The Honeymoon Crashers
By: Christina Lauren:
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Pages: Audiobook- 4 hours and 47 minutes
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): A perfectionist maid of honor and a carefree, surfer-bro best man team up to plan a wedding and end up finding a spark of their own in the first audio original from author duo Christina Lauren, a full-cast sequel to their New York Times bestseller The Unhoneymooners.
Ami is determined to break the Torres family wedding curse. Her own disaster of a reception ended with all the guests getting food poisoning, and she left her cheating husband soon after. But even though she’s still processing her own divorce, Ami won’t let her twin sister Olive’s day be anything but perfect. Olive may think she wants a private ceremony in Maui, where she and her fiancé Ethan first fell in love, but Ami knows better and secretly flies the whole Torres family out to surprise the couple. Now she and her meticulously organized binder have less than two weeks to get everything together for the big day, thousands of miles from home.
Enter Brody, Ethan’s best man, who happens to be living in Maui and insists on helping with the preparations. His playfully elaborate schemes and happy-go-lucky attitude are the last thing Ami needs. When sparks start to fly, could it derail all her carefully laid plans?
Equal parts hilarious and swoon-worthy, this full-cast production is your ticket to the ultimate destination wedding, bringing to life both a captivating couple and an unforgettable family. The Honeymoon Crashers is Christina Lauren at their charming, hilarious best.
First Impressions
If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you know how big of a Christina Lauren fan I am. I read Unhoneymooners when it came out and you can read my review here. I really enjoyed it and was excited to see a sequel. I was a little apprehensive that it was audiobook only, but knew I’d read it regardless.
What I thought
This book was published only in audiobook form which I thought was super interesting. It was fun, albeit a little awkward at ties to listen to, but made me wish for a Christina Lauren movie or TV show.
Olive, from the first book, is finally marrying Ethan. But because of the drama of her twin sister Ami’s wedding and the family wedding curse, she has decided to elope to Hawaii. Ami knows that this isn’t what her sister truly wants and decides to organize having the entire family surprise them in Hawaii and plan the wedding for her in about a week. On the first day, she reveals herself to Olive who conspires with Ethan to have Ethan’s best man Brody to help her. Ami is a type A perfectionist while Brody is a laid back optimist.
The most interesting thing about this audiobook is that it is truly a production. There are a lot of different voice actors for different characters rather than one narrator changing their voice for different people. There also was background noises from time to time. For example, glasses clinking, water splashing, background chatter. It felt more like listening to a movie rather than an audiobook and I enjoyed it. I mostly liked hearing Ami and Brody speaking to each other with two different voices. I think they made this very accessible to people who don’t normally listen to audiobooks.
I loved Brody from the very beginning. He was immediately charming and sweet. I loved how he treated Ami as well. Ami cracked me up. I related to her so much. I am very much type A with anxiety and when things started to spiral I understood her so well.
As with all Christina Lauren novels, I adored the secondary characters. Ami and Olive’s family is full of big personalities.
This book was so fun. It was a quick listen, but was a little odd listening to some of the spicier moments. I would recommend listening to it if you feel like giving audiobooks a chance. I think it would be a good style to start with. I do wish that it was also being published as a physical book, but I think this is an interesting experiment. I’m already looking forward to their next novel!