Immediately I loved the nerdiness of the main characters. Millie and Reid are professors teaching Criminology and Neurobiology and Millie, the female lead is so into serial killers. So the quirky stuff really sold me early on, but it didn’t continue through the story like I’d hoped. I wanted their occupations to be a bit more than “teacher” but that’s what it boiled down to.

I also liked the idea of them going from friends to lovers. I thought they had great chemistry and I really wanted to see how the twist, needing date for this huge gala, would work to get them together. I really liked seeing both Millie’s and Reid’s point of view, and I enjoyed the light story from beginning to end.

I was expecting a little more than the story delivered. It started out great with quirky characters and an interesting enough premise, but while the romance built steam, the foundation lost its focus. I enjoyed the story and the characters, but the pace and plot got lost for me and the romance wasn’t as deep or as complicated as I was expecting.

This was a cute story. I really enjoyed the friends-to-more storyline. I can't wait to see what else this duo comes out with.

After I read Roomies, I promised to add more Christina Lauren to my Mt. TBR and I delivered on it in 2018. I requested and received ARCs of all their new books and was delighted with all of them. Although I favor Josh & Hazel's Guide to Not Dating the most, My Favorite Half-Night Stand is not far behind.

I know a little something about online dating as both my hubby and I had experience in it. Before our success with each other, we had to go through duds. The deception, the placing your best self onscreen, those were normal. The honesty, the freedom to be able to confide to a virtual stranger, those were present too. It's the latter reason why we eventually clicked. This is why the build-up of Millie's and Reid's relationship touches a chord. As in, I can totally relate and understand both their motivations.

Fantastic writing, believable/relatable/lovable/fully fleshed-out characters who are strong yet vulnerable at the same time, loads of humor, enough angst and family drama, awesome friendship, steamy sexytimes, and a lot more. Easy five stars.

My Half Night Stand was a fun quick read. And though not my favorite book by Christina Lauren, I still found myself captivated by the story nonetheless. Millie and her four guy friends, Reid, Ed, Alex, and Chris, need dates for an upcoming benefit at the college. To achieve this they all decide to give online dating a try. Through a few twists of events Millie and Reid end up being matched to each other, except Reid doesn’t know. In real life they also have a complicated but growing interest in each other.

Some of the things I liked about this story was the friendships they had with each other and the look at online dating. I also really loved Reid. He was a well written character. However I wasn’t a huge fan of Millie. She gets away with some truly terrible things and her friends just go with it. She had some growth as a character but it wasn’t enough to win me over.

This was in the category of another fast paced read with a few flaws. Either, I still recommend it if you’re looking for something fun.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Where do I even begin with this one? I'm so used to reading romances where the hero is emotionally messed up or stunted because He's Got Reasons, so it was sort of a refreshing change of pace to have the heroine be the one with the tragic backstory that makes her totally emotionally unavailable and leaves the guy wanting more.

My Favorite Half-Night Stand is told in the first person present tense POV, and alternates between Millie's perspective and Reid's so the reader gets the full impact of knowing the inner thoughts and feelings of both main characters. So while Millie is closed off and doesn't share anything deeper about herself with her closely knit friend group, the reader get to know exactly why she's like that and wow, I really just want to give Millie a really big hug. She's also deeply weird, which I adore. I mean, come on, her specialization is lady serial killers - what's not to love?! Another thing I really love to see in a great book is character growth, and Millie goes through a lot of it.

Even though the book is about both Millie and Reid and their relationship and romance, in a lot of ways I feel like Millie is truly the main character of this one. Reid is sort of like the superman of their little Justice League friend group - he's hot and for some reason everyone wants all up on that, but he's not actually that terribly memorable. Like right now, trying to think of some things to say about him, what's jumping to mind is him gathering up dishes at every group party thing they had, and being kind of dumb about women. If that doesn't sound like Clark Kent... He's great, he just didn't stand out as anything super spectacular. Like I couldn't tell you why he's any more amazing than their buddy Chris (though they're both clearly supposed to be the better options over Alex and Ed, haha). Reid's Superman handsome blandness is why I dropped my rating from a full 5 stars to 4.5 stars - I just felt like he could have been a little more impactful. Again, don't get me wrong, he's GREAT. He just is a little too wholesome cornfed Iowa boy for my tastes, and needs a little chili pepper in his hot cocoa or something.

The last 15-20% of this book had me lying in bed reading, "one more chapter"ing myself over and over again with tears sliding down my face, because my heart hurt and I couldn't go to bed with the way things were. I just couldn't! So I stayed up until I'd turned the final page and read the whole book, a good hour and a half past my bedtime. Oops. And then I was still crying, but also smiling, and that's all I'll say about that because nobody likes spoilers. GO read this book!

