You guys, THIS is my all-time favorite CL book.

(Yes, even more than JOSH & HAZEL'S GUIDE TO NOT DATING, which I really liked overall but had some issues with, particularly the ending.)

Why did I love MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND so much? Honestly, I'm not sure. Yes, it's a BFFs-to-lovers romance, which I'm a HUGE sucker for, but it also had a women's fiction bent to it, with the HEA hinging on the heroine's character arc. Yet it still solidly felt like a romance, not WF, and somehow really worked for me.

I liked the university/academia setting, which felt fresh and different from what I've read recently, and I cannot overstate how well these authors write. I have a short attention span these days, and it's hard for my editor-brain to really get lost in a story, but this one successfully pulled me in, leading off with the camaraderie and humor among the main cast of characters, and held me hostage with the developing romance and conflict that was so authentic and realistic, I *felt* the emotional impact when everything unraveled.

I think the pacing was so much tighter in this story than in JOSH & HAZEL'S, and if you want a master class in how to not rush an ending, look no further. The HEA here felt *earned,* which made it even more emotionally satisfying.

Maybe it was the right read at the right time for me—we all know how infrequently I give a book 5 stars—but my guess is I'll find even more things to love about MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND when I inevitably reread it.

RATING: A

My Favorite Half-Night Stand drew my attention from within the first few pages, with Millie’s fascination when she was little. Can’t say many kids are fascinated with serial killer’s, more specifically women serial killers.

I liked that Millie was just one of the guys. But of course Millie really wasn’t letting them in to her personal life. I felt like she was too closed off for someone who was close with these guys. I still liked her though. Reid was also a great main character, I liked how genuine he was. I really do think the authors did an amazing job of creating distinct characters with real characteristics. I always enjoy books where not just the main characters make the story but also those who surround them.

I’ve been a fan of most of Christina Lauren’s novels and this one is no exception. Each is unique but all of them are amazing.

This novel was funny, emotional and steamy.

An advance complimentary copy of this book was supplied by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

After reading Josh & Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, I had high hopes for this. I loved the way the book opened, with the group of best friends and the best friends to lovers troupe. However, I failed to connect with the main character Millie, and was annoyed with how she continued to mislead and catfish her best friend and member of the group, Reid. Maybe this is better for someone a bit younger then myself, but I felt that the pop culture references didn't hit the mark and the description of the dating apps a bit cringey.

The Delight

An emotionally distant college professor joins a dating site along with her group of geeky guy friends. Before anyone can even fill out their profiles, Millie and fellow college professor, Reid(the one in the group that’s not geeky), end up spending a wonderful half night together. Best friends, this was out of character for each of them. They decide to just stay friends. Easier said than done.

Review

Millie has intimacy issues. She refuses to open up about herself to pretty much anyone. Instead, she cracks jokes or changes the subject. All her circle of guy friends know this about her, but love her anyway. After a get together featuring monopoly and lots to drink, Millie and Reid end up in Millie’s bed. Both back off from each other initially and decide to stay platonic. Ah, the best laid plains and all that. Since the whole group needs a date for an upcoming college event, they all post their profiles online with a dating app. It’s not long before Millie is fending off advances from every creep on the site. The guys have better luck. She decides to make a new profile under another name and actually open herself up. Problem? She matches with Reid who has no idea who she is due to the side profile, vague picture she posted with it. What starts as her wanting Reid to figure it out due to clues in her responses, begins to take on a life of its own. And that’s all I am saying about the actual story.

The Characters! The circle of friends was to me almost the best part of the book. All of the guys and Millie are expertly fleshed out by the authors to the point I felt like I knew them. Millie is beautiful, a serial killer expert and teaches about it at the college. Reid is handsome, but still a geek. He has just received tenure at the same college where Millie works. Ed is the guy that never fully grew up. He’s a gamer and a geek and also works at the same college in Reid’s department. Alex is tall, dark, handsome and is a lady magnet at times. He even has an accent due to his Ecuadorian roots. He too, works at the college as a professor of biochemistry. Chris is good looking, African American, an all around good guy, and also a mentor for fellow chemists at the college. They all were a fun group and spent a lot of time with each other with weekly lunches and monopoly games that run for hours. Millie has no female friends, probably due to not wanting to open up to people. Other women would definitely not understand. Other characters are involved, but the story revolved around these five.

