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. 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.
Cover
This cover is definitely not my favorite but I understand where the inspiration came from. They could have gotten away with having this cover match their other books like Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating.
Plot
The plot is what really made me interested in picking up this book. Olive Torres and her arch nemesis end up going on a honeymoon together after her twin sister and his brother get ill and can’t go. But Olive and Ethan absolutely hate each other and have done nothing but fight the three years they’ve known each other.
I really loved watching Olive and Ethan fall for each other on this vacation. It definitely helped that they knew each other for three years previously and it didn’t read like insta-love, which is something I was worried about. Even throughout this honeymoon they gradually fall for each other through many many mishaps and running into people they never wanted to run into.
But, the only reason I didn’t give this book a full five stars is because the last few chapters seemed unnecessary and were there just to create conflict for Olive and Ethan. It didn’t add anything to the story other than a change in relationships in the epilogue (I don’t want to give away any spoilers).
I did laugh out loud many times while reading this book though, it was a lot of fun!
Characters
Olive Torres is a bi-racial (white and Mexican) woman in her early thirties who is always unlucky. But, while everyone at her sister’s wedding got sick, she got lucky and was one of two people who didn’t. I think the authors focused too much on how unlucky Olive has always been. The mishaps would’ve been funny even without the authors explaining she was unlucky every 50 pages.
She was also described as a curvy girl, but only because she went on a baking spree before the wedding -.- I don’t understand why a girl can’t just be curvy because that’s the way she is. They tried making her proud about her body which I appreciated and her body was appreciated by others but why does she make excused as to why she’s a bit thicker? It’s unnecessary and it’s what makes girls think curvy is bad. She also got compared to Selena Gomez as if the reader needed validation that yes, in fact Olive is really hot as if being curvy isn’t.
Ethan is definitely my newest book boyfriend. He’s such a tough guy on the outside but once you get to know him, he’s really sweet and caring. I also liked that the authors made him vulnerable and we got to see his more sensitive side along side Olive but we also get to see him be adventurous.
I think Olive and Ethan are very cute as a couple and like that they got together. However, the last conflict of the book was really unnecessary and seemed out of the blue. It could have gone in a different direction and still have the same epilogue.
I would definitely recommend this book if you want a quick, funny, and cute romance novel! I would be aware though that there is body shaming in this book as well as cheating. If these are triggers for you, please make the right decision for you.
Check out The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren on May 14!
The Amarna Movement 