I was pretty underwhelmed by this one. I liked the characters fine, and the story line was fine, everything was just fine. I was enjoying the writing, which is always well done, until I couldn't shake the discomfort I felt for both Millie and Reid because of the continued deceit. I skimmed some and powered through the resolution and just feel pretty meh about the whole thing. Not my favorite CL book, but it won't be my last I'm sure

I was a little nervous to read this one because I didn’t love Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, but I’m so happy and relieved to say I enjoyed this one a lot!

It was exactly what I needed and a total pick-me-up during a rough time. It made me laugh out loud so much and I completely fell in love with this group of friends. I’m officially on the hunt for my own Reid, Alex, Chris, and Ed who will let me be their Millie.

Millie has some pretty big things she needs to work through in this book. She keeps her feelings really close to her chest and really doesn’t share them with anyone, not even her closest friends.

Sometimes when characters have major issues like this, the author will have the solution or the issue fixed/resolved by the significant other or the relationship. But that’s usually not how it works in real life nor is that particularly healthy. When you have deep-seated issues and insecurities you need work through, it’s best and smartest (if you have the means) to get professional help. I’m glad the authors have Millie eventually get the help she needs, and doesn’t make Reid the solution to her problems.

Reid also had to let go of some unrealistic expectations he had of Millie. She wasn’t going to all of a sudden turn into an open book of sharing her thoughts and feelings. It’d be work and he’d need patience to allow her the chance to learn and grow. It took a while but he knows, in the end, she’s worth that work and waiting and patience. And Millie knew Reid was worth her working to be better.

Friends-to-lovers is a favorite trope of mine. I especially enjoyed this one, because the characters didn’t try to lie to themselves and tell themselves it was “just sex.” While it took them quite a while to be honest with each other, they both knew early on they were catching some deeper feelings.

It didn’t really give too much of a depiction of online-dating, as it focused on Millie and Reid interacting. And I do understand why some people had issues with Millie basically cat-fishing Reid. It is deceitful. I was able to suspend real-life for awhile though while reading it, and it didn’t bother me as much as it did some others.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It made me laugh and I loved all the guys! This group of friends is an amazing support system for each other and I’m frankly a bit jealous I don’t have a close-knit group as they do.

If you’re looking for something light and fun to read over the holidays, definitely pick this one up!

Jessica Curtis

To  charmedlfe@cox.net  

My favorite half night stand5:55 PM

My Favorite Half Night Stand by Christina Lauren follows Millie Morris and her friends who all are professors at UC Santa Barbara. Millie is your near cookie cutter vision of a ‘guys gal’ and one that in her opinion is viewed as one of the guys. When a university event comes up, Millie and the rest of the guys decide they need to find dates for the event as it is a fancy black tie gala. The group all agree to join an online dating site to find their date for the event. This is when the problems start. See what ends up happening is after the pact is made, Millie and her best guy friend Reid end up sleeping together… which only makes things all that more interesting.

 

Even though both Millie and Reid agree that they are better suited as friends, the mess of sorting through their own emotions comes to be a problem as they work through the online dating world and their avoided feelings that are growing for each other. Especially when Millie creates a second dating profile on the site and ends up being matched with Reid. At first it was meant to be a joke but then the joke goes out of Millie’s control and her alias “Catherine” and Reid really become virtually close.

 

Millie has to make the decision, can she face her fears of opening up to the ones she loves and letting them in or risk losing her best friend perhaps for forever. In the great writing style that Christina Lauren fans have come to love and adore, My Favorite Half Night Stand is a funny and relatable read for today’s society. I could relate to so much of Millie’s antics and as always adored all of the characters. If you are a fan of Christina Lauren or modern day romantic comedy in your reads, pick this one up, you will not be disappointed!

I've really enjoyed every Christina Lauren book I've ever picked up and My Favorite Half-Night Stand was no different. It was funny and romantic and I loved all the characters. I liked the online dating aspect of the book and I'm always a sucker for friends to lovers book. Already recommended my library purchase the book!

