“Yours, Unexpectedly” by Rachel Lewis

Title: Yours, Unexpectedly
Author: Rachel Lewis    
Publisher:  Self-published
Year: 2024    
Genre(s): romance
Part of a Series: Yes, Book 1

Rating: 

Why I read it: I entered a giveaway for it and though I didn’t win, decided to read it anyway.

Summary: Rebecca “Bex” Bardot needs to take a fine arts course in order to graduate. She gets placed in an Intro to Acting course and discovers the TA is Anders Olsson, her brother’s best friend and the person Bex has had a crush on for several years now. Unknown to her, Anders has been harboring feelings for her as well. As he prepares to complete his master’s and relaunch a career derailed by his untreated ADHD, will he finally take a chance? Will she?

Review: I didn’t hate the book but I didn’t love it either. I was just meh on it and it hit me toward the end why - I just didn’t care if Bex and Anders stayed together or not.

Which is probably not what a romance writer wants to elicit from their readers.

Bex and Anders aren’t bad characters. Anders in particular is pretty interesting. He’s trying to get his life back in order after spiraling due to undiagnosed ADHD. Now that he has the diagnosis and strategies to help him. He is about to graduate and take his chances at an acting career again. And he’s ready to take a chance on finding love with Bex.

Bex herself is also a pretty fun character herself. She’s trying to figure out the rest of her life while also enjoying her last semester in college. Bex enjoys spending time with her friends and has a pretty close-knit family. It was fun to watch them together.

I won’t lie. She and Anders had some chemistry. But there really were no stakes. There were no real conflicts between them, nothing that wasn’t easily solved. It was just a little too easy.

He’s her brother’s best friend and her brother is overprotective? A little ribbing but he’s okay with it. He’s the TA for her class? He immediately tells the professor, who removes him so there’s no more conflict of interest. Any possible speed bump is smoothed over pretty easily. By the time we got to the last speedbump, it just felt like another stalling tactic and not like something they really truly had to overcome.

And as I said, by then I realized I just didn’t care if they did or didn’t.

This review is getting a little too negative so I think I’m going to call it now. I’ll end it by saying that if you do love the brother’s best friend trope or want something spicy, this book may be for you.

Bottom line: Probably someone’s cup of tea, just not really mine.

Sex: Yes. Lots and very descriptive.

Moonlight Musing

Who was your biggest crush?