the truth and no one believes her, even though it would be the easy thing do to. She does the right thing even though it's hard and has consequences.

Ethan is a good male character, too. I really enjoyed that he wasn't an asshole. He was smart and quiet, snarky and funny, and had his own insecurities around relationships. He wasn't a dick just to be a dick at any point and I loved that he was a romantic under his defensive shell. And even though he does a dumb thing, he owns up to it, he's got a good heart behind him, and he makes it right.

My one gripe with this book is that I wish I'd had a little bit more (and it's not a short book by any means already). I wish I'd had more of Ethan and Olive figuring out that they weren't enemies, more of the backstory behind Ethan's attitude over the years, more of Olive figuring herself out when she gets back from Maui and things go south. These parts felt a little bit blown over, and I wanted more depth.

In the end, I borrowed this book from the library and I'm going to buy it because I liked it so much. That should tell you everything you need.