The Honey - Don't List by Christina Lauren

Carey Douglas has worked for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for nearly a decade. A country girl at heart, Carey started in their first store at sixteen, and—more than anyone would suspect—has helped them build an empire. With a new show and a book about to launch, the Tripps are on the verge of superstardom. There’s only one problem: America’s favorite couple can’t stand each other. James McCann, MIT graduate and engineering genius, was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the job isn’t all he thought it’d be. The last straw? Both he and Carey must go on book tour with the Tripps and keep the wheels from falling off the proverbial bus. Unfortunately, neither of them is in any position to quit. Carey needs health insurance, and James has been promised the role of a lifetime if he can just keep the couple on track for a few more weeks. While road-tripping with the Tripps up the West Coast, Carey and James vow to work together to keep their bosses’ secrets hidden, and their own jobs secure. But if they stop playing along—and start playing for keeps—they may have the chance to build something beautiful together…A dysfunctional version of Chip and Joanna Gaines go on tour and need to be managed by two employees who think they're better than each other.

 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (maybe  🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥) / 5 steam level[this rating is mainly for speech used rather than action]

This book was a hard one for me. It wasn't particularly funny by any means and the characters that you're supposed to be rooting for didn't really have much of a love story.  The first few chapters set the groundwork for the reader to understand the empire that Carey and James are working for.  This was tough for me because I thought it was pretty easy to grasp that the Tripps were indeed the Gaines' but with a crappy marriage.  I tried to push through that part assuming that the Gaines' don't exist in the world that Christina Lauren created- but alas, at the end of the book Mrs. Tripp makes a reference to Chip and Jo!  So that theory went out the window...The formatting is a bit like Big Little Lies (the show... because I still haven't read the book!) where they're being interviewed by the police about something secretive and you don't find out what it is until the end. I would've been really into this storytelling technique if it paid off. I didn't think it paid off.Around 31% into the book I made a note that I was ready to start skimming.  Instead I put the book down and read a different book and came back to this one.I think what I struggled with the most is not rooting for Carey and James.  They were more like side characters than the main characters of the novel.  Carey lacked a lot of gumption and I really dislike that in a character.  There was a communication issue that could have been easily avoided but was maybe necessary for the climax of the book (only if you thought of James and Carey as the main characters... which I did not and therefore didn't find the drama necessary).I would be wrong to not acknowledge that there is a weirdly abusive (verbal and emotional?) relationship in this book that is completely unhealthy and doesn't resolve in a way that was pleasing for me.Remember that awesome movie Set It Up on Netflix? This was kind of like a take on that movie but not done as well.I will say also that as much as I wasn't wrapped up in the love story of the book, I did like James quite a bit.So overall this book wasn't for me.  There will definitely be readers that love this book and like the variation from other CL books.  The good news is that this is the exception to the rule from me with CL books and I will happily still pick up their next book without thinking twice about it!