Book Summary: The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
Christina Lauren, returns with a delicious new romance between the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance.
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.
Book Review: The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
When I picked up The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren, I expected a fun, breezy romantic comedy about a couple having to pretend they’re in a relationship amidst the over-the-top opulence of the ultra-wealthy. You know the premise – he’s an heir to a massive fortune, she’s a struggling artist, there are lavish parties and designer gowns and private islands, and eventually they fall for each other despite the ruse. A total escapist chicklit, perfect for lounging by the pool or on the beach.
But I quickly realized this book goes so much deeper than that familiar romantic set-up. While on one level it’s undeniably swoony and hilarious, underneath there’s a razor-sharp satirical edge slicing away at the American elite and how obscene wealth can tragically distort and deform people’s values. It’s honestly quite impressive how deftly the authors managed to balance those tones of humor and heart with biting cultural commentary.
Our protagonists are the whimsically named Anna Green, a chronically broke art school drop-out drowning in debt from her dad’s cancer treatments, and Liam “West” Weston, the disillusioned heir to a massive grocery empire who wants nothing to do with the corporate world his domineering father rules. Years ago, the desperate Anna and Liam entered into a marriage of convenience so she could access affordable student housing. Now, Liam needs to maintain the lie that they’re still married in order to inherit $100 million from his manipulative grandfather’s will. So he pays Anna to come pose as his devoted wife on an extravagant luxury vacation to impress his obnoxiously wealthy family.
This setup allows Christina Lauren to go absolutely buck wild, mocking the ludicrous excesses and oblivious privilege of America’s monied upper crust. All of the Westons are painted with such deliciously acerbic precision – from the icy, passive-aggressive wine mom Janet to the cocky, preening bro douchebag son Alex to Liam’s CEO father Ray, a loathsome caricature of malignant male ego run amok. These people are feral, spending millions on private islands and bespoke costumes just to one-up each other in displays of vulgarity. And you can sense the authors’ twinges of glee in every meticulously observed detail gouging these overprivileged buffoons.
But The Paradise Problem doesn’t sustain itself just by mocking rich people’s gaudy tastes (as satisfying as that admittedly can be at times). Where it truly soars is making you care so deeply about Anna and Liam amidst all that absurdity. Because for as riotously and cringingly funny as their misadventures among the rich and obnoxious are, the book is anchored by their resonant personal arcs and viscerally potent chemistry.
You see, Liam is ostensibly just trying to start over after some dark, dramatic past incident known only as “PISA” that severed him from his abusive father years ago. Meanwhile, underneath her breezy, sarcastic exterior, Anna is concealing crippling money troubles and profound guilt over being unable to be by her terminally ill father’s side during his treatments. So while the ruse of faking marriage for Liam’s trust fund initially seems like no big deal for these two jaded souls, the temptation of millions quickly begins warping their moral compasses in surprisingly poignant ways. With every step they take deeper into the Westons’ vortex of jealousy and greed, you can feel their senses of right and wrong eroding in service of the escalating con and the tantalizing inheritance payday.
And holy smokes, do Anna and Liam absolutely sizzle together as reluctant partners who can’t deny their irresistible physical chemistry. Christina Lauren has always excelled at blending humor and heart with eroticism, and they are firing on all cylinders here. Whether it’s Anna’s tantalizing bedhead and mussed pajamas or Liam hungrily drinking in the curves of her body spilling out of designer gowns, their escalating tension crackles off the page in a deliciously palpable way. And when they finally consummate their desire, twisting together in frantic midnight hookups? Well, let’s just say you might need to clutch your pearls while reading—these love scenes are scorchingly combustible in the best way possible.
But what really makes The Paradise Problem such a compulsive, addictive read is how it reveals that even our likable heroes’ motivations have been insidiously infected by the trappings of extreme wealth. There’s this fascinating moral murkiness to Anna and Liam’s actions that poignantly juxtaposes with the genuine affection and adoration clearly blossoming between them. A nagging sense emerges that if Liam ultimately chooses to take the money and join the family business (even ostensibly to try and change it through his ethics-focused projects), it could corrupt his very soul just like his relatives’. Meanwhile, having grown up in poverty, Anna is increasingly willing to overlook the inheritance lie because being broke has forced her into so many moral compromises herself. The stakes extend far beyond just the central romantic dilemma into thorny questions about privilege, morality, and the price tag on love and integrity.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Christina Lauren book without a cavalcade of juicy melodramatic subplots propelling the central story—there are secret family scandals, burgeoning sibling rivalries, glamorous frenemies like “Blaire” dripping with campy condescension. At times it veers dangerously close to outright soapy theatrical excess. But for the most part, these soapier threads remain highly entertaining and propulsive, enriching the central mystery of whether Anna and Liam’s connection runs deep enough to persevere through the ethical quagmire they’ve mired themselves within. You’ll swoon, you’ll gasp, and you’ll be tickled by the tongue-in-cheek indulgence in petty rich people problems.
My only real gripe is that the third act gets a tad too mired in legal minutiae and inheritance jargon, losing some of that furious narrative momentum. And I’ll admit, the Weston patriarch Ray does start to feel a bit like a one-note mustache-twirling villain by the end, despite how utterly loathsome he admittedly is. But these are very minor quibbles in an otherwise utterly gripping page-turner full of colorful characters, soapy drama, sizzling romantic interludes, and genuinely thought-provoking discourse on love, ethics, and humanity’s endless capacity for self-justification.
At its core, The Paradise Problem deftly balances being a delicious escapist chicklit with more substantive reflections on the ways the pursuit of wealth can pervert and damage souls, no matter how ostensibly good-hearted. Christina Lauren takes an acerbic satirical bite out of the uber-rich and their ridiculous indulgences while still crafting protagonists you can empathize with as they are pulled into the Westons’ orbit of dehumanizing excess. You’ll be richly rewarded by diving into Anna and Liam’s misadventures in the splashy big-money world – because as funny, steamy and dramatic as it gets, the book will still leave you pondering complex ethical questions about privilege, inheritance, and the pricetag we’re willing to put on staying true to ourselves. A paradoxical delight indeed.
