Romance at a Glance

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The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren | Summer Quickies

Romance at a Glance is a podcast where hosts Bridget and Shani review romance novels and interview some of romance’s biggest authors diving into candid conversations about life, relationships, and sexual desires. Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor. Leave us a rating and review on iTunes.

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Book Review at a Glance

Worth the Read?

Shani:  ⭐⭐

Bridget: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Heroine Rating: Olive

Shani: 🍑🍑

Bridget: 🍑🍑🍑🍑

Hero Rating: Ethan

Shani: 🍆

Bridget: 🍆🍆🍆

McDreamy to Mc Steamy:

Shani: Milk-dud

Bridget: McDreamy

Classy to Nasty: This book was sooooo Vanilla (from Shani!)


Romance at a Glance Reviews The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

AKA the book Bridget thought was a goddamn delight and Shani thought had a bro-tastic hero

We were split on this book. Bridget thought it had some cute quips and flirting (especially on the honeymoon) and Shani thought this book was all over the place and hated the narrator.

Some major points we discussed: 

  • The narrator making Ethan sound like a bro

  • Ethan not believing her :(

  • Whether Olive should have agreed to lie to Ami

  • Enemies to lovers with lust in their eyes

  • How gross Ethan’s brother is!!

  • Olive asking for help (and shocker, getting it!)

On Romance at a Glance, we discuss and review all genres of romance novels, as well as get into the nitty-gritty of real-life romance, relationships, and sex... while cracking each other up. Expect some spontaneous singing, funny anecdotes, honest reviews, and naughty language.


Quick Guide Review of the Book and Notes

Book Title: The Unhoneymooners

Author: Christina Lauren

Audio Narrator:

Part of a Series: Standalone

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Cover Art:

Bridget: Topical foliage and the title let me know a bit about what is gonna happen, meaning honeymoon location, bright colors say rom-com to me. No humans on the cover to give me ideas about the couple at the center.

Feels like animated covers are working to make romance more mainstream / allow people to feel less weird about reading a book with some beautiful people on the cover! I’m all for people reading more romance, but wish society didn’t judge!

Synopsis: 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.

Heroine Rating: Olive

Shani: 🍑🍑 The whoa is me is tiresome. Confessing the lie to the boss was also dumb. She annoyed me.

Bridget: 🍑🍑🍑🍑 She was funny, loving the hot guy and stood up for herself and her twin throughout the book.

Hero Rating: Ethan

Shani: 🍆

Bridget: 🍆🍆🍆 I love the witty dialogue, and how much he wanted her and how he encouraged her to try things and that she wasn’t bad luck. However, he did make a glaringly bad call in not only not believing her about the brother, but not even being willing to consider it at all, from her point of view or otherwise. So he loses a HEA star for that.

McDreamy to Mc Steamy:

Shani: Milk-dud

Bridget: McDreamy

Classy to Nasty: This book was sooooo Vanilla (from Shani!)

Favorite Lines in the Book:

Favorite Review:

Shani’s from Goodreads:

Esther Cunningham 2 stars

 Cute, but Tiresome... 

This is an adult romance, but it’s written more through the eyes of teenagers. There’s a great deal of self-doubt, on-going negative comments and a general sense of immaturity. Cute, but predictably tiresome.

Bridget’s from Goodreads:

Chaima ✨ شيماء rated it 4 stars

me, normally: the concept of romantic love is nothing but a marketing scheme for greeting card companies, a lie sold by the government, a-

me, after reading this book: [through an oversized megaphone] CAN SOME ROMANTIC SHIT HAPPEN TO ME ALREADY DAMN

Worth the Read?

Shani:  ⭐⭐ NO, Not worth the read. I could have passed

Bridget: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Yes. My first Christina Lauren and won’t be the last. (also realized later that it actually wasn’t my first!! HAHA had already used Beautiful series)

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Full Podcast Transcript

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Welcome to Romance at a Glance, a podcast that uses romance novels to dive into candid conversations about life, relationship dynamics, and sexual desires. 

As hosts Bridget and Shani review books and interview some of romance’s biggest authors, they explore the breadth of the genre, openly embracing the sex, diverse couplings, and taboo in order to create a safe space for listeners to be exposed to different lifestyles, fantasies, and to pique their naughty curiosity.

Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor.

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