**Review will be posted on my blog on 3/5/20**

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for giving me a chance to read this eARC.

I’ve finally read my first Christina Lauren book!

We have Carey and James, assistants to mega remodeling and design stars Melissa and Rusty Tripp. The Tripps are releasing a book about marriage and starring in there own Netflix show while their own lives are falling apart. Carey and James are tasked to keep the Tripps together and not spoil everything before the tv show debut but then everything goes to hell at the end of the book tour.

But while everything is coming apart at the seems, Carey and James find a little comfort and respite with each other. And thank goodness for that! 😍


I can’t believe I haven’t read a book from this author duo until now. After reading this book, I want to read everything they’ve written. Please suggest below what I should read first!
I love Carey and totally understand why she won’t leave the Tripps even if she’s treated horribly. I love her talent, how she can still find and way to laugh and smile through her stress, and how she takes back her power at the end.
James was such a fun character because he’s straight-laced compared to Carey, yet I understood his anxieties too. And he was so sweet with Carey – maybe I read too many books with alpha makes, but I liked how James is the hot nerd. 🔥 Smart and good looking? Yes.
Carey and James together make a great team. They are sexy, smart and sweet together, a great combination. I love them together.
The way the book is written, I thought I was reading a murder mystery at first. 🤣 I mean it makes you wonder what you are reading in the first few chapters! But I like how it unfolded and came to a nice ending.

Melly Tripp is a trip! 🙄 Ugh that woman – I did not like her but I can see how she went from someone nice that Carey looked up to, to what she is now that she has fame and wealth. It’s sad seeing what she and Rusty has become, but wow…Melly was something else.
Like I mentioned before, the way it’s written, I thought I was reading a murder mystery or something like it. I just knew something bad happened but what? But I eventually liked how it unfolded.

I couldn’t put this book down and I was totally invested with Carey and James. I loved how their relationship grew and how when it went to the next level it was hot, awkward too, but they were mature about it. And I loved how all the drama blew up in quite a fiery explosion because it was building throughout the book with Melly and Rusty’s toxic relationship and Carey and James in close proximity to them. Then at the end, it gave me all the feels I love in a good romance book. I got a happy ending and it made me a new fan of Christina Lauren. I look forward to reading more of their books!

When I started this book and realized it was about home renovation super couple, I IMMEDIATELY imagined Melissa and Rusty Tripp as Joanna and Chip Gaines. Despite the many instances of describing Melissa’s long, blonde hair, I could NOT get them out of my head. At first I thought it would negatively impact my reading experience, but once I got to know them, it did not.

I can always count on Christina Lauren to write likable characters with great chemistry, at varying levels of heat (this one falls, in my opinion, below The Unhoneymooners, but many fire emojis above Twice in a Blue Moon), and I really enjoyed Carey and Jake and the trouble they found themselves in as they struggled to babysit Melissa and Rusty on their press tour. Along with silliness, and some truly laugh out loud bits, this book was also pretty poignant. The parts I found most interesting were the struggles Melissa and Rusty faced with their public personas verses their private lives. Their marriage was crumbling, yet they were forced to pretend otherwise to keep “the machine” going. While we may not all be home reno moguls, there is definitely something to be empathized with and learned from the idea of the images we all project to the world versus who we really are.

The Honey-Don’t List is another WIN for my favorite duo, Christina Lauren!

“The Honey-Don’t List” by Christina Lauren
A fun contemporary love/hate story with some interesting plot twists. I received an ARC of this story from the publisher via NetGalley with the request that an honest review would express my opinion(s). I did thoroughly enjoy my time with Carey & James, and Melly & Russ as they waded through their lives divining where they are, where they want to be, and the changes necessary to make their lives what they want them to be. Life can be rather difficult when you come up for air and discover where you are. Note: there is some spice in this story. Happy Reading ! !

Usually I am a fan, but this one missed the mark for me. I didn't like any of the characters and honestly it felt like less of a romance and more of an HGTV series. Maybe if you're into those shows you'd enjoy this book more than I did.

Carey and James are assistants to the hottest couple on home improvement shows since the Gaineses, Melissa and Russ. Just as Melly and Russ are embarking on a promotional tour for their book about their wonderful marriage and are about to launch a brand new show, Carey and James walk in on Russ and another woman who works on the show. Now they are stuck together on a tour bus while a 20+ year-long marriage implodes, and that's not the only secret. Carey has been the brains behind Melissa's designs for years.

