Antonia Bernardin

My 33rd read of the year was The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. I’ve been making my way through a lot of their books lately and I really enjoy them, so be prepared for a wholly biased review.

A summary attempt

Anna and Liam married in college as a way to get cheap family housing, it was an arrangement that was made out of desperation and in their time living together they almost never crossed paths, not bothering to get to know each other. At the end of university they got divorced… or so Anna thought that’s what she was signing. It turns out that marrying triggered a clause in Liam’s inheritance from his Grandfather, if he stays married for five years it unlocks his full trust but if the marriage is found to not be legit, it nullifies his inheritance. So what Anna really signed was a contract agreeing to remain married for five years and divorce the moment his trust comes in. With just five months left to go, Liam’s family are getting suspicious about this wife of his that they’ve never seen and demand that he brings her to his baby sisters wedding.

So, Liam goes to Anna with a proposal, come with him to this wedding, help him get away with it, in exchange for cash sum now and the rest after they get through the holiday without being discovered. With a father recovering from chemo and having just lost her job, Anna’s not really in the position to say no, so she agrees. Flying with him to the private island where the wedding is taking place and suddenly finding herself surrounded by egregious wealth and scheming family members. They quickly realises there’s two big problems with this plan: they find each other ridiculously attractive and his family are out for blood.

What did I think?

I really enjoyed this book! I still think that Unhoneymooners is my favourite but this is definitely a close second. It’s funny, Anna’s sense of humour is fantastic and Liam was a fairly well fleshed out male mc for a book like this, we even get in his internal monologue of him having a chat with himself about being so emotionally stunted in how he communicates with Anna, even after he’s done therapy to help him express himself better. It’s a little bit reminiscent of The Hating Game but without the whole enemies to lovers angle.

The whole scenario itself is pretty ridiculous but just like with Unhoneymooners, the writing is good enough to make up for how that might ruin the story for you.

Christina Lauren has not let me down so far, let’s see if the trend continues, I’ve still got three more of their books to read.

Buy the book for yourself on Amazon*

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