By Cara Bastone
Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Audiobook rating: 🎧🎧🎧🎧
Blurb
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.
Eve Hatch is pretty content with her life. Her apartment in Brooklyn is cozy and close to her childhood best friend Willa, but far from her midwestern, traditional family who never really understood her. While her job is only dream- adjacent , she’s hoping her passion and hard work will soon help her land a more glamorous role. And sure, her most recent romantic history has consisted of not one but two disappointing men named Derek. At least she always knows what to expect…until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.
The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve's loyal friendship with Willa is feeling off , right when she needs her most. And it’s Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is… suddenly kinda hot? Then there’s the baby's father, who is supportive but conflicted. Before long, Eve is rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself and her world.
Over nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
Genre: Contemporary Romance/ Women's Fiction
Read if you Like:
🍼 Best friend's brother
🍼 Unexpected pregnancy
🍼 Cinnamon roll hero
🍼 Slow burn
🍼 New York city setting
My Thoughts:
Thanks to PRH audio for the gifted ALC and Netgalley and Dial Press for the gifted eARC.
I am one of the few readers who is a fan of the unexpected pregnancy trope, assuming it is written well. While this book does revolve around an unexpected pregnancy it is pretty different than the typical unexpected pregnancy romance.
Eva finds out she is pregnant and has to figure out how her life will change. I enjoyed watching her discover who she wanted to be and how her relationships needed to evolve. I appreciated that Eve, Willa, and Shep all dealt with the curve balls life threw them with maturity. It would have been easy for them to put their own feeling first but they all truly wanted to support each other.
I struggled a little bit to decide if this book should be categorized as a romance. There was definitely a romance that I really enjoyed but the larger plot was about Eve growing up and becoming a parent. I will say I don't think people uninterested in reading about the experience of pregnancy, including descriptions of giving birth, will enjoy this one. It isn't a small part of the plot.
Ready or Not is well written and a beautiful story about what makes a family. The characters were really well written and Step is the perfect cinnamon roll hero. Fans of a slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance will adore this one!
🌶️🌶️🌶️- This is a very slow-burn book, but once we do get to the spice it is pretty descriptive and well written.
🎧🎧🎧🎧 - I listened to the audiobook version of Ready or Not and really enjoyed it! Alex Finke does the narration and while this is her first audiobook she has a background in theater. This led to her doing a bit more voice acting than some other narrators which I enjoyed, but it may not be for everyone. This audiobook is single narrator and the book is single POV.
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