The Unhoneymooners just hit shelves yesterday, and – quelle surprise – it has all of our favorite things – and our favorite tropes. Romance tropes are tried and true for a reason: we love enemies to lovers, forced proximity, fake marriage, surprise ex, only one bed and all the rest because they facilitate those good feelings of expected outcomes and roller coaster fun on the way there. And The Unhoneymooners has ALL of those ^^^ in one book!
The Unhoneymooners is a Summer Retreat of a Romance
So, if you’re like me, when you are headed to your favorite summer resorts, you want to lay out with the easy beach-reading books that celebrate sun, summer and sex-on-the-beach. I’m currently on our family vacay and sitting in the softest, whitest sand in the world writing this review about a sun-drenched, salt water-logged story. That pairing of book and beach is almost as good as the couple in the novel.
Saved @ChristinaLauren’s newest for my vacation and it was a perfect idea I am the smartest pic.twitter.com/nuRHBrKXnB
— Beth (@bethorne) May 14, 2019
Ethan and Olive (omg my swimsuit is olive; I AM STYLED TO PERFECTION) are by all accounts – or at least the account we get from Olive herself as narrator – NEMESES. Enter the enemies to lovers trope. The novel opens in a bridal suite on Olive’s twin sister’s big day. Olive, beset by wedding responsibilities and a too-tight, Skittle-green bridesmaid dress, is forced to interact with Ethan before the ceremony, and we get a glimpse into how their hate fest began. Cheese curds, big boobs and lots of frustrated looks.
Olive thinks Ethan is a persnickety dick who keeps his brother (her sister’s new husband) from important events with dude-bro adventure trips and who hates her for being curvy and unabashed about loving fried cheese. We never get Ethan’s point of view, but from their interactions it can safely be said that Olive punches all of Ethan’s buttons with every surly dip of his brow. We soon get to the forced proximity of these two as the wedding buffet poisons everyone but them, and the bride and groom encourage them to take their all-inclusive honeymoon in Maui.
Snorkeling, boating, $1.99 Mai Tais and couple’s massages await them in a land of paradise, but so does a whole lot of sexual tension and a ton of fun. Olive is incapable of letting an opportunity to needle Ethan pass her by, and he’s easily frustrated enough to make their banter very worth it. The setting makes it the perfect book to read while you are sipping your own Mai Tai and soaking up some tropical sun. I know. I’m doing that right now.
Sexual tension and mistaken intentions are a standard for any good contemporary romance, but Christina Lauren wields them expertly to carve out a hilarious, heart-wrenching, hypnotic story of two people who belong together if they could only get it together.
The Unhoneymooners hit shelves yesterday, and you can order it right now and save it for your upcoming vacay, or devour it while you wish you were unhoneymooning in Maui, too.
