THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews * Publishers Weekly * Library Journal Named a “Must-Read” by TODAY, Us Weekly, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Goodreads, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Southern Living, Book Riot, Woman’s Day, The Toronto Star, and more! For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime–maybe even love–in … Toronto Star, and more!
For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime–maybe even love–in this romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling authors of Roomies.
Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion…she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.
Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.
Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is…Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.
With Christina Lauren’s “uniquely hilarious and touching voice” (Entertainment Weekly), The Unhoneymooners is a romance for anyone who has ever felt unlucky in love.
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4.5 Stars. This is my second Christina Lauren book and I have to say I love the humorous parts of their writing. The romance of Olive and Ethan sure isn’t bad, either. This book also had some serious (cheating and lying) parts in it that could be emotional triggers for many. This is a enemies to lovers trope for the main part.
This has been reviewed by throngs and recommended to me by many. I really enjoyed it!
I listened to the audio version narrated by Cynthia Farrel and Decon Lee. They did an awesome job on it!
Everyone I talk books with knows I’m obsessed with Christina Lauren – from the #Beautiful series through #Soulmate Equation. They create remarkable characters, amazing build-up, hilarious dialogue and the steamiest of love scenes. The Unhoneymooners had me laughing out loud, from the Harry Potter references to their stinging banter and eventual surrender to their undeniable attraction. A perfect vacation read – honeymoon or not – that will leave you smiling and believing in the power of sunshine and following your gut.
Trope: Enemies to Lovers, forced proximity
Quote: “Think out loud…With me.”
Song I’d give Olive and Ethan: Nothin’ Like You by Dan and Shay “You got all of my attention and you ain’t even trying…”
I enjoyed this book so much it only took me a few days to read, and that’s only because I imposed a strict bedtime on myself. It was so much fun and a great balance between spice and story.
Cute, fun summer read and a humorous take on what can go wrong, will. I enjoyed the humor and the book had me laughing out loud during a majority of it. My first read by the duo that comprises Christina Lauren and will happily seek out additional books by them.
This book had me laughing out loud, dropping my job, and squealing with giddy joy as I listened to the story!
Ethan and Olive are !!
When I say that they were true enemies to lovers, I mean that they literally say in the first chapter of that they are nemeses. This book had everything I needed when I read it! It had banter, it had humor, and it represented a Hispanic family that I could relate to! The way the family is huge, but is also still super involved in everybody’s lives at all times, it makes sense. And the sibling relationship is pretty accurate. Olive and Amy appear to be complete opposites, but they love each other and would do anything for the other.
The whole book was super enjoyable, and the narrators added so much to the story!
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The 2006 Movie, with Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine!
Enemies to Lovers, Rom-Coms, Travel/Destination Romance, Happily Ever After, Dual POV
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It’s good to push yourself to be better, It’s healthy to take some time for yourself, & Remember to be as kind to yourself as you often times are to others.
When her sister gets food poisoning after her wedding, Olive is gifted with the honeymoon trip to Maui. But she’ll have to go with Ethan, the best man — and her sworn enemy…
This was such a fun change of pace from some of the more serious books I’ve read recently. It’s a bit predictable —the whole enemies-to-lovers trope usually is — but even knowing what will happen there are still plenty of fun surprises and twists. I especially appreciated that the sex scenes weren’t graphic (I’m much more comfortable with implied sex than shown sex).
Overall, the style reminded me a bit of Jill Mansell or Katherine Center, though a little more lighthearted. I’m looking forward to reading another book by Christina Lauren.
R-rated for language and adult content.
WOW… I didn’t realize I’d enjoy this RomCom as much as I did!!! I sucked it down in 24 hrs. 400 pages!!! Highly recommended!!! You won’t want to put it down, and when you’re done (if your like me) you’ll stop and hug your book, then want to start and read it again!!
Fun, quirky romantic comedy
I typically don’t read romances or rom-coms, but this one came so highly recommended I thought I would give it a try.
If you are in the mood for a light-hearted enemies to lovers romances, this may be the book for you.
Olive always thought of herself as the unlucky twin. At her twin Ami’s wedding, the entire wedding party and all guests turn ill with the exception of Olive and her nemesis, Ethan. So, Olive and Ethan take the place of the newlyweds on their all-expenses paid honeymoon.
The witty banter in the book is what makes this a worthwhile read. Enjoy!