Of course, this ended up an amazing romance, but it’s also about Millie’s personal growth and learning to open up. I love the best friend trope anyway, so this was a particularly great read for me. There really wasn’t anything I didn’t like/love about the read. Christina Lauren are such good writers and this fit right in with all of their other fantastic works. I was late to the Christina Lauren party, but I am steadily working my way through their books and having a wonderful time doing it. If you are an adult that likes a book with a sizzling romance, great characters, and lots of humor, I highly recommend you read this book. Or any of their books for that matter. Just an aside to the authors, I would love it if some of these other characters got their own stories! 4.5 stars rounded up!

A fun, light read that I devoured in one day! I enjoyed getting both perspectives through first person, I had assumed I’d get only Millie and was pleasantly surprised to hear Reid’s perspective in the first person too. Loved the friend group dynamic. Overall a sweet romance that had me rooting for a happy ending.

So, here’s the thing. I admittedly love Christina Lauren and already think the duo can do no wrong. I’ve enjoyed almost everything they’ve written! This book is no exception. The premise is classic and something my tomboy self would have daydreamed about in high school. I relate heavily to Millie for more than just her “one of the guys” type personalities. Though I didn’t go through anything quite as traumatic as she did, I often found myself being quiet and observant. I built walls and not many could surpass them. This is where Christina and Lauren excel in their writing. They build characters up from nothing until you can do nothing but love and relate to them! They always seemed to know how to tug at the heartstrings without being too devastating. The book overall is playful and fun; a lighthearted romance that I could easily see turned into a rom-com. Another winner for me!

Okay. Wow. So.... Millie = Me. I mean, I’m not really in to serial killers (although I do love a good Criminal Minds binge) & (thank God) my mom is still living but, the whole emotional unavailability thing hit way close to home. I blame growing up as the only girl with five brothers. Millie’s reasons are way more legitimate but, still, I get her & I love Reid for her. Reading things from his perspective as well made me feel like I should probably thank my husband lol. Anyway, Christina Lauren did an amazing job with this one. It was as funny as it was angsty & the character development makes you feel like you know every character in real life. Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advanced read! It was definitely one of my favorites of the year!

Friends can be more then that right? It’s hard to imagine that two people can be intimate and a. Keep it a secret from their friends and b. Not let it effect their current relationship. Millie and Reid try to do that after they have a ‘half night stand’ after drinking too much.

This kind of story has been told quite a few times. The whole can two friends have a benefits and not let it ruin their friendship. But while that has been done, what sets this book apart is that Lauren uses more modern techniques to tell the story. She uses group chat, mentions popular dating sites, and really shows the hardships that come with trying to find a relationship. It’s funny, cute, and a really enjoyable read.

The story is predictable and there isn’t s whole lot of ‘turmoil’ but like I said before it’s very enjoyable to read. It’s a quick read that can be read in 1-2 sittings and the perfect book for when the winter months hit us hard.

In all honesty, this book isn’t ground breaking and I don’t have much to say about it. I enjoyed the story and found it confirmed that Christina Lauren is (are?) an author that I will add to be automatic read list. If you like friendship to more romance stories, I would recommend this book. I wouldn’t have minded it being longer if I could have had some more of the group friendship interactions because I greatly enjoyed them. I also wouldn’t mind getting books about each of the friends and their romances.

My favorite thing about this book is the quirky, witty, likable and intelligent characters!

