✨ jami ✨'s Reviews > The Unhoneymooners

man idk if I just don't like romances in general or if I just find straight horny people to be incredibly boring or what it is but these hyped up romance novels keep letting me down

The first half wasn't bad - it follows Olive, who's twin sister Ami is getting married. When everyone falls sick after the wedding from eating shellfish, everyone except Olive and Ethan, Ami's new husband's brother. Olive and Ethan don't like each other but in the interest of getting free shit they decide to pretend to be married to go on Ami and Dane's honeymoon. The premise was fun and even if it was slightly ridiculous, I enjoyed it.

The first 50% is essentially just Olive and Ethan getting to know eachother better, sorting out some misunderstandings between them and pretending to be married. Some truly ridiculous shit happens (Ethan's ex AND Olive's new boss both happen to be there) and while it was unrealistic, I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

I guess where this book falls apart is I didn't get the CHEMISTRY. these two people are way too horny for their own good, and all they really do is make horny jokes and their entire relationship is based off of Ethan thinking Olive has good titties and Olive thinking Ethan has good abs. And it's not that I can't necessarily get behind that, but I did find it boring here. I felt I was reading it like 'yep, that sure is another paragraph about how he's hot' but there was no spark or real connection that made me feel anything about it. I also found a lot of their banter cringey and their characterisation was so predictable (she's an awkward klutz who says silly things before thinking, he's a stoic brooding type with a heart of gold ect)

That said, the majority of the first half was fun and silly and I liked the progression of their relationship and the things they had to do to avoid getting caught out as not being married. And the massage scene did kind of slap.

The second half, however .... this is where my rating dropped from a "it's not great but it's a three star because I'm liking it" to a "god, I liked it at first but can it end already" two stars. It's hard to talk about the second half without spoiling everything but lets just say it was non-stop nonsense, misunderstandings, and people Doing Bad Things that shouldn't have been forgiven as easily as they were.

There was also some frankly questionable choices made regarding representation, like the plus-sized rep really only there when it was convenient for the plot, and the queer rep ..... well the stereotypical gay side character and the discussion about lesbians ....... yikes. It was unnecessary and made me wince. The final grand gesture scene was also so cringe-worth I had that visceral second-hand embarrassment reaction and I DON'T enjoy feeling that way.

“The problem with lying about relationships is that humans are fickle, fickle creatures.”

special mention to the part where the MC makes a harry potter joke and the LI replies with a harry potter joke and the MC is like "omg ... I knew he liked reading but he likes THE SAME BOOKS AS ME ........... the perfection of this man" like first of all calm down everyone knows harry potter Ethan isn't indie he isn't special .. you're living in america everyone understands harry potter references. second of all since when is 'harry potter' a type of book like skfksk. this shit made me roll my eyes so hard.

So there we go: I didn't really love reading this super hyped romance book and its like a 2.5 star for me purely because I Did genuinely have fun with the beginning to the middle even if it was ridiculous.

Do I dislike romance in general, is this a bad book, are horny straight people annoying, or am I just so tired of hetero people writing books about hetero nonsense? chime off in the comments