I’ll admit it: as a 19-year-old hopeless romantic who has never celebrated an anniversary, rom-com novels may or may not be a guilty pleasure of mine.
Like most busy Vanderbilt students, it becomes hard for me to find time to read for pleasure during the school year. Fortunately, from May to August, I often have much more downtime than I know what to do with. After spending my evenings post-summer day camp frequenting my favorite hometown bookstore under the big aisle marked “Romance,” I jumped at the opportunity to get my hands on a recently published rom-com novel from one of my favorite authors.
Christina Lauren — a pseudonym creatively coined by not one writer but two — has published over 20 novels in their writing career. Until now, I had only read two: “The Unhoneymooners” and “The True Love Experiment.” These titles are also the first ones I recommend to friends looking for a rom-com. From the classic genre tropes woven throughout creative storylines to the seemingly life-changing happily ever afters, Lauren puts a whole new spin on the traditional romance novel.
The newest novel is “The Paradise Problem,” released this past May. It centers around a decision made by two impulsive young adults who get fake-married to qualify for family housing, which of course is cheaper. It’s truly no more than a business agreement — Anna is baffled to later learn that her roommate’s full name was never “West Weston.” They live shoulder to shoulder for two full years with no care to get any closer. The graduation caps are tossed, and they go their separate ways.
Or so they think.
Three years later, Anna is a bubblegum-haired struggling artist recently laid off from her quick mart job, while Liam is heir to a multibillion dollar grocery store empire. As it turns out, the divorce was never finalized, and they have been legally married for close to half a decade. Not so coincidentally, Liam was never fully honest with his prosperous and stuck-up family members about his phony marriage.
The Westons have spent these years hearing stories about Anna: but rather than a Muppet living paycheck to paycheck, as she self-identifies, Liam has crafted her to be an affluent missus who recently graduated from medical school. As an introverted individual relatively estranged from his family, he has avoided contact and further questions about his supposed wife for almost five years — exactly what he needs to trigger his sum of inheritance money, as stipulated in his late grandfather’s will.
Just a summer away from receiving this grand deposit, Liam gets an invitation to the destination wedding of his younger sister, Charlie, on a remote island vacation. His heart drops at the sight of the envelope, reading not only his name but also that of his supposed wife.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
I loved this story for so many reasons. It’s written from the first-person perspective, alternating between the eyes of both Anna and Liam and allowing the reader to see the development from both sides. Its setting is relatively modern — I was originally thrown off by the references to Tiktok, AirPods and Uber — but got used to it as the chapters continued.
The one and only time I found myself rolling my eyes came when Anna and Liam landed on the island and first stumbled upon the bungalow where they’d be staying. In typical rom-com fashion, there was only one bed. For these two posing as a married couple, it was obvious that it would remain this way, though neither of them had anticipated it. Despite my aversion to cliches such as this, I was too far into the story to quit.
My favorite part of novels like this is the unfolding of love between characters. I find it beautiful and revealing for their truest thoughts, dreams and urges to be laid out on paper for anyone to read. The sparks for Anna and Liam transformed when they went from simply acting like a married couple in front of the family to kissing and touching and everything in between (spice alert!) in the privacy of their own bungalow.
This book left no question about how the love story would emerge. It was clear from the very start of this story that the ending would involve our protagonists, Anna and Liam, together.
The “will-they-or-will-they-not-make-it” climax moment arises when Liam’s oldest and most stuck-up brother reveals the truth about his fraudulent marriage to Anna in front of the entire wedding reception. “The Paradise Problem” uses this moment to not only outline the love story of these two but also provide commentary on the absurdities of rich living. Coming from the Weston Foods kingdom, Liam had both strained relationships with his family members and a first-class view of how money wielding power could be dangerous. The choice he has to make before the novel’s resolution involves either continuing life with Anna, which would bring him joy for the first time in forever, or agreeing to his corrupt father’s business strategy and earning his grandfather’s inheritance after all.
For once in his life, Liam chooses his happiness and says no to the family business. His toxic father promptly blackmails and frames him for a scandal that Weston Foods had previously escaped from. But in a turn, Liam’s previously self-centered siblings stand up for him and speak out against their father — who is sentenced to prison time, as he was the one truly behind the scandal. With the bad guy behind bars, our protagonists get their happily ever after per traditional rom-com standards.
All in all, I think that Lauren hit the nail on the head once again with “The Paradise Problem,” and I cannot wait to see what comes next for this literary team. The novel was a perfect summer read for me, and I would highly recommend it to any student needing a beach read before the fall semester begins.
