XOXO, Gossip Girl

This was the last book I read in 2018, after a week and a half of sloth and gluttony and travel and ZERO READING because it turns out if I exhaust all of my introverted tendencies with an overabundance of alcohol and sugar and family and friend time (which I love!) because we’re only home a few times a year so we have to SQUEEZE IT ALL IN, I have no brainpower left to read. It’s quite sad, really.

I still feel a bit like I have no brainpower, even though we’ve been back for a while, because I didn’t work for two weeks, but I have been able to start reading again THANK GOD because what would I do without reading? (Turns out it’s color in swear word coloring books and binge watch Gossip Girl and Planet Earth.)

My first book of the year is My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren, who I somehow keep forgetting writes books I really like! I’ve only read the standalones, none of her series, and though my favorite is still Dating You, Hating You or Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, her books are always enjoyable.

This one centers on Millie and her group of four guy friends who are more like family: Reid, Chris, Ed, and Alex. They all work at the same university and she inherited them years back when she and her boyfriend broke up, because said boyfriend was an asshole and the guys wanted to trade up. Millie is just one of the guys, for the most part, but not in the annoying Gone-Girl-Cool-Girl way, more in the way that they all seem like her brothers.

All except Reid, who she not-so-accidentally hooks up with after a late night of drinking and games. You know how that happens.

They resolve to not make it weird, which always goes super well. At the same time, the group makes a pact to join an online dating service so they can find dates to go to a commencement dinner with them. They can’t skip this dinner, you see, because Obama will be the speaker and who would skip that? Remember Obama? Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Millie helps the guys create the perfect profiles, after they prove useless to do so, and yet cannot seem to make hers anything but cookie cutter and superficial, as she’s always played things close to the chest and is unwilling to let out too many details about herself. Unfortunately, she not only does this with her dating profile, but also with her friends, to Reid’s chagrin.

On a whim, Millie makes up a fake profile and matches with, YOU GUESSED IT, Reid. The story unfolds from there and, though predictable, the characters are fun enough to hang out with that I really didn’t care. Besides, isn’t the beauty of books like this the predictability? Sometimes I just want to read a book where two people pretend that they don’t have feelings for one another and then BOOM suddenly they realize the thing we’ve known the whole time. Thanks, Pride & Prejudice!

Read this: If you need a fun, quick read to get out of a book rut, to cleanse your mind after an intense book, OR JUST FOR FUN. You don’t need a reason, really. Reality is depressing enough right now, escape into this book WHENEVER YOU NEED.