Book 1/30.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I kicked off my 2024 reading challenge with The Unhoneymooners while on my honeymoon in Cape Town and I love that for me 🤩😍💁♀️
The Unhoneymooners is an enemies-to-lovers romance centered on Olive and Ethan. Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in . . . well, everything. Her identical twin sister Amy, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world who managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of online contests. Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive has to get through twenty-four hours of wedding hell with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man, before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party – except for Olive and Ethan – gets food poisoning, 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 becomes a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of . . . lucky.
This was a fun and easy, bubbly, charming read but were it not for the fact that I was reading it on my honeymoon, I might not have rated it 4 stars. Don’t get me wrong, the fact I read it in one day means it was quite enjoyable, but still. I have not read too many enemies-to-lovers books, but right off the bat it was clear that Olive and Ethan are not enemies. Their hatred is based upon Ethan’s brother saying she was a pessimistic and bitter person and Ethan believed him. And Olive believes that Ethan thinks she is fat and unattractive, so she hates him for that. So really, it is based on nothing substantial. I also was not sold on Olive and Ethan’s chemistry and was not on board with the reason for the conflict in the final third of the novel. If I went to my man and (twin) sister with what Olive did and they reacted as they did, I would not be sad. I would me MAD as hell and their reactions would most likely do irreparable damage to our relationship.
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing
Lwile the Leo 