In perfect Christina Lauren style, Carey and James are polar opposites who fall for one another amid the implosion of their bosses' lives. It starts out simply: they understand what it's like to work for the demanding team and with their NDAs, even being honest in therapy is out of the question. And they both need their jobs.

Carey has only ever worked for Russ and Melissa - since she was 16 - and has no education or other job skills. She also needs the insurance. James left a firm that was destroyed by shady dealings and has few options until there is something else on his resume. Plus, he has been offered a producer credit if they can get the new show into a second season. Time to hide the evidence of Russ and Melly's shortcomings.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

So this started off slow, I have to admit, I didn’t have high hopes. I wasn’t sure - was this book about Carey and James or Melissa (Melly) and Russell (Rusty)? Who did I want it to be about? But the more I read I think it becomes clear that this is James and Carey’s story but it’s Rusty and Melly’s story too. It’s a romance, sure, but it’s much more than that. This is a story of two couples - one that has taken a path from a loving couple to something much different - the other, a new couple, if you can even call them that, learning about each other, leaning on each other. They are trying to figure out how to navigate their new relationship while working for Melly and Rusty.
This went in a direction that I didn’t see coming. It was so well written. I have only read a couple other books by CL and I forgot the brilliance of the writing. It’s in full effect with this one. Bravo!

A great idea but could have been so much more.

Who hasn’t watched the couples on those home improvement shows and envied the happy camaraderie, working so closely together to make something beautiful, and thought, I want that. But is everything as wonderful as we are made to believe?

In The Honey-Don’t List, our dream couple, Mel and Rusty Tripp have long ago given up on their marriage, at least privately. Publicly, they are just about to start their own spinoff series as well as the promotion tour on their new self-help book for a happy marriage. If only the two of them can spend more than five minutes together without fighting so that they can keep fooling their adoring fans.

As the book tour starts, the producers of the new show insist that their assistants, Carey and James go on the tour with them to keep them in line and keep their fights out of the public eye. Of course, being trapped together on a small bus with a couple who can’t stand each other will be a fun time for all concerned and as things devolve, will they be able to keep it together long enough to get the new show renewed with a second season or is the whole thing doomed from the moment they take that first step on a their own personal highway to hell?

While this was a great premise for a story, it didn’t make it all the way through to a good romance. I liked how the story is broken up with quick chapters that are basically police interviews of either Carey or James. Something big happens on this bus trip, and you need to know what happened that landed them under police inquiry–assault? murder? I wanted to know where that was heading. And you would forget while we read tge story of what was happening between Rusty and Mel but then you’d get the end of a chapter and remember, that’s right they’re telling the police what happened. It was a good hook but not enough to make up for an overall ho-hum story.

Because the real story isn’t truly about Mel and Rusty, the focus of their story is their assistants: Carey and James. This is an enemy-to-lover story, but we never really get the whole enemy thing down. It is more James thought he was too good to be an assistant and Carey just didn’t like him because of his attitude but secretly she admitted that he was too smart/good looking to be on the same level as her as simply an assistant. I think where it didn’t work for me is that both James and Carey felt stuck in their jobs and the last straw was being forced to babysit the Tripps on this bus tour. Problem is that I couldn’t get behind their feelings of being boxed in with these jobs.

James was an engineer and worked several years after graduating with a firm that just went through a scandal for stealing pensions. While we never get real details of what James engineered, we know for certain he didn’t engineer their finances. James applied for a job as an engineer with the home improvement show (again engineering what? don’t know) but Mel saw him and hired him as James’s assistant with empty promises of doing engineer work. James jumped on it because he couldn’t get another job at an engineering firm. What? He was an entry-level employee at a firm where the CEO stole the pension. No one is going to hire a young engineer with talent because his boss stole money? He probably never even met the big boss so how should this effect him? A smart company would grab up all the talent when this big firm when belly up. James felt trapped in this assistant job because he needed something on his resume besides the big scandal job. It’s not like James’s whole life was in rural Wisconsin and he had no where to go. James is from New York. That’s where his family is. There has to be somewhere that doesn’t care about the big NYC firm scandal. We should also note that James didn’t really do much assisting, leaving Carey to handle most of the couples schedule.