Millie is your overall guys girl, to the point that all of her friends are guys. After a "slip up" with one of her best friends, Reid, they decide to say that it was one time thing and not to mention it again. The group decides to actually bring dates to a big party being thrown by their work. They decide to try their hand at online dating in order to find a date to this event. Millie writes the dating profiles for everyone and two for herself., after the first one flops. The second one gets matched up with Reid! And will they, won't they, will she tell him, will he figure it out begins from their. I give this book a solid 3.75 to 4 stars. I really enjoyed it. I am not a big fan of story lines where one of the characters is lying to the other throughout the book. So catfishing story lines are not my favorite. However, the dynamic duo of Christina Lauren just keeps getting better and better. Did I like this more than Josh and Hazel, unfortunately not. Hazel is just a character that no one else is like. But Christina Lauren's characters just seem like real people to the point they feel like they are jumping off of the page. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Not my favorite Christina Lauren by any stretch but it's an enjoyable read nonetheless. I'm a sucker for friends-to-lovers romance so this was right up my alley. So why only 3 stars? Well, as much as I did like the characters and enjoy the story, there wasn't anything that set it apart either.

The humor was okay. The chemistry? Okay. But it lacked that extra something that makes your toes curl and swoon. So as much as I want to give this a higher rating because I love the trope, it's just not enough.

Second to their previous novel this year, this novel was my favorite Rom-Com read. I adore this duo and I hope they never stop writing novels because I will never stop reading them!

Okay. I have to say, I need a novel for EACH of the secondaries in this read! ALL OF THEM PLEASE. Really, I mean it. All of them.

I laughed with each and every chapter of this book. On top of this I am head over heels involve with the actual words int his read. Millie and Reid were amazing. I could stop yelling at my book while was reading. Half the time I was routing for the characters and the other half I ke@Christinalpt screaming at the stupid choices they were making. So very much like real life. At the end fo the day though, this novel was hilarious and fun and I can’t wait to see what we get next.

Great story! I loved the chemistry & the comedy between the characters. I was hooked from the start of the book.

Christina Lauren create genuinely endearing characters and write with such witty snark, humor and laugh out loud moments that I can't get enough! In My Favorite Half-Night Stand we meet Millie and her male BFF Reid as they explore the triumphs and pitfalls of friendship and online dating.

Millie is intelligent, witty and presumably "one of the guys" amongst her close group of male friends. One of the things I enjoyed most about her was her career. As an avid fan of shows like Criminal Minds I loved that she was a criminology professor and into female serial killers. Although you might imagine that isn't the best ice breaker on a first date.

Millie is guarded and emotionally stunted. Her childhood experiences taught her to bottle up her emotions, compartmentalize them and hide them away. None of this bodes well for her adult relationships. She desires to let her walls down and finally share her true self with someone but she simply doesn't know how.

Reid is the opposite of Millie. He is fully in touch with his feelings and not afraid to show them. Amongst their groups of friends he is known as the sensitive one. You know the saying "opposites attract"? Well it's alive and well here.

Millie and Reid have a special bond. She's as much "herself" as she allows herself to be with anyone with him. Reid is her rock. He is always there for her. So when one night of passionate, drunken sex threatens to change things, Millie freaks. She isn't ready to lose her best friend over sex. No matter how great it was. Or is she?

With a big gala looming over the single group of friends. They decide to turn to online dating. Millie pens the group's profiles, writing hers superficially. It's no surprise hers leads her to receive various inappropriate pictures and lewd offers. She decides to put herself out there and pens a new one bearing her middle name, Catherine, in secret. Surprise - her new profile is a match with none other than Reid!

Written exchanges take place between "Catherine" and Reid. Under the guise of this new persona Millie is able to share more of herself with Reid than she ever has in person. Unfortunately, as the two correspond via the online dating app, things continue to heat up between them in real life causing them to question everything. Are they meant to be more than friends? How will Reid feel when he finds out the truth about Millie/Catherine? Is Millie capable of sharing her emotions and truly letting Reid into her heart?

This was a fun read that I absolutely devoured as I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I was rooting for Millie and Reid the entire time. It was fun to see the twist of dynamics here with the guy being the sensitive one and the woman being closed off. There were so many hilarious texts and one-liners between the friends that made me laugh out loud. In short, this was a sweet, sexy & funny read. Pick it up, lose yourself in it.

OMG! How did I only start reading Christina Lauren books? They are the cutest ever!

I loved this book. I jumped on reading this book with some of my new bookstagramer friends who were doing a buddy read on this book. I quickly jumped on netgalley and found the book and got approved and started reading. I read it in one day and 2 weeks before the discussion.

Reid and Millie are the cutest and I really hoped that they would end up together from the first page. I loved the dialogue between all the characters and the chat dialogue. It almost felt like the Big Bang Theory cast all looking for dates using online dating service.

Of course Reid is a normal guy and doesn't realize that Millie was Catherine. Of course he gets mad at her since almost everyone knew but him. It's just such a cute book in general.

