Review: My Favorite Half-Night Stand

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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, Millie 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.

Genre: contemporary romance

Publication date: December 2018

Mature content: yes

Review: I loved this book. As with all of the other books by the same authors I've read before, the first part of the story is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Especially when Reid asks Millie to reply to her own messages (though, to be honest, he has no idea she sent them in the first place) on a dating site, because he doesn't know this "Catherine" he's 98% compatible with is really Millie in disguise. Only...it's not that much of a disguise either - instead, it's the only way Millie is able to open up and talk about herself, telling Reid things he'd never hear about otherwise.

But of course lies never lead you anywhere but to sorrow and grief, and so the second part of the book is slightly more serious, passing on important messages about love, friendship, second chances, and the value of honesty in relationships of any kind.

It's clear right from the start that Reid and Millie are perfect for each other, and under that perspective the end of the book is obviously a bit predictable, But the journey is as important as the destination, and the journey in this case is totally worth reading.

My Favorite Half-Night Stand is funny, witty and full of memorably moments. Recommended.  

Happy readings,