Carey has been working for the Tripps since she was 16, working at their first home good store. After ten years, Carey has just about had it with the Tripps and their escalating drama but she fears leaving because she has no other work experience and no college degree. She tried to leave once but Mel freaked out after she was called as a job reference. I could understand Carey’s loyalty to Mel if Carey had no family and was treated as a member of Rusty and Mel’s family all this time. Take a kid with no connections and give her a feeling of family, of course she would be loyal. But that didn’t seem to be the case. While Carey was not close with her family, she still kept in touch with them and Mel and Rusty had grown children but didn’t seem to include Carey as one of their own. By this point in their relationship, Mel was definitely used to Carey doing for her and didn’t want that to end. We eventually see why Carey has become so important to Mel. But Carey should have used this to her advantage either to improve her situation with her job, or as things deteriorated between the couple, why couldn’t she use Rusty as a job reference? He seemed to support Carey. Even if she has no other experience and no reference, Carey’s been with Mel 10 years from their first store until the height of their career — must mean something, right? And after ten years, do you think a reference from your current boss might be skewed because they don’t want you to leave? Carey was also paid very well by Mel and Rusty all these years and lamented not going to college (this is why she felt James was so above her and an assistant job). Why didn’t she look into leaving to attend college either to study what she was good at or something new?

Sometimes you read a story and you know that the downtrodden character is stuck under someone’s thumb and in this case, the only thing forcing these characters to stay is money. Money is important but I would only stay at a crappy job long enough to get a new job. Neither of these characters were putting much effort into moving on, just whining and lamenting about their situation.

Romancewise, there wasn’t much to their connection except bitching how much they hated what was happening to them and their new babysitting duty. Carey thought James and gorgeous but full of himself, but she also believed that he was overqualified to be just an assistant. And James didn’t think too much about Carey until one day when he actually looked at her and realized she was actually pretty and suddenly he takes notice of her and her situation and wants to date.

This was a great idea which simply wasn’t fulfilled and as a romance, didn’t really ring the bell because there wasn’t much to the connection between James and Carey except having sex with the only person available when you are stuck at the constant beck and call of your boss.

I usually love an author and read everything or I simply don’t enjoy their writing and walk away. I even have a love-hate relationship with J.R. Ward and her BDB series. (I seriously need an intervention.) The odd thing about Christina Lauren is that some books I really like and some, like this one, I just don’t, but I have to read each new story so I can weed out the ones I enjoy. It’s an odd thing for me to pick up an author’s book with trepidation not knowing where it’s going to fall but I have had enough of the enjoyable that I don’t want to walk away.

Christina Lauren has become one of my favorite authors! This book was super cute! Very easy reading and I finished it quickly! I love that it’s told from two different point of views. The whole time I was reading this I was picturing Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Cute and timely with the explosion of home-decorating "life-partner" shows on tv. Not my favorite CL story. Not as juicy as some of the ones past. Melissa's character was so awful it really made the story hard to enjoy, and CL's stories are usually more fun. It was awful, and it was certainly timely. Just wasn't my favorite romance. to me there wasn't a lot of chemistry between James and Carey.

I am not a big romance fan, but thought I'd give this one a try. This book was a light, easy read. It wasn't bad but it felt a little boring to me. I just struggled to get into it. It was definitely a lot different than I expected. I did like the Carey and James characters and was pleased with the resolution of that story line. For those who read in this genre a lot, I would imagine this book might be of more interest, but I don't think it's going to blow many away. Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for granting access to this advance reader copy. I will post this review tomorrow to my Bookstagram and companion Facebook page, @thatreadingrealtor.

I read The Honey Don't List, by Christina Lauren, courtesy of NetGalley and publisher, Gallery Pocket Books. It was a delightfully funny, often sexy romance with some very real issues woven into the lives of the characters.

After working for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for almost ten years, Carey Douglas, a girl whose heart in the country, knows the couple very well. Carey began by working in their first store at the age of sixteen, and even though she has not received the credit she deserves, she helped them build an empire. The Tripps are already superstars, but with a new TV show and a book ready to launch, the sky's the limit. So what's the problem? America’s latest favorite couple, once so much in love, can’t stand each other.

