Our besties, Christina Lauren decided to release a book RIGHT Before the holidays 12/4, which meant we totally dropped the ball on telling you, in all caps, obviously, to STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING AND GO GET CHRISTINA LAUREN’S LATEST MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND. So we’re making it up to you and adding it in, what we call in the biz, an H1:

Stop what you are doing and go get Christina Lauren’s My Favorite Half-Night Stand!

There. We feel better.

But don’t take our lack of CLo coverage as TN not devouring this book. We DID. And we loved it. Christina Lauren are just so damn good and consistent it’s hard to come up with anything to say other than, you’re gonna love it, duh! We’ll let Leanne take it from here – Bekah.

Milly Morris is a criminology professor at UC Santa Barbara. She is much better at researching serial killers than sharing her own emotions. Although she has a fantastic group of male friends, other UCSB professors, she has minimal contact with her family and no female friends to speak of. Millie is only able to go so deep in her relationships. Her lack of vulnerability has historically frustrated both friends and lovers to the point that they choose to drift away.

Millie and her friends are cruising through their semester until a normally mundane university event becomes a full blown gala that may be attended by Barack Obama. Milly and her male buds decide they should have dates for the black tie event. The friends make a pact to post profiles on the same dating app to find dates for the event. Although the men seem to have some early success, Millie is getting contacted by weirdos and men who want to send her dick pics (more weirdos).

Complications

As in any modern romance involving technology, you can expect some chaos to arise. My Favorite Half-Night Stand explores the line between putting your best face forward online and catfishing. What starts out as an attempt to feel more free and emotionally expressive becomes a deception that Millie doesn’t know how to end. Thank God I met my husband before most people were even texting. The world of online dating is a bit of a mystery to me. I found My Favorite Half-Night Stand to be educational, as I don’t know anyone who actually uses Tinder and I didn’t know Grindr was for LGBTQ+ people. I’m sort of in my own married person bubble at this point in life. Is the traditional “meet cute” dead in 2018?

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Your friends are better than my friends.

I read so many books that sometimes I forget how great it is to read a really well written story. The repartee between Millie and her friend group, especially via text, is one of my favorite aspects of the book. The group’s text sessions are displayed with cute contact pictures that help you feel even more connected to the characters. I really want to hang out with these fictional people and now feel something is lacking in my life. Where are my cool work friends? Wait I work from home, my dog is my cool work friend.

There’s a reason Christina Lauren books are Bestsellers

The easy, teasing interactions among the group feel authentic and make My Favorite Half-Night Stand a fun read. The quick-witted conversations propelled me into the story and I finished the book in three days, never once having to stop to groan or roll my eyes at the dialogue. The team behind Christina Lauren (they are two authors, for those who didn’t know) realize romance doesn’t need to be smarmy.

More than just a sweet, light-hearted love story, My Favorite Half-Night Stand goes deeper. Real emotions are examined as Millie is forced to take a look at her long standing practice of keeping people at arms length. We see how a person’s childhood, parental role models and past relationships affect their choices and willingness to take risks in relationships.

Oh, and then there’s the sex. Descriptive enough to increase your heart rate but no throbbing and thrusting here. Hot yet classy. I appreciated that the intimacy was more than a “fade to black” but written with restraint.

Christina Lauren’s My Favorite Half-Night Stand is for anyone who needs a laugh, is discouraged about their dating life or is comfortably and gratefully in a committed relationship.