The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

Started reading: 2/20/2026

Finished reading: 3/6/2026

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

One-liner: Faced with the potential destruction of his and his family's financial future, a man must convince his wife to come with him to an island to meet his family--the only problem is that their marriage was never actually meant to be real.

Favorite quote: "Nice redirection, you slut," I say, laughing.

Genre: Romance

Thoughts: I'm not usually much of a romance reader, but I participated in a Valentine's book swap, and this is the book I was given. I've been meaning to branch out genre-wise, so this was actually kind of perfect for that. It has some things I know I already like (fake dating, fake marriage), and it also has some things that I wasn't entirely used to reading (straight people having sex). It did a great job keeping me entertained and letting me latch on to these characters who were sometimes kind of horrible. Even when the prose got clunky or very Romance Book Vibey, I was able to push through because everything else was done really well. The climax had me a little hesitant just because it started off very "the female main character is going to ignore any women who came out against the male main character in the past," but the author twisted it around a little bit so it was actually another character responsible. All in all, I had a good time, and the main characters are very cute together. We do get an epilogue, and it was nice! I'm just really happy it didn't end in a pregnancy.