James McCann is a graduate of MIT, and is an engineering genius. He was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the actual job, unrelated to engineering, is far below his skill level. For James, the straw that almost broke the camel's back is that both he and Carey are required to go on a book tour with the Tripps to keep the couple from self-destructing, especially in public.

Carey needs health insurance, so as much as she would love to quit, she cannot. James has been promised the engineering job of a lifetime if only he can just keep the couple on track until the first season of the new TV show airs. It doesn't help that James and Carey aren't crazy about each other, either.

Still, Carey and James commit to working together to keep their own jobs secure by keeping their bosses’ secrets hidden from the public and the news media. What if they stop playing their respective parts, and start playing for real? Will Carey and James take this chance to build a beautiful future together?

What makes The Grumpy Book Reviewer grumpy?

Well, while the book had the usual mistakes of missing punctuation, numerous split-infinitives, etc., the main thing that concerns me is the mis-use of an old Southern expression. That expression is, "God willing, and the Creek don't rise." This refers to the Creek nation of Native Americans, not to flooding, as many believe. At some point in the story, Carey says they must keep Rusty and Melissa apart and “…hope the creek don't rise". The letter "c" should be capitalized.

Still, The Honey Don't List is a book those who love intelligent romance novels should not miss. I recommend it as a fun, easy read -- a great book for your winter snuggles now, or for your beach bag this summer.

Look for me online as The Grumpy Book Reviewer.

The Honey Don’t List (Out March 10, 2020)

Meet Cute:

Carey and James, assistants to the famous home decor / DIY couple Melissa and Rusty Tripp, already know each other, albeit not very well, when the book opens. But their bonding kicks off over their shared discovery of Rusty going to pound-town with a woman who is NOT his wife, Melly.

The Leading Lady: Alluring Artist

Carey has worked for the Tripps since she was sixteen and they had one simple store in Jackson, Wyoming. Her creativity and talent with drawing/designing is what helped put them on the map, but going from sixteen to twenty-six with the same bosses has given Carey a skewed idea of what a healthy working relationship should look like. She suffers from dystonia, a condition I had never heard of before this novel, which makes fine motor movements difficult.

The Leading Man: Dreamy Designer

James will be the first to tell you he is NOT an assistant, thankyouverymuch. He was hired as an engineering consultant, but he hasn’t been designing so much as grabbing coffee and keeping Rusty’s wandering eye and alcoholism under control. James seemed like a nice, normal dude, which made the romance kind of refreshing? No alpha tendencies and no drama. Imagine!

Risque Ranking: 5

Carey is working on her assertiveness in all areas in her life...including the bedroom. She tells James in no uncertain terms what she would like him to do to her, and he’s more than happy to comply.

Ms. Perky's Prize for Purplest Prose:

“But then he leans forward again with a smile, and in the space of a gasp we’re kissing like we need to: lips and tongue and the occasional dirty drag of teeth. His hands move down to my waist, holding me to him, and when he presses forward, I lift my legs, weightless, wrapping them around him.”

Was It Good For You?

Stephanie: As a person who likes home DIY and has watched her fair share of HGTV, I loved all the not-so-subtle nods to Melissa and Rusty being Joanna and Chip Gaines stand-ins (although I hope for THEIR sakes that Joanna and Chip have a much healthier real-life relationship). I was annoyed for a brief second with Carey and her reasoning for being mad at James during the end of the novel, but I loved that some of the other characters called her out on it. This book was basically exactly what I thought it was going to be, but it was super fun to read nonetheless.

This is the book I have been waiting for from Christina Lauren. It had all the elements of a romantic comedy that makes the story so lovable. It was a really fast read because the characters drew me in so quickly. My favorite book by Christina Lauren is The Unhoneymooners, but this one is definitely right up there with it. A solid 4.5 stars.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This story was high energy from the first paragraph. It centers around Carey, who is the assistant to a famous home-improvement couple, whose marriage is falling apart. James, is the engineer, who needs this job to build his resume but has bit off more than he can chew as he is now forced to baby sit the couple while they are on tour to promote a book about successful relationships. The irony and hypocrisy and oh the hilarity. What could possibly go wrong?

