Such a cute story. I couldn’t help but fall in love with Josie. I loved her relationship with her friends and her second chance at life. Such a nice and cute story. You’ll laugh, you’ll get emotional, you’ll enjoy this book for sure!

I started reading this, but the first few chapters weren't doing the job. I couldn't stay interested that's why I had to mark it as DNF.

This one ended up being sweeter than I thought it would be. I'm not going to lie with the cover I was expecting a rom com. But instead I got something so much more. Don't get me wrong there was quite a bit of comedy. I'm when your two male high school friends ask your pregnant soon to be divorced self to move in because you have no where else to go what do you thinks going to happen. But somehow it works and the three thirty years old start to finally grow up. And we do get the rom part of the rom com. but it's a really slow burn. But that makes it all the more sweeter.

Oh my goodness, this book was just the cutest! I was hooked right from the start and did not want to put it down. I really enjoyed this lighthearted story of self discovery and friendship.

I loved the friendship in this book and the second chance romance. Three childhood friends reunite in their 30s and make a pact to help get their lives back together. I enjoyed all the characters and seeing where their lives were going to take them. Normally, I am not a fan of the pregnancy trope, but I felt like it worked well in this book. Overall, if you’re looking for a fun and quick read, I highly recommend checking this one out!

Thank you Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Josie needs to get her life together...ASAP! After starting a messy divorce with her cheating husband, leaving a secure job, and moving into her childhood home with her parents, she finds out she is now pregnant with her (ex)husbands baby, that he didn't even really want. Josie ends up running into two high school friends, one of which she had a major crush on, and the three of them make a pact; to move in together and get their lives together in a year. Twists and turns come up along the way as Josie fights to keep her baby, get her life together, and possibly find romance.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book! I adored Josie as a main character and found her so relatable. As adults, I think we feel a certain amount of pressure to have stuff figured out by a certain age. When in reality, we are all still stumbling around and going through things that the people on the outside might consider messy or immature. I think this character and book did a great job of showing how, even when stuff totally hits the fan, you can make it work and you can figure it out!
Both her roommates are on their own separate journeys, but are still able to help Josie figure her stuff out. They also provide some great comic relief and love interest.
I did expect this to be a bit more romance-centered, but I was honestly kind of happy that the romance was the B-plot. It allowed the focus to be on Josie coming to love herself, lover her life, and improve herself.

Thanks to NetGalley for randomly selecting me to review this book. All opinions are my own.

The description of this story sounded so good and I’m always on the look out for a second chance romance because that’s one of my favourite tropes.
I love that cover so much. It’s just so vivid and it really makes me want to read it without even checking out the authors of what’s all about.
The characters are interesting and the story is based more on the family and relationships and growing to lean how to live with your decisions and all the society expectations that surrounds them.
The romance part though, didn’t quite lived up to my expectations as I was wishing for. It’s there and wood and nice but it feels like it’s just a secondary thought altogether in here.
That being said, it’s still a good story that many readers will enjoy.

I loved this!

It was super sweet and funny. This story is geared toward the lives of Josie and those she's surrounded by. The romance between her and Ben comes second. The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale is about second chances and finding a family in those you never expected.

Though the romance is a slow burn, the characters were relatable, especially Josie, who added humor to the story despite her situation.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and NetGalley for a gifted arc copy.

Lovable if not sometimes lacking in drive, characters. A sweet version of the movie Knocked Up. If not for the characters, it would be a slow moving story. I enjoyed it.

More like 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding up. This is kind of a very chaste, mild version of "Knocked Up," in terms of, if not exactly involving a bunch of slackers, then a group of people with potential who are down on their luck but who were never exactly ambitious in changing their circumstances before now.

Josie gets pregnant during a failed attempt at reviving a failing marriage (due to her husband's infidelity) before she moves out. When her parents give her a heads up that they're downsizing from the family home (requiring her to leave again), she's at her wit's end. It's serendipitous when she runs into two childhood buds at a county fair: Ben, her childhood crush and a divorced and confused dad of a sulky tween; and Kevin, a somewhat cocky man-child who doesn't want to run the family business when his dad finally retires. They invite her to move in to Ben's house, and Kevin creates "The Corndog Pact" (named for said treat at the county fair): their group plan to improve their personal, career and financial lives by the time they're 30. What follows is a lot of humorous banter but a very slow moving story. To say there's a slow burn between Ben and Josie makes it steamier than it really is. Even the audiobook (when it finally came out) couldn't motivate me to completely finish the last third and I had to skim the e-book ARC instead. It may or may not work as a made-for-streaming movie, though, believe it or not.

