I read this book in the span of two days which is shockingly fast for me these days when I read with my eyes. I simply could not put it down. If you are reading this review, you will undoubtedly be rather shocked when you get to the end of this review and see that I’ve given this book a letter grade of C-. Yes, that minus is important because this book is verging on a borderline D. You might ask yourself then, how is it possible that I couldn’t put this book down and yet, gave it such a low grade. Well, the short story is, I couldn’t put it down because I was invested in reading about these characters that I really didn’t like for the most part and whether they would finally pull their heads out of their asses. But if you’d like the longer answer, then please accept my preemptive apologies and bear with me while I endeavor to explain in this very lengthy and probably convoluted review. 

First things first: the official description for this book reads as follows:

“A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love.”

That is the first line of the description and yes, I double-checked both Goodreads AND Netgalley. 

Now, this might be a good place to give a brief description of how I think a romance novel should be defined. I know romance readers harp on the fact that a romance novel absolutely needs a HEA and while I agree with that assertion, I also think the journey to that HEA is equally as important. The development of a romantic relationship needs to be at the heart of a romance novel, the central focus around which other plot points revolve. The romance should never be a secondary plot to a bigger issue. Now, a romance novel could be a slow burn or a steady simmer or even a boiling inferno about to sizzle over and make a giant mess. But it should be the focal point of the book. This book could be described in many ways but a romance novel, slow burning or not, is not one of them. This book, at its core, is a love letter to pregnancy and to impending single-motherhood and it happens to contain a romantic subplot that feels almost like an afterthought. 

Usually in a romance, the main characters falling in love are clear. Here, for a big chunk of the book, I was unclear who the hero was meant to be. Was it going to be Ethan, the bar owner who has a one-night stand with Eve, our protagonist? Or is it clumsy, dependable Shep, the best-friend’s older brother who is always there and ready to lend his support and strong shoulders? (I don’t care if this is a spoiler because much of this review is going to focus on the ways this book got many things wrong but the hero is Shep and boy oh boy did he deserve better than this book).

Let’s start with our protagonist, Eve, a single white woman living in Brooklyn in her dream apartment that she has decorated exactly as she wants. She is, by all accounts, an administrative assistant for a wildlife conservation organization. She dreams of being a policy analyst but is limited by only having an undergrad degree and considers herself a “conservation fangirl”, lives an admittedly happy and carefree existence, hanging out with her married best friend Willa while curating her apartment with fresh flowers and bowls of fresh fruit that she gives away so they don’t go bad. (She is vegan, could she not just…eat the fruit?)

A one-night stand with a hunky bartender named Ethan leads to his sperm meeting her egg, despite the use of a condom and before we know it, there is Eve, legs up in stirrups, making uncomfortable jokes while getting confirmation of what she already knows full well, that she is indeed pregnant. Her response is to be expected but then comes the people in her life, mainly her best friend Willa, who is married and is trying (and failing) to become pregnant. It is an awkward conversation when Eve reveals her pregnancy to Willa and while I can sympathize with Willa’s inability to immediately be thrilled or excited for Eve and even Eve’s hurt reaction to it, it’s a follow up conversation about whether Eve is planning to keep the baby that leaves a decidedly bad taste in my mouth. 

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: we live in a time where rights to reproductive healthcare are being systematically dismantled all over this country. Forced births are driving people into economic hardships. This book seems to ignore all of the issues we currently face as a society, choosing instead to paint an idealized and dreamlike version of pregnancy and single-motherhood. The initial conversation that even involves the word “abortion” comes off incredibly judgmental and alludes to Eve thinking it might feel like a curse word. A curse word! At a time when pregnant people are literally DYING because they can’t get the health care they need.  

This entire book reads like a privileged white woman taking on single-motherhood, with a woman who inexplicably lives in a very nice apartment on an assistant’s salary, about to bring a whole other human into this world. There are only the most cursory discussions about the financial burdens of such an undertaking with best friend Willa doing much of the grunt work. 

And then there is Ethan. Ethan, who, upon learning about the fact that Eve is pregnant with his baby, divulges that he has a girlfriend (even though they were not together when he and Eve hooked up). Ethan who vacillates between wanting to be a present participant in this pregnancy and the child rearing to follow, and also wanting to appease his less than pleased girlfriend, Eleni. For the bulk of the pregnancy, Ethan feels torn and then he suddenly ghosts Eve, only to return towards the end of her pregnancy when an ultimatum from Eleni finally makes him realize that, despite him defending her to Eve as a good person, she very much is not that. I generally hate the evil ex-girlfriend trope anyway and there’s really no reason to make Eleni a villain in this story about whether Ethan will show up as a father or not. All too often, we as a society make excuses for men, give them credit for doing the bare minimum, and are all too happy to lay blame for their shortcomings elsewhere instead of where it rightfully belongs. Ethan is conflicted, sure, but he is also a massive asshole who does not deserve the grace and compassion extended to him by both Eve and Shep. (Or, at the very least, make him earn back the trust he lost – if he’s planning to co-parent a whole baby, perhaps it’s imperative that Eve feels secure enough to rely on him and him ghosting her for several months when she is gestating his baby is not a good indicator of reliability). 

It’s at this point that I would talk about Shep but this review is already very long. Needless to say, Shep was the best thing about this book and for a book purporting to be a romance novel, he gets massively shortchanged as the “hero”. I put “hero” in quotes not because he is not heroic but because the evolution of his relationship with Eve from friendship to romantic partner is given such little time and attention, it doesn’t feel like a slow burn but more like a crock pot dinner you forgot to actually plug in. 

I could write a lot more about this book and the many reasons it did not work for me, in a general sense and also specifically as a book marketed as a romance novel. It’s hard for me to read a book that is glorifying pregnancy and single-motherhood without taking into real account the difficulties posed by both, especially in our current political climate. Anyway – main takeaway, this book is very definitely not a romance and the overall message is problematic. 

Content Notes: unplanned pregnancy

Grade: C- (but probably a D)