And I get it. As much as I hate him . . . I think I’m starting to like us.

The Unhoneymooners

Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.

Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.

Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of… lucky. 

I’ve been hearing so much about Christina Lauren’s books all over bookstagram and booktok, so when I went to the beach this month, I finally picked up one of their books. The Unhoneymooners was pitched to me as an enemies-to-lovers perfect for a summer read, and it did not disappoint. 

The story follows Olive, a perpetually unlucky scientist with the world’s luckiest twin sister, Ami. At least, until tragedy strikes at Ami’s paid-for-by-winning-internet-contests wedding when all of the guests get food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, Olive is one of the only people not affected due to her allergy. Obviously, Ami can’t go on her honeymoon, also won through an international contest. So she sends Olive in her place along with Ami’s new husband’s brother, Ethan—the only other person not affected by the food poisoning due to his aversion to buffets. 

The problem? They hate each other. The other problem? Olive has to pretend to be Ami, and they have to pretend to be married. They plan to ignore each other as much as they can at the resort, but when they run into Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex, they have to keep up the ruse to prevent their little scam from being busted. In theory, this should seem like just another part of Olive’s bad luck streak, but somewhere along the way, pretending to be in love with Ethan becomes a lot less exhausting, and Olive starts to think that maybe her luck isn’t so bad after all.

I loved watching Olive and Ethan’s relationship develop while they’re at the resort. Their banter back and forth is on point, and so is their chemistry. Ethan is wound pretty tightly, but he is entirely swoon-worthy when he does let his guard down. It’s no wonder Olive ends up falling for him. I also really enjoyed the pacing. It was fast-paced but didn’t feel rushed, and the all is lost moment felt realistic and well resolved. 

Overall, I absolutely adored this book. The Unhoneymooners was fun, flirty, steamy, and laugh-out-loud funny. It also had some of my favorite tropes like forced proximity, fake dating, “there was only one bed,” a little bit of pining, and enemies-to-lovers, which is really starting to grow on me, especially when the foundation of the “enemies” part is based on a misunderstanding.