Thank-you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca for the chance to review this ARC!

The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale by Stephanie Eding is a story about found family and second chances.
I have a thing for found family stories there's a comfort to them and this was written so beautify!

This was my first book by Eding and it wont be my last she does an awesome job here!

Josie was a great character!

I found myself wishing this was a Netflix series while I read it.

Josie reconnects with her two high school besties when she returns home after her marriage ends and she finds out she's pregnant. They make a corn dog pact to be in a better place and closer to their goals by their next birthday.

Oh man I love the found family trope. Considering the complicated family relationships these 3 had with theirs they needed eachother. With Josie trying to figure out how to be a single mom, her high school crush Ben who is divorced with joint custody of his daughter and their single friend Kevin who is guaranteed a place at his father's successful business but he's unlucky in relationships they are in such different places in their lives.

This brought up so many memories of NST, FMLA, all the appts, sonograms I didn't have the smoothest pregnancies. Everything was fine but those tests were all false positives. Josie had to deal with all of this without a partner and one who was a dick also not a stable job. Ugh I wanted to punch her ex what a fhead (as my 4 yr old says- I didn't teach her that but I agree)

Edit- I wasn't quite all the way done when I wrote this and her birth story though my first was a month early and I never went into labor was similar to mine. So that brought back a lot of memories not all good cause that was majorly stressful. And the ex ended up being only slightly a dick so maybe just a slap in the face. Still mad at him though.

Thank you sourcebookscasa and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

This book follows the titular Josie Hale, newly pregnant with her estranged husband's baby, as she reunites with two old friends from high school and they make a pact to turn their lives around.

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I get that the whole point of the book was that the characters needed to make changes to their lives, but they just all felt super immature to me and more like college students with their bean bags for furniture and terrible eating habits instead of thirty-year-olds with full-time jobs (in the case of Ben and Kevin). This book was also just really slow, and I felt it hard to really connect to any of the characters or care about what happened to them. If you're expecting any type of romance, it's a really, really, slow burn with hardly any pay off in the end.

Not to be completely negative, I thought the evolution of Ben's relationship with his daughter was sweet. I also enjoyed some of the friendship moments between the three characters.

If you're into books about friendship, really slow burn romances, and getting your life together, you might enjoy this more than I did, but I just wasn't a huge fan.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale is cozy, funny, and sweet. The plot, however, was somewhat lacking for me. From the beginning, the meet cute wasn’t fully convincing. Josie bumps into her former best friend Kevin and her high school crush Ben after finding out she’s pregnant with her cheating soon-to-be ex-husband’s child. However, as they catch up, it seems that Josie has had absolutely no contact with them and has no idea what they have been up to in their lives, which seems far-fetched in a time where social media exists. Their subsequent offer for her to move in with them, then, seems sudden and a bit forced. I never fully understood the rationale behind the invitation. The novel also has a subplot with one of Josie’s students that, in my opinion, didn’t really add much to the story. I would have much rather read more about the dynamic between the three housemates and/or the development of Josie and Ben’s daughter’s relationship. It seems as though instead of showing us key moments, the author instead summarized what happened to bring us to the circumstances in the current chapter, and I would have preferred to actually read the events play out.

Those observations aside, it’s an undeniably enjoyable read. It has a great voice, lovable characters, and believable relationships. Josie is a relatable, complex, and charming protagonist. I laughed out loud numerous times, especially due to Kevin’s antics and the easy banter between the three main characters. Josie’s complicated relationship with her mom and how it improved was very realistic. The development of the main romance was also immensely satisfying. If you enjoy stories about found families and pregnant women being romanced, I definitely recommend this book.

I truly enjoyed this heartwarming story. I loved the characters and their banter. Can’t wait to read more of Stephanie Eding’s books. I hope this one will have a sequel.