Millie Morris is just one of the guys. She is a UC Santa Barbra professor who hangs with her group of male professor friends: Reid (her best friend), Ed, Alex and Chris. She is funny, intelligent yet emotionally guarded and doesn't like to reveal too much about herself. When their university decides to host a black-tie event, the group of friends decide that they need to find dates and begin by signing up to an online dating site. The guys in the group need help with their profiles which Millie happily writes for them. The profiles she writes for them are hits with the guys, she has captured their personalities and included their areas of interest. During all of this, Millie and Reid share a night (ahem * a half night) of passion but decide to stay friends and not become romantically involved. When Millie does her own limited and non-personal profile, the men in her group declare that it sucks and after receiving some dick pics, she decides to create another secret profile using her middle name where she will share and divulge information about herself. Things become interesting when the computer matches “Catherine” (Millie’s secret profile) and Reid! oops as in a big OOPS. Drama, angst, longing and secrets take center stage.

The characters live in the modern digital age, so it was fun to read not only their chats, but the online dating messages as well. The group of friends is cohesive and have a lot of fun together. I enjoyed their chats and found them to be clever and showcased each character sense of humor and intellect. The book is also told through Millie and Reid's POV which helps the reader get to know each character even more, but we also root for them. When I wasn't rooting for them, I was wishing I could shake each of them! The writing duo of Christina Lauren have the gift of creating fun, witty and interesting characters that are instantly likable and ones we want to root for. There is angst, there is love, there is laughter and there are revelations.

I found this book to be a fun fast read. It was no surprise how the book ended, but gosh, was it fun watching the characters get there. This book did not disappoint and succeeded in not only entertaining me but causing me to want to binge read the rest of these Authors books! Another HUGE plus for me was that the ending did not feel rushed. My biggest complaint with any books in the romance genre is the rushed endings. The ending in this book felt natural and not rushed in any way. The pacing was spot on!
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Thank you to Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

4 fun stars!

I must say, I was expecting a sort of cheesy rom-com going into this book. My Favorite Half Night Stand was definitely a rom-com, but far from cheesy. It was super fun and cute! I love books about friendships. What I wouldn’t give to have a group of friends like Millie, Reid, Chris, Alex and Ed to hangout with on the regular! Don’t get me wrong...I love my friends, but there’s just something about this fivesome that makes you kinda envious.

This is my first Christina Lauren book. I love the fact that these two best friends combined their first names into one name to create a writing duo. I definitely look forward to reading more from them.

My Favorite Half Night Stand was enjoyable from the first page to the last. I laughed out loud quite a few times. Predictable? Of course! What rom-com isn’t? That didn’t take away from any of the fun I had reading it. It was a quick, easy read that was a nice break from my usual thrillers - especially during this time of year. I think it would make a great movie too!

A Traveling Sisters group read. 😊

Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and Christina Lauren for the ARC in exchange for my review.

I really loved this book. Christina Lauren, this duo is magic. They've created a story about being emotionally unavailable, friendships, uncanny love and forgiveness. Sometimes cheesy, but I laughed out loud and smiled my way through this book. So many odd moments make this a solid read for me. I would love to have this friendship, 4 friends, different backgrounds, different needs but always being there for one another. I recommend this one as a palate cleanser or when you're in the mood for a feel good story with a happy ending (they do happen sometimes).

Well, that was adorable. This was my first Christina Lauren book, and now I definitely will be reading the others. It was a super fast read. Not anything groundbreaking, but cute without being too sappy.

Millie is a college professor, and her four best friends are guys. Millie is totally confident in their platonic status, until the night when wine and loneliness lead her to sleep with one of them. Reid has always been the one she felt closest too, but they're both shocked by how right it feels. They insist it's only a one night thing, until it happens again. And then again. But Millie is a closed book when it comes to feelings and problems, and Reid doesn't want a relationship that's not open and honest. Things get complicated when Millie matches up with Reid on a dating app...under a false name. Through their messages she's able to open up about herself to him for the first time, but will it all come crashing down when Reid finds out she's been lying?

