Review: My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

My Favorite Half-Night Stand
by Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: Dec. 4, 2018
Genre: Romance
Rating:

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.

 

My Favorite Half-Night Stand is the story between two best friends who navigate the world of dating while also fighting their attraction for each other. Clearly, based off of the title they fail at that last bit and things get a bit complicated between them. To make matters worse, Millie makes another profile on the dating app, gets paired with Reid (her best friend) and proceeds to catfish him. So, to say that this story is a hot mess would be an understatement.

I liked the idea of a close-knit group of friends all deciding to download a dating app to find a date for an upcoming event. While the guys get a couple of prospects, Millie has found herself in the realm of dick-pics and lewd propositions. So, she decides to make a new profile and instead of being generic in her bio, she lays it all out there. The last thing she expects is for her best friend to be a match. Instead of just telling him that it’s her, she proceeds to write him emails dropping hints that it’s her, which he clearly doesn’t get. So, yeah, the whole thing just sort of spirals out of control and goes into uncomfortable territory. While I liked the idea of the friends coming together to do this dating app, I wasn’t a huge fan of Millie’s character and how she deceived her best friend.

There’s a lot of back and forth with this story as well. Since Millie and Reid are best friends, best friends who slept together, they have this push and pull relationship. They hook up, but then Millie quickly tries to jam Reid back into the friend zone. Meanwhile, she’s pining away for him while she denies any feelings for him. Reid would like to make something with Millie but her stance is clear which leaves him so confused. Especially when she’s the one always initiating something. Their constant back and forth was a bit tiresome. Especially since sometimes they acted like the adult professionals that they were, and other times they could have been in their early twenties.

I’m a big Christina Lauren fan but this one just didn’t do it for me. I felt like there was something lacking. Not to mention that I wasn’t on board with Millie’s character and how she continued to lie and catfish her best friend for so long. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as some of their other books, it still held my interest.

 

 

9 Thoughts on “Review: My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

  1. I think I would have issues with the catfishing thing even though I usually love the friends to more trope. Great review.

  2. Same. I was coming of the Josh & Hazel high and I was so excited to read this but it was a dud.

    The lies the miscommunication…I just didn’t care about them after awhile.

    Karen @ For What It’s Worth

  3. I have read many mixed reviews of this one so not sure if I want to grab it up.

  4. The title cracked me up. Sorry the book didn’t work for you. Better luck with the next oen.
    sherry @ fundinmental

  5. ratmom on 5 December, 2018 at 9:28 am said:

    Sorry to hear you didn’t like this one as much as you had hoped.

  6. ratmom on 5 December, 2018 at 9:40 am said:

    Sorry to hear you didn’t like this one more.

  7. I loved the blurb but your review has made me think twice about this one… The back and forth would tire me out quickly and the cat-fishing thing is a big no (especially if it goes on a while?)

  8. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to agree with you here! While this wasn’t my least favorite book by Christina Lauren, I was pretty disappointed, especially coming off the high that was Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating. I still had a fun time, but I also had a hard time with the catfishing and Millie’s character. But I did like the development near the end. I just wish it was a bit more gradual and she made some changes earlier in. Hopefully CL’s next book will be better for us. 🙂

  9. Yes I have heard that this book has many mixed reviews. Sorry to hear it didn’t work for you though.

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