Carey Douglas has worked for home remodeling and design team Melly and Rusty Tripp since they opened their first store over 10 years ago. Now, the Tripps are a household name with a television series and a new book about to be published. On television, the Tripps have the perfect marriage, but behind the scenes, the marriage is crumbling. Carey is tasked to work with James McCann, Rusty’s assistant, to keep the Tripps in line on their book tour. The Honey-Don’t List is a romance about two personal assistants who fall in love while trying to keep their bosses’ marriage from falling apart.
I liked this book a lot. It is a light and fluffy read. There are some serious parts and some comedy and overall I found it very enjoyable.
I thought Carey and James’s backstories were really relatable and I could understand why they stayed working in this toxic environment. Carey needs health insurance and this job was supposed to be a new start for James. With so much riding on the book and show, they just have to make sure the Tripps’ image is upheld to make it to the next television series. But that’s easier said than done.
I really liked the character of Carey. She has a lot of layers and I thought she was really personable. I definitely liked her from the beginning. The relationship between her and James does seem a little rushed but I thought that was more because they had never been in such close contact before. Maybe if they had worked together since James started, their relationship would have begun much sooner.
I did think that the Tripps were a little too much like some real-life TV hosts. I kept picturing Chip and Joanna Gaines in my head and I can’t figure out if that was what the authors wanted. I enjoyed that the emphasis just wasn’t on Carey and James, but was on everyone around them as well. I’ve read a lot of reviews for this book that say there was too much focus on the Tripps but I liked seeing their relationship dynamic and how they interacted with Carey and James.
I do have one complaint about this book. The chapters are written in alternating points of view between James and Carey but I thought their voices were too similar. I kept forgetting whose point of view I was reading and I had to look for clues in the story (for instance, if the narrator said Carey’s name, then I knew this was James’s point of view) to figure out who was telling the story.
To check out other reviews, find this book on goodreads or amazon. Please note, all links are affiliate which gives a small portion of profit to Rainy Days and Clichés. Thank you so much for your continuous kindness!
Leave a Reply