The chaos is amped up as Carey and James do not like each other. But that changes as they are bonded by the impossible task of "keeping the peace".

The story had a continous flow with two storylines weaving together along with flashbacks that kept you engaged as you knew something big was coming, and it was good. This book had everything that you expect from this author and it left me wanting more. Well done!!

Melissa and Rusty Tripp are cut from the same DIY supercouple cloth as "lifestyle" celebs Chip and Joanna Gaines. While they're pushing an Instagram happy image and promoting a book about how to have a happy marriage, secretly, it's falling apart. Their assistants Carey and James are helping them keep up the facade as they head out on book tour.

The Honey-Don't List was a little too LA, too reality show for my taste. The assistants, Carey especially, are treated terribly and taken advantage of. All of Melissa and Rusty's drama overshadows the budding romance between Carey and James. It may appeal to Chip and Joanna Gaines fans, but it just wasn't my favorite.

I normally love Christina Lauren's titles but recently I have found that I haven't been resonating with them as much as I have with titles in the past

Once again, Christina Lauren has offered a fast, wonderful story with remarkable characters that I would recognize and love to know. For ten years, Carey has designed for and managed a chimerical home design team of Melissa and Rusty Tripp, living unacknowledged and taken for granted in the interest of harmony and supporting a couple who feel like family. Searching for a way to get past scandal at his former job, James joins the company just as its hitting the big time. The pressures of a new show and a book tour blow up the stale fantasy of a blissfully married business couple -- and complicate Carey and James' already fraught work lives. Carey and James fall for one another just as the carefully constructed unreality of their work lives explodes. This book hits the marks for integrity, believability in an unreal world, and rock solid emotion.

3.5 Stars

I bumped The Honey Don’t List to the top of the queue thinking it had already been published and I was late to the party. After I finished I realized it doesn’t come out until mid-March so yay to me for being such an overachiever. Christina Lauren is a duo that I request every time I see a new release. While their stories don’t necessarily knock my socks off, they are always a decent way to kill some time – especially when life gets too lifey and I need something light.

This kicks off with a fictionalized version of HGTV’s resident sweethearts. Married 26 years with two adult children, Rusty and Melly Tripp built a home remodeling dynasty in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on nothing but hard work and turned it into the Comb + Honey brand found at local Targets and Walmarts nationwide. Melly is known for making the most of a tiny space by utilizing modular design. Rusty is known for – well . . . . . cutting himself within five minutes of starting a project and being a cut-up.

Now the couple is getting ready to launch a brand new television series. The only problem? What if instead of things being picture perfect, behind the scenes things look more like take your shiplap and stick it where the sun don't shine (and much much worse).

Enter James and Carey – Rusty and Melly’s personal assistants. Their job is to basically babysit the duo in order to keep the truth of their failing marriage out of the press until the launch of the new series.

Notice how I talked ZERO about the main characters who are destined to fall in love? Yeah, this one will either work for you or it won’t. It was light on the romance as well as the angst and kind of written for a specific audience – those who are obsessed with Chip and Joanna Gaines (a/k/a me). I read it from start to finish yesterday and had a fine time doing so. I thought James was a bit of a pussy, but since I’m a gal who generally seeks out grunting cavemen motorcycle riders to be my book boyfriends, you should probably take that opinion with a grain of salt.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

Utterly delightful. This was my first Christina Lauren book; I promise it won't be my last. Funny, emotional and romantic. Would totally recommend!

This light read with the predictable ending is just right for a short escape from reality, perfect for a beach weekend. Capitalizing on the current enthusiasm for DIY and home improvement shows, Lauren gives us a cast of characters dealing with a successful TV show, an unsuccessful marriage, a last-ditch effort to save a new career, and self-esteem. Carey Douglas has worked for Rusty and Melissa Tripp for years, starting in high school. In many ways, they've been like parents for her. As their fame has soared, their marriage has crashed and Carey, who has long been the master mind behind the designs, now has her hands full trying to cover up the cracks in the marriage until the new TV series is signed, sealed, and delivered.

James McCann, recently hired MIT engineering grad struggling to save his own career after starting work with a company being investigated for all sorts of malfeasance, finds himself signed on to be the other half of the 'save the face of the marriage' team. Carey and James have a near impossible task on their plate but valiantly try to meet the goal.