Paradise Problem

 

The Paradise Problem- Christina Lauren

Gallery Books

Release Date: May 14, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

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If you took Christina Lauren's The Unhoneymooners, Samantha Young's The Love Plot, and mixed in Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians series, you'd get a feel for the vibes of The Paradise Problem. In all the best ways. 

Broke students Anna Green and Liam "West" Weston made the unusual choice to get married in order to make it into subsidized family housing while they were in UCLA- despite not knowing each other. They were ships passing in the night during college and Anna thought she'd signed divorce papers when West graduated. He went on to be a Stanford professor, she went on to be a starving artist trying to pay her bills (and her father's medical bills) paycheck to paycheck. 

After getting fired by her sexually harassing 18 year old creeper boss, Anna finds out some surprising truths. She's still legally married to West, and he isn't as broke as she thought. He's heir to a fortune and part of a highly toxic family. Now he needs her help: his sister is getting married and he needs to show up- with his wife.

Anna is a loyal and loving person. She may be an artist and highly creative (and super fun!), but she's also practical. She loves her dad and knows that helping West will get her the money to pay her dad's bills. Plus, she likes West and he's clearly miserable and needs the help. She knows there are plenty of things that could go wrong, but agrees anyway. The more time she spends with West, the more she likes him-and feels sorry for him. The crazy excess of the wedding and West's (mostly) awful family show her money really doesn't buy happiness- or love. 

West has made up plenty of reasons why his family have never met Anna and lots of lies about her to make her 'fit' an image his parents might accept. He's terrified they'll be found out and knows it is all his fault. He has lots of legitimate reasons for not wanting anything to do with his family (especially his father!) and Christina Lauren does a good job of letting us discover new ones throughout the book. You feel the weight of his troubles on him, even before you know what they all are. I loved how Anna supported him, and was so sad for West that it confused him because he'd never just had someone on his side before. 

The Paradise Problem is a fast paced, fun and flirty, enjoyable, and entertaining book that I didn't want to put down. Anna and West have great chemistry that they try to ignore (and are much happier when they stop ignoring!) and they may be my new favorite Christina Lauren couple. 

This is a definite must read for Christina Lauren fans and romance fans!

I received an arc of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review