My Favorite Half-Night Stand

by Christina Lauren

Happy Tropes & Cheese Day!

Finally, a book that isn’t orange! This week, we’re focusing on a book by Christina Lauren, who is actually a BFF book-writing duo. How cute is that?

Christina Lauren stories are always fun and a little steamy, but in the past, they’ve been a little hit-or-miss for me. However, they wrote Love and Other Words, which was crowned as my Favorite Romance of 2022, so I will always give their books a shot. 

(By the way, if you want to check out the entire list of My Favorite Reads of 2022, I’d love to know if any of your faves made the list!)

Anyway, for this entry, we’re focusing on… 

Book: My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Spice Level: 🔥🔥🔥

Content Warning: Parkinson’s, Losing Parents

Tropes: Friends-to-Lovers, Pen Pals/Secret Identity, Two-Person Love Triangle (turns out, that’s a real thing!)

👩‍🔬👨‍🔬🎲📱🥡🔬🥼🍷🍇

In screenwriting, there’s a phrase, SAS or “Sex At Sixty.” This means that 60 pages into the script, or 60 minutes into the movie (the rough halfway mark in both cases) we can expect the two protagonists to kiss/make love/be intimate/do something that really raises the stakes of their relationship. This is common in romance novels too - you get about halfway through the book before the stakes (and other things 😉) are raised.

Welp, Christina Lauren threw that rule out the window and instead decided on “sex at chapter two!” And it was the cutest sex scene I’ve ever read. Yes. Cute. It did as much to develop the two characters as would pages and pages of deep, meaningful dialogue. All this to say that while it took me by total surprise, it was absolutely delightful.

What’s It About?

Millie, Reid, and the rest of their friend group, Alex, Chris, and Ed, are BFFs. After years of purely platonic best-friend love, Millie and Reid find themselves in a friends-with-benefits situation, but decide the smartest thing to do is forget it ever happened.

Well, after the group makes a pact to use dating apps to find dates for a big upcoming event, Millie and Reid connect in a whole new way… but only one of them realizes it.

This bunch of lovable geniuses (they’re all in academia) is so endearing and they clearly love each other unconditionally despite their flaws and quirks. It made me want to jump through the pages and join their Monopoly parties. And Monopoly is my least favorite game on Earth, so that’s saying something.

Content Warning

Parkinson’s: The father of a main protagonist is dealing with Parkinson’s Disease, and while it’s not discussed in too much detail, it’s definitely present and you can sense the weight it carries in their family.

Loss of a Parent: This same character suffered the loss of a parent at a young age, and the influence this has on them is present throughout the book.

Now, how to make your reading experience a bit more fun?

🍹 Drink Pairing: Millie insists that there is no such thing as enough caffeination, so she frequents the coffee shop on campus, Cajé. As you read this sweet story, I encourage you to take yourself out to your favorite local coffee spot and live like Millie for the day!

🎲 Activity Suggestion: Host a Game Night! The book opens with a Monopoly game night, and the game reappears time and time again throughout the story. This article has a few tips on hosting a game night, and more importantly, some great game suggestions that aren’t Monopoly. (Unless Monopoly is your thing, then by all means, you do you.)

🛍 Etsy Listing: How cute is this bookmark? It features one of the best quotes from the book, which also just happens to be really sage life advice.

Happy Reading!

As always, I encourage you to see if My Favorite Half-Night Stand is available from your local, indie bookstore. Don’t know where one is? Try this Indie Bookstore Finder! You can also purchase it directly from Christina Lauren’s website. 

Your local library is also a great place to look for this and other books. And, of course, all the big-name booksellers will certainly have what you’re looking for.

I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did. Every character was lovable and relatable, and the story itself was such a fun, different take on app-based dating. Christina Lauren does it again!

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

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Happy Reading,

Sarah