As I said, it's super cute. The sex isn't too graphic, there's character growth, humor, tension, Reid is utterly swoony and Millie isn't a perfect Mary Sue. I highly recommend!

This was a light-hearted rom-com. Millie and her four male colleagues (and friends) need to find dates for a work event, so they sign up to a dating website. When Millie creates a profile under a different name and and uses a mysterious photo, she gets matched with her best friend Reid.

When Millie and Reid start communicating through the dating website they click immediately and have the best conversations but Reid has no idea he’s been chatting with Millie.

Outside the website, they’re attracted to each other but factors are preventing these two from throwing themselves into a relationship.

I liked the humorous dialogue in the book, there’s some back and forth banter that’s entertaining. My favorite sections were the group texts, excellent dynamic. This book would make a great, fun movie adaptation.

Overall, I enjoyed it and recommend it to readers of romantic and contemporary fiction.

Received ARC from the publisher via Netgalley

Super cute and fun, My Favorite Half-Night Stand was enjoyable from start to finish.

I absolutely adored Millie and Reid’s friend group. All my favorite parts were when they were all together or group messaging. They were funny, but could also be really supportive. In my younger years, I had a lot of very platonic guy friends and some of the conversations they have in this book reminded me so much of hanging out with my friends and being the only girl in the group. I loved how relatable they were.

I liked Millie and Reid together, too. They had a closer friendship than Millie had with the other guys and I really enjoyed their banter and how they were with each other. I didn’t love their half-night stands, but seeing as that’s the title of the book, I knew what I was getting myself into. The scenes were more graphic than I wanted, but not that bad as it could have been since I was expecting it. And of course, a large part of the target audience will be all about it.

So where it went a little downhill for me was Millie’s absolute inability to talk about anything emotionally heavy and how the online dating storyline was extremely similar to another book I’ve read recently. I didn’t like Millie’s deceit, even though she had good intentions, and I knew that it would eventually blow up in her face. She really frustrated me at times with her refusal to communicate, too. However, I did like that she really learned some lessons and started to grow as a person because of what happened.

Overall, I really enjoyed My Favorite Half-Night Stand. I liked the romance and the humor and the characters. The group of friends is the reason why I’m upping my rating a little bit more than I thought I would originally give it. Christina Lauren fans will definitely want to give this one a try, as will other Romance/Contemporary readers.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 4 Stars

I had never read a book by Christina Lauren before, but I knew she wrote in the modern romance, chick lit and new adult genres. I did, therefore, expect an easy-to-read, fluffy romance, which would also hopefully be funny. Bridget Jones Diaries and the Shopaholic series are the unwritten standard setters for me in this genre in terms of the overall entertainment value.

First of all, I was surprised to see that My Favorite Half-Night Stand has 400 pages. It certainly did not read like it did. I finished it easily in a couple of days. Secondly, it definitely does not measure up to some of the better books in the genre, which makes me wonder what the fuss is all about with Christina Lauren's books. I will have to read some others and see if they are any better.

This novel focuses on a group of four friends (four men and one woman) who on a whim decide to try online dating in order to secure partners for an upcoming work event. The story gets a bit more complicated after Millie (the only female in the group) hooks up with Reid (one of the four male friends). They do decide that it would be better to keep their relationship strictly platonic, but then they also get matched by the dating app. As they start communicating via the app, only one of them knows the real identities behind their online personalities.

Overall, I would say this is not the worst book I've ever read, but it is definitely not the best. It is what it is: a cheesy romance novel with some cringy and hard to believe situations. It is however a quick read and helps pass the time while sitting on a long flight. 3 out of 5 stars.

I received an advanced e-copy of the novel from NetGalley.com. It will be available for purchase in December.

Wow what a great story with amazing characters that you are guaranteed to fall in love with! I adore Millie and Reid!! Both of these characters are so great but I especially love how complex Millie is and just everything about her. I love Reid's dilemma and how that all turns out and where the story goes. All the friends in their group bring something extra to this story line and it truly was so much fun to read. I really like that this book takes a different angle on relationships and is just so much fun while still giving us some super sexy times.

