My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren Narrator: Shayna Thibodeaux, Deacon Lee
Published by Simon & Schuster Audio on December 4, 2018
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Length: 7 hours, 8 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
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With a world-famous speaker at their university, Mille Morris and her four woefully single male colleagues make a pact that they’ll all find dates. Unfortunately, Millie has more success helping them make matches online than she does navigating the onslaught of lewd pics in her own feed. But when she creates a fictional name for a new account, Millie finds herself vying for the online attention of a man she sees every day in the flesh.
After reading Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating and loving it, I was up for another Cristina Lauren read ASAP when My Favorite Half-Night Stand was on sale at Audible so I picked it up. I didn’t love it as much as Josh and Hazel but it was still hilarious and fun in so many ways. I think if you like Millie, then you will like this book. She is brilliant but when it comes to emotions, she is a bit stupid. I really could relate to Millie, so this story worked for me.
Millie accidentally ends up catfishing her best friend that she very recently spent half of the night with after a lot of wine. But they are not going to let a little thing like sex ruin their being best friends or keep them from finding dates for an important function, with the other members of their friend group. Think of a group of friends similar to the Big Bang Theory, but hotter and with a smarter girl (sorry Penny). The best way to find dates for the important faculty soiree, a dating app of course, let the hilarity ensue.
Millie and Reid are the glue that holds their little group of friends together. Millie likes Reid a lot and he is the best friend she has ever had, but when everyone in their group puts profiles up on a dating app and hers is a mess, she makes another profile with her middle name, only she gets matched to Reid who doesn’t realize it is Millie. Initially Millie messages him thinking that he will totally get that it is her, but when he doesn’t a series of choices puts Millie in this weird place where she is opening up more to her best friend on line as another person than she does in real life and it is nice, and so the accidental catfishing of her best friend begins.
At times, this was a little over the top and you’d think that the friend group would have some better advice for Millie or Reid but not so much. Still I enjoyed at least 85% of this book and was only slightly frustrated with 10% (in a good way?). I understood where Millie was coming from and why it was so hard for her to be open with the people in her life and share the hard details about herself with them. But like I said, if you don’t get Millie in this book, then I don’t think it will work for you, but I know a ton of really smart people who are stupid in this way so I totally get her.
Reid is a great hero, possibly too great? The man was practically flawless, he even does dishes and puts them away -I mean how is a girl not supposed to swoon over that?!? Plus, he is genuinely nice, caring and considerate. Sure he is on a dating app, talking to one woman, while also trying to figure out if he wants to be with Millie, but that is beside the point.
I really loved the resolution to this story as well. The ending was totally cute and fitting and I really loved how Millie changed in the end. If you’ve never read Christina Lauren, I’d still say start with Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, but if you’ve read it, then this should be next up on your list.
“I feel like we meet people in life and want so much for them to like us that we suck in our stomachs and pretend we don’t fart and tell them a bunch of things we think they want to know. If it works they fall for the person we want to be, and not for the person we are.”
“I’m lonely. I’m lonely because I don’t tell people what I need or what I want, and then get hurt when they don’t figure it out on their own.”
Narration:
Shayna Thibodeaux and Deacon Lee did a fantastic job at the performance and dual PoVs. I really liked how they portrayed each set of characters and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything while in either PoV. I was able to listen to this at my normal 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip:
About Christina Lauren
Yes, there are two of us! Lauren (on the left) and Christina (on the right).
Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of long-time writing partners/besties/soulmates Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The #1 international bestselling coauthor duo writes both Young Adult and Adult Fiction, and together has produced fourteen New York Times bestselling novels. They are published in over 30 languages, have received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, won both the Seal of Excellence and Book of the Year from RT Magazine, named Amazon and Audible Romance of the Year, and been nominated for several Goodreads Choice Awards. They have been featured in publications such as Forbes, The Washington Post, Time, Entertainment Weekly, People, O Magazine and more. Their third YA novel, Autoboyography was released in September, followed by a contemporary romance, Roomies in December, and their first Women’s Fiction, Love and Other Words in April.
Lauren Billings (but everyone calls her Lo) has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and before she made writing her full-time job, would spend her days doing nerdy research-type things wearing a lab coat and goggles. She is silly Mommy to two littles, wife to one mountain biking homebrewing scientist, and an unabashed lover of YA and romance.
Christina Hobbs (but you’ll always hear Lo call her PQ) used to spend her days in a junior high counseling office surrounded by teenagers. These days you can find her at her desk, writing or watching BTS videos. She grew up in Utah and is absolutely not old enough to be the mom of a 17 year old (right??), thinks she’s the luckiest person in the world to write books with her best friend, and is an unapologetic lover of boy bands and glitter.
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I really had a good time with this one but it wasn’t my fave.
Yeah it is fun but is you aren’t totally on board with Millie then it could go horribly wrong. Glad you had some fun with it though
I just recently featured this one in my post on “books I meant to read in 2018 but didn’t.” I already know I love Christina Lauren so I’m excited to pick this one up. I’ve heard some people had issues with the catfishing aspect but you describe it as accidental which sounds a little better. I enjoyed your review, Robin!
It is totally a rom-com so I don’t know why some took the catfishing so seriously. Still it never bothered me since it allowed them both to be more open in their conversations. Millie is a little bit broken emotionally so I enjoyed the journey and how the accidental catfishing really let her become the person she never dared to be IRL. I hope you can get to it in 2019 there are just so many great books out there it is so hard to choose.
Great review, Robin – and I concur! I thought it was a bit ridiculous that Reid couldn’t piece it together faster, and the friends didn’t do more (although, they are guys!). I think my favorite book by them is Roomies. LOVE that story!
Haha seriously, the dude was supposed to be pretty smart. But smart in one area in life doesn’t necessarily transfer to another area. I haven’t read Roomies yet but I’m sure I’ll get to it one of these days.
I actually have not read any of Christina Lauren’s work yet but I just downloaded their upcoming release from NetGalley. This sounds fantastic. I will have to add it to my wishlist 🙂
I also just got the Unhoneymooners Carole. I hope that it is going to be a great book to cut your Christina Lauren teeth on.
I liked this one as well but agree Josh and Hazel was better. Reid was awesome and definitely sleazy too good to be true!
Hazel was so much fun for me she made my favorite characters list of 2018 so there was a lot to live up to there. Still a fun book though.
Loved it! I love all the books by Christina Lauren I’ve read/listened to so far.
I’ve only got a few in but I’m sure I’ll get to their whole catalogue soon