If you’re looking for a good beach read, look no further! This book has the enemies-to-lovers, banter, slight steam, large extend family and awkward situations; all set on a beautiful tropical island. Olive is such a genuine character, you can’t not fall in live with her. Did I mention that both Olive & Ethan are wicked smart, yet in a low key kind of way?!
The Unhoneymooners was definitely my favorite beach read of the summer so far!
I don’t think I’ll ever get over how so utterly romantic the entire book of The Unhoneymooners was. It had the perfect amount of angst and softness that made reading it so, so fun that I couldn’t put it down once throughout the entire 400 pages of it.
* ˚ PLOT Olive Tores (h) has been preparing for her twin sister, Ami’s wedding night for two months. Having a shellfish allergy means she can’t eat from the buffet on the wedding night, which was free since her sister constantly uses coupons and wins free luxuries. She and Ethan Thomas (H), Ami’s husband’s brother, the latter who isn’t too fond of buffets, end up eating an alternate menu. She has felt that Ethan has hated her ever since he met her, but when everyone at the wedding gets food poisoning from the buffet, her sister urges Olive and Ethan to go to the free honeymoon she has won since they are the only ones who didn’t get ill. Olive and Ethan have to pretend they’re newlyweds in the hotel as they are meant to be on their honeymoon, but when Olive sees her new boss and Ethan sees his ex-girlfriend, both of them need to pretend to be married to each other for their own benefit.
* ˚ MAIN CHARACTERS
⇢ ˗ˏˋ Olive Tores (h) is the one character of this book that CONSTANTLY got on my nerves even while I completely and utterly adored her. She always mentions how she’s the unluckiest person and how everything terrible always happens to her—and, like everything that’s said too much, it got annoying after the fifteenth time she mentioned it in the first half of the book. But that’s fine because she does get a wake-up call soon and this is the one part of her that pushed her character development and made her even more likable towards the end of the book. Aside from that, I loved her humor and the way she talked. She had to be one of the most relatable heroines I’ve read about in a while and reading through her perspective was a breather because she didn’t ramble in her inner monologue nor did she play dumb as most heroines do in a fake-dating trope.
⇢ ˗ˏˋ Ethan Thomas (H) is just… the love of my life? Yes, he’s very, very, very stupid and makes me want to pull on my hair more often than not but that’s fine because he was so cute throughout the entire book and I was craving to read more about him. I honestly feel like he and Olive fit each other perfectly despite their differences and misunderstandings and it is SO clear that this math-loving geek is in love with her even before he realized it. I just love a hero who knows what he wants and that’s exactly how he was with Olive. Well, until he wasn’t. Ethan’s loyalty to his brother, who is visibly the douchiest guy on the planet, was understandable but the way he treated Olive due to it… eh.
⁀ SPOILERS AHEAD
Right, now I just feel like I have to get some things off my chest after reading this. It was a perfect book in nearly all aspects aside from a few.
Firstly, let’s talk about Olive asked the weirdest questions at the weirdest points of the book to Ethan. So, Ethan has an ex-girlfriend, Sophie, who he proposed to and was rejected by her writing on a dry-erase board “I can’t marry you. Sorry.” (OKAY. POOR BABY, FIRST OF ALL. HEART ACHES FOR HIM) and Ethan was so open with sharing his story with Olive and I honestly hated how she was constantly bringing her up. This wasn’t as annoying when I read it but now that I think about it, a lot of the conversations she had with Ethan about his ex were pretty shitty.
“But, of course, this awareness—that he likes me the way I am—trips the following one, and once we’re in the elevator and headed to the lobby, the thought bursts out of me, unattended. “I guess I’m a pretty firm one-eighty from Sophie, too.” I immediately want to sift the words out of the air and shove them back into my face. “I guess, yeah,” he says. I want him to add, “But not in a bad way,” again, or even “I’m glad,”
Yeah… I don’t know honestly. This was a pretty awkward conversation to have with someone right after you slept with them for the first time. I’d hate if someone I’m seeing would keep on mentioning my ex and comparing themselves with them over and over again, but I guess it’s fair because Olive has been compared with her twin her whole life. Still, it got pretty annoying.