Such a cute book! I can totally relate to this as I had a baby then left my ex, so was a mess figuring out motherhood and being a single Mom at the same time. I loved every bit of this! So much cute moments and laughs! I absolutely adore romantic comedies and this one I could totally see being a movie. Josie was great and fun. Kevin and Ben were arguably my fave characters due to their humor and support for Josie. Loved this so much! If you want to laugh alot and have numerous "awww" moments then this book should be your next read!

I received this book from NetGalley and the publishers to read and review. All statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this book.

What an adorable story! It might be set in the winter, but something about this type of book just makes me feel so summery! At times, it was predictable and silly, but with this goofy bunch of characters, it worked well. This is definitely one that will leave your mouth watering, especially if you have the tastebuds of a teenage boy like I do 😂. It was much heavier on the personal development of the characters and less on the romance, so if you want a steamy read where romance is central, this won’t be it. There were a few loose ends that were never tied up and I wish we had gotten an epilogue, but overall this was a delightful story of found family and finding yourself when faced with challenges.

The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale
by Stephanie Eding



Josie finds herself attempting to eat away her troubles at a county fair. She is pregnant and in the middle of a divorce. She meets her friends from high school, Ben and Kevin at the fair.

They all decide to move in together to help each other and form the Corn Dog Pact, where they all try to achieve their goals within a year to improve their lives.

I really enjoyed the characters and their growth during this story.

I think I liked Ben and Izzy's process the most.

This was a sweet story with growth, friendship and some heavy issues but it left me with a warm feeling.

There was a bit of romance but only a bit, the story was more women's fiction.

A great beach read where the story could easily be read in a few hours while listening to the waves crashing nearby.

Who I would recommend this to, people who enjoy lighter stories with some heavier subjects without getting terribly deep into them. People who enjoy books with nice characters and want a happier ending.

3.75****


My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was as sweet as the cotton candy featured on the cover.

I didn't quite know what to expect with Josie Hale but I was so pleasantly surprised to enjoy her story so much. This is an excellent book about unconventional families, different types of friendships and the ever-evolving dramas that can unfold within families and households. But in a ... sweet ... way.

Lots of talk of food. Prepare to be hungry. Lots of talk of unrequited love. Prepare to have your heartstrings pulled. I laughed out-loud AND cried at times.

Overall, this was a fresh and heartwarming book. It was a like a nice little break from life for a bit; just as a book should be!

I think this was so cute in so many ways. We've a pregnant and divorcing caracter surviving life, untill she comes back home and reunited with 2 of her best friends from highschol Ben and Kevin, while she had full crying crisis in fron them while eating a corn dog 🤭. When the 3 of them realized that they're barely surviving the adult life, they made a pact to motivate each other to change their lifes.
When the 3 of them start living together, it melted my heart everytime Kevin and Ben helped Josie during all her pregnancy.
I can seriosuly confirm nothing happens with Kevin, he's like the fun and silly uncle.
Even to I know it wasnt the purpose since they were living toghetet, I wish I had more romance with Ben and Josie.
It was fun and easy read.

Josie Hale's life is a mess. She's pregnant, in the middle of a messy divorce and lives at home with her parents. She decides to move in with two old friends from high school, and they all make a pact to make their lives better. As they work on themselves they find that if they lean on each other they are much more successful than going it alone.

This book started out really strong. I liked the premise and the writing was fun and light, but there was enough weight to the situations presented to keep me interested. I love the found family trope and this seemed like a promising story for that to thrive in. It fell apart pretty quickly for me, however, and I found the last half a bit hard to get through. I found the characters to be a little flat, and they didn't really grow all that much. Their circumstances became better, but the characters themselves seemed stuck in their immaturity.

I'm also not a huge fan of a super slow burn, and this was almost painfully slow. The focus was not on the romance, and I think if the other parts of the story were more engaging I wouldn't have minded so much. As it was I found myself rolling my eyes at the endlessly interrupted kisses or fingers brushing together with nothing happening.

Overall, I liked the premise of this book and there were some cute parts, but I think if the characters were fleshed out a bit more and some of the repetitive plot points reduced the story as a whole would have been much more satisfying.