My Favorite Half-Night Stand
Author: Christina LaurenPublisher: Gallery Books (December 4, 2018)
Paperback, 384 pages
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Summary
Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.
So when a routine university function turns into a black tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic.
But online dating isn’t for the faint of heart. While the guys are inundated with quality matches and potential dates, Millie’s first profile attempt garners nothing but dick pics and creepers. Enter “Catherine”—Millie’s fictional profile persona, in whose make-believe shoes she can be more vulnerable than she’s ever been in person. Soon “Catherine” and Reid strike up a digital pen-pal-ship...but Millie can’t resist temptation in real life, either. Soon, Millie will have to face her worst fear—intimacy—or risk losing her best friend, forever.
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| Rating: 4.5 stars |
Review
Where do I even begin with this one? I'm so used to reading romances where the hero is emotionally messed up or stunted because He's Got Reasons, so it was sort of a refreshing change of pace to have the heroine be the one with the tragic backstory that makes her totally emotionally unavailable and leaves the guy wanting more. My Favorite Half-Night Stand is told in the first person present tense POV, and alternates between Millie's perspective and Reid's so the reader gets the full impact of knowing the inner thoughts and feelings of both main characters. So while Millie is closed off and doesn't share anything deeper about herself with her closely knit friend group, the reader get to know exactly why she's like that and wow, I really just want to give Millie a really big hug. She's also deeply weird, which I adore. I mean, come on, her specialization is lady serial killers - what's not to love?! Another thing I really love to see in a great book is character growth, and Millie goes through a lot of it.
Even though the book is about both Millie and Reid and their relationship and romance, in a lot of ways I feel like Millie is truly themain character of this one. Reid is sort of like the superman of their little Justice League friend group - he's hot and for some reason everyone wants all up on that, but he's not actually that terribly memorable. Like right now, trying to think of some things to say about him, what's jumping to mind is him gathering up dishes at every group party thing they had, and being kind of dumb about women. If that doesn't sound like Clark Kent... He's great, he just didn't stand out as anything super spectacular. Like I couldn't tell you why he's any more amazing than their buddy Chris (though they're both clearly supposed to be the better options over Alex and Ed, haha). Reid's Superman handsome blandness is why I dropped my rating from a full 5 stars to 4.5 stars - I just felt like he could have been a little more impactful. Again, don't get me wrong, he's GREAT. He just is a little too wholesome cornfed Iowa boy for my tastes, and needs a little chili pepper in his hot cocoa or something.
The last 15-20% of this book had me lying in bed reading, "one more chapter"ing myself over and over again with tears sliding down my face, because my heart hurt and I couldn't go to bed with the way things were. I just couldn't! So I stayed up until I'd turned the final page and read the whole book, a good hour and a half past my bedtime. Oops. And then I was still crying, but also smiling, and that's all I'll say about that because nobody likes spoilers. GO read this book!
*A digital copy of this book was provided for review.
I didn't think of that, but the man is more likely to be the "messed up" one. I agree. This was Millie's story. It was about her dealing with her baggage, her past, and opening herself and her heart to real, deep connections. I loved the whole group of friends so much, and adored this book.
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