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A review by crystaldbudy
Unexpecting by Jen Bailey
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this digital arc in exchange for my honest review.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but the cover and description immediately caught my attention. The first quarter of the book felt as though it dragged a bit, but after that, I was sucked in and couldn't stop reading it.
For starters, I would just like to say that for a guidance counselor, Eliza is terrible at realizing that her son needs mass amounts of therapy. My goodness. That poor boy. But it was nice to watch Ben's growth from the beginning of the book to the end of it. I'm not sure if the author intended him to be written neurodivergent but I caught more than one hint at it, particularly in regard to some of his anxieties as well as some of his issues with social cues.
This book was a unique perspective. We don't typically get to see stories like this from the father's point of view. I quite enjoyed that. But even as I felt for Ben and everything he was going through, my heart also broke for Maxie. Because her parents, particularly her father, were quite awful to her especially in the beginning (making her deliver the papers at school to punish her; how terrible), and her feelings and desires were completely swept under the rug like she didn't even matter.
I see some people remarking about how selfish Ben is, but...he's a 16-year-old boy who has never had a stable father figure in his life. Of course he's worried about his own future child feeling abandoned. Is it logical? No. But again, he's a 16-year-old boy with abandonment issues of his own that he's never worked through. Yes, that isn't a good reason to raise a baby as a teenager, but that's the point of the story, yes? He starts off wanting to do this but realizes that in order to be a good father, he needs to do what's best for the child and not for him. And in the end, he realizes this and makes the best decision for the child.
Two of my favorite characters in this book were Roger and Gio. Roger, because of how he stepped up for Ben; Gio, because when Ben felt like everyone else was against him and not listening, Gio was just there for him.
My only real complaint was how obvious the ending was in regard to Monica and Lisa. I would have liked it if that part had not been made so glaringly obvious about halfway through. But that didn't detract anything from the story for me. I still enjoyed it even though I knew how it was going to end. Because the journey of how they all got there was a nice one to follow.
All in all, I quite enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to a friend.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but the cover and description immediately caught my attention. The first quarter of the book felt as though it dragged a bit, but after that, I was sucked in and couldn't stop reading it.
For starters, I would just like to say that for a guidance counselor, Eliza is terrible at realizing that her son needs mass amounts of therapy. My goodness. That poor boy. But it was nice to watch Ben's growth from the beginning of the book to the end of it. I'm not sure if the author intended him to be written neurodivergent but I caught more than one hint at it, particularly in regard to some of his anxieties as well as some of his issues with social cues.
This book was a unique perspective. We don't typically get to see stories like this from the father's point of view. I quite enjoyed that. But even as I felt for Ben and everything he was going through, my heart also broke for Maxie. Because her parents, particularly her father, were quite awful to her especially in the beginning (making her deliver the papers at school to punish her; how terrible), and her feelings and desires were completely swept under the rug like she didn't even matter.
I see some people remarking about how selfish Ben is, but...he's a 16-year-old boy who has never had a stable father figure in his life. Of course he's worried about his own future child feeling abandoned. Is it logical? No. But again, he's a 16-year-old boy with abandonment issues of his own that he's never worked through. Yes, that isn't a good reason to raise a baby as a teenager, but that's the point of the story, yes? He starts off wanting to do this but realizes that in order to be a good father, he needs to do what's best for the child and not for him. And in the end, he realizes this and makes the best decision for the child.
Two of my favorite characters in this book were Roger and Gio. Roger, because of how he stepped up for Ben; Gio, because when Ben felt like everyone else was against him and not listening, Gio was just there for him.
My only real complaint was how obvious the ending was in regard to Monica and Lisa. I would have liked it if that part had not been made so glaringly obvious about halfway through. But that didn't detract anything from the story for me. I still enjoyed it even though I knew how it was going to end. Because the journey of how they all got there was a nice one to follow.
All in all, I quite enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to a friend.