3 of 5 disappointing stars
I am a huge fan of books by the writing duo known as Christina Lauren. Two of my favorite books of all time, Love and Other Words, and Roomies were written by these ladies. I love these two books so much because they’re beautifully written and gut-wrenching and can make you laugh one page and cry the next. This means that I hold books by CL to a higher standard. Unfortunately, The Honey-Don’t List didn’t live up to those standards.
This story had a couple things going against it for me, through no fault of the authors. I’m not a fan of books about “famous” people: rock stars, movie stars, TV personalities. It’s just not my thing. I think a lot of the things in pop culture that fascinate most of our population are trite and shallow. I don’t care who dated who, or who cheated on who, or who was caught at the grocery store without makeup, or how many pounds so-and-so has put on. Secondly, I’m not obsessed with home improvement shows like a lot of people are. This book is about famous people on a home improvement show!
It was well-written, as all CL books are, but it lacked that gorgeous word play that can be found throughout many of their books, including the two favorites I mentioned earlier. I read this book on my iPad, and I hardly highlighted any phrases, which is the sign of a good book for me. I finished it just to finish it, not because I really cared that much about how it turned out. It definitely lacked the angst and conflict of an excellent CL story. There was a moment in Love and Other Words where I literally had to put the book down and go take a break for a few days. (The same thing happened with Dating-ish by Penny Reid.) This book had none of that. I don’t want that in every book I read, but usually there is a sense of urgency and drama in a CL book, and this time, there wasn’t.
By no means will this stop me from reading books by these great authors. But perhaps I should lower my expectations a bit for their next one, because I hate being disappointed that they’re not as good as my two favorites.
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
The Honey-Don’t List releases on March 24 and you can find it here
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