Title: My Favorite Half-Night Stand Author: Christina Lauren
Published: December 4, 2018
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 384
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads: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.
I am very conflicted. I’ve never read a book by Christina Lauren before. Honestly, I was blown away and enchanted by the ease of the authors’ prose and how refreshing their characters were. This was a book that was a pleasure to read, and that’s a very special quality in fiction.
But this book is about catfishing. This book is about systematically lying to your best friend and putting the blame for it on your mommy issues and emotional immaturity. But honestly: any highly educated 29-year-old woman should have known better, psychological issues aside. Millie treated Reid shamefully, and used him as a crutch to shore up her abysmal coping skills and inability to form lasting relationships. And at the end of it all, he was left humiliated and betrayed, while she got to go and “work on, herself” in therapy twice a week.
It’s a shitty situation no matter how you look at it.
The reason I’m conflicted, though, is that the authors do acknowledge how terrible Millie’s actions were. They explore the absolute devastation Reid feels after he realizes how Millie betrayed his trust and invaded his privacy. They allow their heroine to be flawed without absolving her of all responsibility for her absolutely reprehensible behavior. There is a (mostly) proportionate level of groveling. And when Reid forgives Millie, it feels genuine, and it feels honest. Within the context of My Favorite Half-Night Stand, this relationship works.
But should it work? Romance novels are a fantasy, of course, but am I comfortable with the fantasy portrayed in My Favorite Half-Night Stand? Is it okay for a quirky professor to lie to her best friend because she has extreme emotional constipation? Is it okay for readers to witness this flagrantly unethical treatment of one’s “best friend” and say it’s okay? This isn’t a question of whether Reid should forgive Millie, his best friend. This is a question of whether Reid should marry Millie, a liar.
I’m uncomfortable with this book. Catfishing by a stranger is hurtful and awkward; catfishing by your closest friend is humiliating.
In the end, it’s not for me to decide who is and is not worthy of Happily Ever After. I don’t know what to think about this book: it’s marvelously written, with breezy characters and charming humor. At the same time, the level of deep-seated, systematic dishonesty displayed by the protagonist is upsetting. But I am happy that somewhere, Reid and Millie are happy.