Thank you to Netgalley/Publisher for this ARC!

I really enjoyed this happy book that really made me laugh out loud.
This is a rom-com for the ages!
The plot is a bit predictable, but how can you not love the quirky loveable characters.

This was a light read that at the end of the book I was smiling :)

Linda’s Book Obsession Reviews “My Favorite Half-Night Stand” by Christina Lauren

Christina Lauren, Author(s) of “My Favorite Half-Night Stand” has written a unique, witty, amusing, enjoyable and entertaining novel. The Genres for this novel are Contemporary Romance, Fiction, Humor,and New Adult. The author(s) describe the colorful characters as quirky, slightly dysfunctional, and complex.

The author(s) tackle the subject of on-line dating today for late twenties and thirty year olds, and the trials and tribulations that go along with that. Also the question of can male and female be friends and have half- benefits? I did have some laugh out loud moments that caught both my husband’s and dog’s attention.

Millie Morris is just one of the guys and her best friends are a group of men, that are professionals. Millie is a specialist: WAIT FOR IT: “a female killer expert”, a Professor, no less. Millie has a great sense of humor, and wit, but is seriously lacking getting personal skills. Millie keeps everything about herself quiet. When the group of friends get together to celebrate, a special black tie event is brought up. How are they going to get dates? It is decided that they will try on-line dating. Millie has to brush up her friend’s profiles.

Millie finds that Reid Campbell, one of her buddies seems more attractive than usually. After the group meets, Reid takes a “tipsy” Millie home and the two have a half night stand of sex. The two immediately regret and worry that this could hurt their friendship, and decide that will be the end of that.

Millie finds it easiest to change her On-line profile to Catherine, her middle name, and finds that she is 98% compatible with one man, but the problem is she knows him. I would recommend this fun-loving and entertaining story to those readers who enjoy novels with Romance and Humor. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.
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PUBLISHED BY LINDASBOOKOBSESSION

My Favorite Half-Night Stand, written by Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, who is better known as Christina Lauren, is a friends to lovers romantic comedy that has a hilarious take on the online dating scene. This is the first book by this author that I have read, and I was unable to put it down…read it in a day and a half.

Millie is a well-respected college professor, her field of study is female serial killers so she smart, right? Well, she may be book smart, but not so bright in her personal life. She experienced a major tragedy during her childhood which has resulted in her being emotionally stunted, not letting friends get to know the real Millie. Although Millie is flawed and did some unacceptable things I did like her, for me, it just made her character authentic. Her four best friends, all guys, Reid, Ed, Alex and Chris, are also professors at the same university. They are all cute somewhat geeky guys. I really love the relationship that they all share and felt that they all really care about one another. Reid and Millie share a special bond, best friends absolutely, and then there was that little misstep of that half night-stand. I definitely agree with Millie, Reid is both brilliant and beautiful.

The group needs to find dates for at the university’s formal event, with no prospects they turn to an online dating site. That's when things get interesting. Profiles are written, with some get more attention than others and some getting unwanted attention, which had me cracking up. Millie and Reid get tangled up in the online dating scene which creates some fascinating complexities in their friendship. There is so much more I could write about that, but I wouldn't want to ruin the fun of the read.
I loved the whole storyline of this book. These authors did a super job of inserting pop culture references throughout this well written well thought out book. Character development was expertly done, the characters growing and maturing throughout the book. Written from a dual point of view, which happens to be my favorite, the authors uniquely give the reader a glimpse of the innermost thoughts of these two very complex characters. In conclusion, My Favorite Half-Night Stand was a fun, sexy read with the perfect amount of angsts. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

***I kindly received an ARC of this book by way of NetGalley/publisher/author. I was not contacted, asked or required to leave a review to read this book. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. This review is my honest opinion .***