Thank you to Wednesday Books for sharing a copy in exchange for my honest review.
Raised by conservative parents, 18-year-old Meg Hennessey just found out her entire childhood was a lie. Instead of taking a gap year before college to find herself, she ends up traveling north to meet what’s left of the family she never knew existed. While there, she meets Micah Allen, a former pastor’s kid whose dad ended up in prison, leaving Micah with his own complicated relationship about the church. The clock is ticking on Pastor Allen’s probation hearing and Micah, now 19, feels the pressure to forgive - even when he can’t possibly forget. As Meg and Micah grow closer, they are confronted with the heavy flutterings of first love and all the complications it brings. Together, they must navigate the sometimes-painful process of cutting ties with childhood beliefs as they build toward something truer and straight from the heart. In Erin Hahn’s Never Saw You Coming, sometimes it takes a leap of faith to find yourself. Never Saw You Coming is an earnest and heartfelt recounting of Meg's journey to finding faith in herself and keeping her beliefs through a challenging time of transition. I haven't read a lot of novels where religion and the church are major themes, and I feel there's a slight bias against books that have religious characters. I appreciated Hahn's deconstruction of purity culture and how Meg was exposed to new people and environments that led her to challenge the beliefs she'd grown up with. I'm not Christian. I feel like I should throw that out there. However I love reading books about characters from different backgrounds and as a reader, I have the ability to empathize with them and understand that an author isn't moralizing at me just because their characters have beliefs that I don't share. Some people are of different opinions. I've seen a few critiques of NSYC that discuss how Meg's faith in God and Jesus made them feel, and that's totally valid! If you don't think this is your thing, please pass. However, I'd encourage you to take a chance on this book. Hahn offers a well-rounded discussion on the Church, and it's a great novel to read if you'd like to challenge your perspective. The romance was sweet--Meg and Micah clearly had chemistry, and they worked hard to be together in ways that felt comfortable to them, especially given each of their different perspectives on what a relationship should look like. Their relationship is so considerate and communicative, and I was totally swooning by the end. Hahn isn't afraid to jump into difficult discussions, like the Church's treatment of queer individuals and body-shaming young women, and the narrative is very streamlined throughout. Never Saw You Coming is an inherently readable novel--I didn't want to put it down for a second. Overall, I'm giving Never Saw You Coming 4/5 stars, and I think it's set up to be one of the fall season's most acclaimed novels. I'd highly encourage you to preorder your copy or to reserve at a local library!
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Thank you to Wednesday Books for sharing a copy in exchange for my honest review.
In Perfect on Paper, Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before: a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the hot guy to help him get his ex back Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off. Darcy Phillips: • Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee. • Uses her power for good. Most of the time. • Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham. • Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else. • Does not appreciate being blackmailed. However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back. Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again. Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong? The tagline pretty much says it all: "Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off." I enjoyed Perfect on Paper's fresh rom-com energy. Darcy operates as an under-the-radar Agony Aunt at her school, which lands her in hot water when the Brougham catches her emptying the locker. She makes some tough choices, does quite a few things wrong, but always wants to help her classmates and support her friends. I really can't fault her for that. Gonzales does a great job at creating empathy for her characters throughout the novel. There's room for readers to disapprove of or question their actions, but still have heart to love them and want to see the ends of their stories through. Some moments felt overly moralistic, as though the novel was trying very hard to be inoffensive and model "good behavior" for readers, but for the most part I truly enjoyed the realism of each character. We get to see Darcy's flaws and mistakes, even while she's being kind or funny or supportive one chapter later. And that's something we get so rarely in queer characters--the ability to have flaws and be imperfect, maybe not a role model for "ideal citizen." Even though it's true. Queer people aren't exempt from being human--we can be petty and precocious and anxious all at the same time as fun, reactive, and empathetic, just as Darcy is. My favorite topic addressed in the novel is biphobia--Darcy is bi, and encounters erasure of her identity, and the idea that bi people aren't queer if they're in an m/f relationship. That harmful misconception is addressed in the novel, and this discussion will be so validating for bi readers. If you're out there, reading this, please know that I'm happy to talk or find more books with bi characters for you! It's a hard knock life out there in terms of queer rep in media, so this is me saying you're not on this path alone. Look no further than Perfect on Paper for a nuanced contemporary rom-com that offers discussion of queer issues, honesty & trust in friendship, and how to step back and learn from mistakes. Darcy and her crew will make their way into your hearts in a snap. 4/5 stars. |
The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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