My Favorite Half-Night Stand

FINAL DECISION: This was okay. Not great but not terrible. I enjoyed a once through reading, but never really connected with the heroine, and the hero was way too accommodating of her.

THE STORY: Millie Morris is one of the guys, the only woman hanging out with a group of male friends. But one night, she and her “best friend” Reid Campbell end up having sex. Millie doesn’t want to ruin her friendship so she insists that the two date. Along with their friends Millie and Reid sign up for an online dating service. But when Millie doesn’t like her profile, she decides to sign up for a new one under a different name and is surprised when she and Reid are matched. So while Millie and Reid are dancing around one another in real life, Millie’s alter ego and Reid are hitting it off online.

OPINION: This book was okay, but all the interesting parts in the blurb really felt like insignificant to the actual story. First, there is little with Millie’s interest in serial killers. She might have been interested in polar bears and it would have made no difference to the story. It’s only a tiny part of this book even though it was part of what peaked my interest in this book. Second, I didn’t find the online connection as compelling as I expected. There didn’t seem much to it and the two only communicated for a short period. I have read other stories with online dating and this one didn’t work as well.

I really loved Reid and honestly, I spent most of the book thinking that he was much too good for Millie. She didn’t feel closed up, she felt like a jerk for most of the book. Unfortunately, while that gets resolved, her dogged determination to not share even basic facts — her middle name? — with her “friends” made her seemed like she needs a whole lot of therapy rather than a relationship.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the relationship between all the friends. That felt fun and lighthearted. I thought that the complications that arise as Millie and Reid’s relationship developed were funny and I enjoyed seeing the difficulties that arose. I also really liked the good parts of Millie and Reid’s relationship as the two moved from friends to lovers. Their interactions in real life made me smile.

Overall the book was okay, but not as good as I wanted it to be. Readers who just want a fun romcom would probably enjoy this more.

WORTH MENTIONING: I wish that the other friends hadn’t had their stories resolved, it might have been an interesting series.

CONNECTED BOOKS: MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND is a standalone.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in helping to prepare this review. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

Here’s what I liked about this book:
1. I really liked Reid. He was the kind of guy a girl would love to date in a realistic dream-come-true scenario.
2. I really liked their group. I am a minted professional who works in the fringes of academia, and trying to get my PhD. And it really is challenging to socialize at a personal level in this environment. So I think it was really nice to see a close-knitted band of academics being normal. It gives me hope.

Here’s what I don’t like about the book:
1. I didn’t really enjoy reading Millie’s perspective; and I am not saying this because of the whole catfishing thing, although that is pretty shitty. But I just didn’t find her voice all that interesting. She was also a tad bit annoying in the way that it seemed like she was too self-centered to really care about her other friends. Her treatment toward Ed and Alex also didn’t impress me. She was condescending and judgemental at times.
4. I kind of get her reluctance to share her feelings with people considering her past. I can even relate to that to a certain extent. But it is less believable to me that she kept her dad’s Parkinson’s–a chronic illness that is painful to witness in a family memeber– a secret for such a long time, and yet there was a point where she freaked out over some message Reid sent her and went straight to Ed and Alex (the friends she didn’t really respect) for counsel.

It is possible that I am biased because my processing of emotions and events is likely different from the protagonist, which is not uncommon. But I just don’t get her priorities at all. Another bias is introduced by the fact that I went into this book with ridiculously high expectations, thanks to Josh and Hazel, and therefore, was heavily disappointed. I am not sure at this point. All I know is that not once did I feel my toes curling or my eyes crinkling whenever something juicy or good happened to our main characters, respectively. I have already read Josh and Hazel twice, and will be re-reading it during my travels for Christmas, but this one, I will not pick up again.

My Half Night Stand by Christina Lauren

I really enjoyed this contemporary friends to lovers romance. It was sweet, funny and touching.

First, Reid. What an adorable man. Helping without being asked; Supportive of his friends and close with family; Not afraid to discuss his feelings and emotions. Knowing what he wants. A true catch.

Next Millie. She learned to keep to the superficial at a young age when her mother got sick. Dont bother her with the details was the guiding principle. Does anyone really care when they ask how are you?. No. They dont.
Ok maybe close friends or family might care. But if youre in the habit of Fine, and you?, you would understand Millie. Trusting enough to open up takes work. And faith in the other person. Millie actually hit a little too close to home for me.

Now Millie needs to learn to open up.
Its not a smooth transition for Millie, but it seems easier via letter or email.

Worry, tears, and satisfaction got me to the end.
I would rate this 4.5 but you cant do half stars. Thinking about the depth of characters, their traits and their clear delineation, pushed the rating up.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley. I also purchased a copy for sharing.

This the story of a group of friends, four men and a woman in their late twenties/early thirties. They all work at the same university, they are all single, quirky, funny and all of them are nerds in their own kind of way.

A few months later there is a big celebration at their University, and they decide that they all need a plus one for that party, so they decide to join a dating app to find their partner. Millie is the one to create everyone’s dating profiles, including hers. While all the guys are receiving messages, Millie basically receives dick pics and requests for boobie pics, so she creates a second, secret profile, only known by her. But then, the dating app matches her with Reid, her best friend in the group, just a few days after they had a “half-night stand”.

Millie is a peculiar person, in the sense that she is smart, funny, and sarcastic, but she doesn’t talk about her or her life. Whenever she feels a deep conversation is coming, she deflects and turns to jokes or changes the subject, and all the guys know it. But them, her dating alter ego, Cat, starts having conversations with Reid, the kind she’s never had with him in real life, and he starts liking her (Cat).

Things get more complicated when Reid is talking to two women in the dating app, Cat and Daisy while having casual sex with Millie and, when he, predictably, notices that Cat is Millie. He gives her the opportunity to confess, but she doesn’t. And that’s when the best part of the book starts.

The first half is funny, and we get to know the five friends quite well. I love their friendship, their interactions and their jokes. And then, the drama unveils, and we see Reid trying to choose which of the three women he should choose: the beautiful one (Daisy), the smart and thoughtful one (Cat), or his best friend (Millie). We follow his thought process, and why he struggles to choose Millie, thinking she can’t give him that extra depth he craves in a relationship and that he found in Cat.
We get angry with him when Millie doesn’t confess to Reid what has happened, and we mourn their break-up, as friends and as casual sex partners.

But we also get to see Millie’s grovelling, how she grows emotionally with the help of a therapist, until she’s able to communicate her feelings and eventually fix the relationship with her family and her friends, including Reid. It’s refreshing to find a romance when the one in the wrong is the heroine, and she’s the one that has to win the guy back. The angst in the last third of the book made my angst-loving heart happy.

I love how every character in this story has a role in it, and it’s not just a diverse group of friends that are there because there is a quota that must be filled.

My Favourite Half-Night Stand was another great read by Christina Lauren. Millie and Reid are the main characters in this story, and the story revolves around a circle of close friends – with Millie being the only female, that decide to join an online dating service together.

Millie is pretty much just one of the guys – they do everything together, and she is firmly in the friend zone with all of them…….Until she is not, following a half night stand with Reid that starts to complicate issues. Oh man – these 2 were completely clueless when it came to working out how they felt about the other. Reid is a gorgeous guy, has a great relationship with Millie, is super smart, but is also conflicted about his feelings for Millie, and his emerging feelings for Catherine, who he is matched with online and messages back and forth with.

And of course, as mentioned in the blurb, Catherine is Millie!! I was just waiting for the moment where it all fell apart, when Reid realises who Catherine is. Awkward!! This was a fun read with just a little bit of angst waiting for these guys to sort themselves out.

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