And then comes the Ethan/Olive/Dane/Ami drama. So, the main part of this book that’s providing us with allllll the angst is Olive’s twin sister, Ami’s marriage to Ethan’s younger brother, Dane. During the honeymoon trip Olive and Ethan went on, Ethan lets it slip that Dane has been dating other girls even after he met Ami. Olive, being the protective sister she is, wants to tell Ami about this. Ethan, being the protective brother he is, tries to convince Olive that Ami might already know and that Dane wasn’t cheating on her. Now, any decent person in this situation would have immediately called their sister to inform them that their husband was possibly cheating on them for the first two years of their relationship but not Olive. And that wasn’t even the part that got on my nerves—it was when Ethan had to see it with his own eyes that Olive was right about Dane cheating on his Ami for him to want Olive back. And the cherry on top? He broke up with Olive because she was trying to do the right thing to protect her sister from a cheating !! husband !!
But aside from all of this, I really felt for Olive when she finally revealed the truth to Ami and Ami abandoned her, claiming Olive always wants to see the worst in people even though she was only trying to help. And then, Olive was left alone because of the drama between Dane and Ami.
Also, Dane said this to Olive:
Dane thanks the bartender when she delivers the fresh beer and then takes a foamy sip, still studying me. “You ever want to mix it up, you let me know.” My eyes fly to his face, and I feel the way the blood leaves my complexion in a whoosh. There is no way I’m misinterpreting his meaning. “I’m sorry. What?” “Just a night of fun,” he says, breezily, like he hasn’t just offered to cheat on his wife with her twin sister.
AND YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT ETHAN SAID WHEN OLIVE TOLD HIM ABOUT THIS?
“Have you considered you’re seeing what you want to see?” I straighten. “What is that supposed to mean? That I want Dane to hit on me?” He’s shaking and I’m not sure if it’s from cold or anger. “It means that maybe you’re pissed off about losing your job, and you’re in the habit of being bitter about everything Ami has that you don’t, and you’re not objective about any of this.”
This was when Ethan really began to annoy me. But at least he groveled. A little?
Such a fun book! I look forward to reading more from this author!
This book is so cute. One of the cutest I’ve ever read. Ethan is the sweetest
What an adventure this was! Ethan and Olivia’s characters were so carefully crafted, it was just so wonderful!
They went from hating each other and getting stuck in a honeymoon trip for two weeks, and then they got closer and closer, and before they knew it, they couldn’t live without the other and Ethan was confessing his undying love after a small bump on the road.
It’s rare a book makes me laugh out loud, and that’s exactly what this one did, and for that alone The Unhoneymooners deserves a special place on my bookshelf. I will never forget this spectacular novel, and I will miss reading about Ethan and Olivia so, so very much!
Thank you, Christina Lauren, for sharing this wonderful work with us, and making me laugh for hours as I read through this humorous piece.
This book was super fun! The plot was fun and the characters, too. I absolutely loved Olive’s family! However, I didn’t connect that well with the characters and their love story. It was cute and all but there was some missing part in the story development. I think if we’d have had Ethan POV it’d have helped a lot. Still, it was a lovely read. If you’re in the mood for a short and fun contemporary rom-com, this book will do just fine.
Loved this book so much! Laugh out loud funny!
4.5
Hilarious and downright witty . I chose to read this book based on the many, many times I’ve seen it being recommended and let me tell you all-it lived up to the hype. I was very entertained by Olive and Ethan’s hate to love story .
Kudos to these dual authors .
Loved this book!! So funny and engrossing. My favorite Christina Lauren book <3 (Open door romance)
*5 Stars*
Enemies to lovers books are some of my favourites, and I really enjoyed this book by Christina Lauren. Olive and Ethan have such great banter, even though at the start its really snarky and because they don’t like each other.
You know from the moment they go on the honeymoon that isn’t theirs, that things will be interesting. I really enjoyed getting to know them both, and uncovering lots of things about their family and pasts as well.
I don’t want to ruin anything, so I’ll just say this was lots of fun with some surprises thrown in as well. Definitely recommend.
This was my first Christina Lauren book but won’t be my last. I devoured it in one sitting. When Olive ends up on her twin sister’s honeymoon with, Ethan, a man she thinks she hates who just happens to be her sister’s brother-in-law, you just know sparks are going to fly! A fun romp through Maui swept me along with this hate-to-love couple.
Christina Lauren is quickly becoming one of my favorites! Romantic, sexy, funny, and unpredictable—I adored The Unhoneymooners! Perfect cure for the January blues (especially since the book takes us to Maui).