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.
Source: advance e-galley provided by publishers in exchange for an honest review
Even when things go horribly wrong there has to be a silver lining somewhere. For Olive who has always seemed to be the unluckier sister compared to her twin, her silver lining is that she did not succumb to food poisoning at the reception like the rest of her sister's bridal party and guests did. Thanks to the chaos Ami can't go on her honeymoon and rather than see it go wasted, she insists that Olive go to Hawaii and have a good time. Buutttt ... she has to go with Ethan, the groom's best man and all around pain in Olive's backside. The two have never gotten along so it's ludicrous to think that they'd b able to do so even if they're going to paradise. She promises Ami that she'll go anyway and that's where the adventure begins.
The Unhoneymooners is a typical enemies-to-lovers story that's fueled by misconceptions and assumptions about the other person. Ethan's not a huge stretch from a lot of guys in these rom-coms who start off aloof and maybe a little too condescending while Olive's the perky, outgoing sort. Yeah, their personalities clash and they try to keep away from each other. As luck would have it things don't go their way. Olive encounters someone with whom she interviewed for a job, and Ethan sees his ex there with her new man. I mean, seriously, of all the resorts in Hawaii and they're all there? The same week? Through a series of misunderstandings, Olive inadvertently leads her potential employer to think that she's engaged. To Ethan. Ethan in turn wants to show his ex he's moved on so why not go with the incorrect assumption and convince everyone that they're together. It's actually quite comical because they're still at the can't-stand-to-look-at-you phase. The pretense though can get boring but thankfully not here as they begin to tolerate each other. What I wasn't expecting was for things to loop back to her sister which I thought supercharges the remainder of the story. It's kind of sweet, actually, since the sisters always had something in the way of their relationship and here they get the chance to support each other.
The Unhoneymooners doesn't reinvent the wheel but it is entertaining and I had a darn good time reading it. Good banter makes me happy and the snarky back-and-forth between Olive and Ethan were my jam. Any good rom-com should make you laugh and fall in love along with the characters and The Unhoneymooners does just that.
~ Bel
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