It kinda reminded me of my husband and mine story. How we started off as friends and then started dating after years of friendship. We actually had about 5 fake dates before we started dating.

I'm now working on reading all the rest of Christina Lauren's books.

5 stars!!!

I love Christina Lauren, so I was particularly excited to be provided an egalley of My Favorite Half-Night Stand. It did not disappoint! Millie and Reid are Best Best Friends within a group of Best Friends that all work at a California college. They have a half-night stand one night, and then have to navigate online dating while also sort of Friends With Benefitsing with each other. The banter and sexy scenes between Reid and Millie are wonderful, but I was LOLing on public transportation at the conversations between the group of friends. I think this is a decent depiction of adult friendship – where you give each other a hard time, and pick on each other, but you’re also there when you need each other. I truly hope we get the stories for the others in the group.

★★ 3.5 stars! ★★

Can men and women ever truly be ‘just friends’? And what happens if you give in to one glorious night of temptation? That’s exactly what The Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren tackles, along with the added twist of online dating thrown in.

Mille and Reid are best friends and professors at the same school. Even though they social, they’ve never really thought of one another as a potential love interest. They get along well and have chemistry, so why not? After an ill-advised alcohol-induced ‘half-night stand’, Millie and Reid have to navigate the pitfalls of best friends crossing the line into more and trying to maintain their relationship with each other as well as the guys within their circle.

Reid is an easy-going guy looking for more than just a superficial relationship and Millie is a closed book when it comes to anything personal. When the group decides that they need to find dates for a university event, they turn to the world of online dating. Instead of giving their budding physical relationship a go, Reid and Millie agree to try to find a potential love interest through an app. And herein lies the problem—Reid and Millie don’t necessarily want to date other people, but they can’t figure out if their relationship will work in the long run.

While I enjoyed most of My Favorite Half-Night Stand, I have to be honest and say that it isn’t my favorite CLo book ever. After the utterly amazing Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, I feel like my expectations were set at an all-time high and it’s hard to say whether that influenced my overall feelings for Millie and Reid. I despise the idea of catfishing a friend and that’s essentially what Millie does to poor, unassuming Reid. I totally understand that Millie is emotionally stunted, but that seemed low even for her.

In short, the writing is stellar as usual and the characters as quirky as ever, so I really wish I could have overlooked the problems I had with the lying (and the continuing to lie) to your so-called best friend(s). I know that I’m in the minority with this opinion, so I highly recommend checking out Half-Night Stand and deciding for yourself.

My 411: This was a fun read by Christina Lauren. Which isn’t a surprise! This is a pack of friends we haven’t met before in previous books, and it was refreshing meeting a new group of people. As someone who works in higher education, I loved that they all worked at a university and showcased how unique the work environment is. These friends have a dynamic that grew over time but is extremely comfortable and, much like real life, too comfortable. It’s a story that encourages going outside your comfort zones. It also details how awkward online dating is! Thank you, Christina Lauren, for showing a real snap of what it’s like. I internally cringed between the awkward moments of “Catherine,” Millie and Reid, but I couldn’t stop reading! I hope there’s going to be more books in the series for the friends, because I fell in love with each of them! (See a print excerpt on HEA from My Favorite Half-Night Stand and listen to an audio excerpt.)

This. Book. Was. Everything. I had heard about Christina Lauren because my friend was reading Roomies and she raved about it. I saw this book on goodreads and immediately entered the giveaway. Luckily, I was given the opportunity to read it through NetGalley and I read it in less than 24 hours, even during the intermissions of a hockey game I was attending. Millie's character was so likable and easy to connect too but that's probably because I, too, have a weird fascination with serial killers. I felt like the friendship dynamic was incredibly realistic and I could sense the vibes that the characters would've been feeling. I love Reid, Chris, Ed. and Alex, all for different reasons and they brought their own flavor. They had a hilarious back and forth and the journey of online dating was too true for words. I didn't expect so many twists but I thought they were tasteful. It definitely had me wanting a follow up!

A novel that gives the reader conflicting emotions particularly best friends-to-lovers is a classic trope that is a fan favorite. That being said, there was a lot of other tropes that ruined the enjoyment of this novel.

First and foremost, the characters were pretty cringy. It didn’t matter if it was their out of place dialogue or awkward antic, as a whole they felt just cringy and unlikable. Not to mention the drama/conflict of the story is brought about because the heroine catfishes her best friend. People can be awkward, that’s normal. But instead of letting him know it’s her, she continues to lie to him. The whole scenario just leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.

Based on the author’s track record, she seems to be a beloved contemporary romance author but this novel just didn’t do it for me.