Review: “The Unhoneymooners” is my first Christina Lauren novel and boy did I have a great time reading it! 

Ethan and Olive’s banter was absolutely hilarious! I really felt like I could connect well with the characters because of their humor and there were certain paragraphs I could not read without laughing, which made it an engaging read.

Christina Lauren also incorporate a lot of my favorite tropes in “The Unhoneymooners!” I loved watching Ethan and Olive’s hatred for each other at the beginning of the book slowly melt away as they pretended to be a couple “honeymooning” in Hawaii! 

Speaking of Hawaii, the lush descriptions of the couple’s surroundings in Maui, such as the sunsets, made me feel as though I was vacationing with them. The imagery was spectacular and I hated parting with it when Ethan and Olive returned to Minnesota. 

A massive shift does take place when the couple returns home. A separate storyline emerges and the couple’s two week relationship is immediately put into jeopardy. I must admit that I did not particularly like the huge misunderstanding that threatened to ruin everything. I did not find it believable. Dane, Olive’s brother-in-law, hit on Olive. She tried to tell both Ami, her sister, and Ethan this, but they instead took Dane’s word over hers. There was no reason really for them to think that she was lying, at least to my understanding. This was the second conflict in the book that I found bizarre, the first being the explanation for the rift between Olive and Ethan at the beginning of the book.

The emphasis on family in “The Unhoneymooners” was one of my favorite aspects of the novel. I loved how Olive’s family took care of her when she lost her job. They kept her fed and used their connections to help find her a temporary position at a restaurant. I also loved how they supported Ami through her heartbreak. Reading Olive’s text messages to her family throughout the novel was both incredibly entertaining and super sweet.