I was first drawn in by the cover of The Unhoneymooners. It’s bright yellow and tropical and summery and I just love colorful covers. They’re even better when the book turns out to be great! I gave this one 5 stars. I love romance, and this was an adorable one. The hate to love trope is one of my favorites. The characters are well developed and the romance itself was believable while still being…a classic romantic-comedy type romance. The Hawaiian setting made me feel like I was on vacation too, or at least reeeeeally want to go there. The author uses enough description to really set the scene and get into the main character’s head, but not too much.

Sometimes I feel that the drama in romance books can be a little forced. The conflict often comes from misunderstandings that can just feel pointless and unrealistic. I didn’t feel that way with this book! The misunderstandings made sense. I think this might be helped by the fact that it’s in first person. A lot of romance novels are in close third person and flip between the two love interests’ perspectives, but this one stayed with the female main character, Olive. And I liked it. We really got to hear what she was thinking, feeling, doubting, celebrating. It helped that she could be insightful as well.

I also liked Olive’s journey of self discovery. She grew over the course of the book and learned more about who she is and what she likes. I tend to like YA because there’s often a lot of character development over the course of the book, so it’s something I value. So it’s nice to see in adult novels as well!

I highly recommend this one. It’s a great summer read, but would be a nice escape during other times of year as well! It’s so cute, and a good story. Check it out!