Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

First off, WOW. I can't believe this is a debut, it was so well written.
Benjamin Morrison is 16 and a junior, balancing high school, robotics club, and friends when he finds out that he accidentally got his best friend Maxie pregnant. Why is this particularly significant? Because he's gay.
ᴛʜɪs ʙᴏᴏᴋ ʀɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ. Juno meet Heartstopper is a very accurate description. The concept was fascinating- we really never see teen pregnancy from the father's perspective. Ben is 16 and you feel it. He comes off very immature and almost autistic. It takes w͟a͟y͟ t͟o͟o͟ l͟o͟n͟g͟ for him to realize the consequences of his actions, and you almost want to cry with him when he does. I also didn't love the relationship with Gio. I know it wasn't, but it felt incestuous.
Overall I thought it was an excellent exploration of the struggles of teen pregnancy, and the adoption route but I gave it 3.9 out of 5 stars because Maxie, the teen mother, gets pushed to the background. She's given no choices. No one talks to her or listens to her whatsoever. Granted, her part of the science camp experiment [virginity as a social construct] was STUPID AF, but you really end up wanting to save this girl from her parents.

This book gives us an inside look at a side of teen pregnancy we don’t always get to see and that’s the side of the father. As both a teen parent (I was 19 but still) and an adoptee I really enjoyed seeing things through Ben’s eyes. Ben is just a teenage boy who loves robotics and really wants to prove to people that he can raise his son. He spends most of the book juggling all of these hats; father to be, coding genius, restaurant worker, and friend and honestly he’s doing his best.

I loved seeing Ben develop his relationship with his stepdad Roger, who is one of my favorite characters of the whole book. I also loved the way adoption was portrayed throughout the book. It reflected the experiences of so many teenage birthing parents and was done really well.

My only complaints involve Ben and his relationship with Gio. While I know Ben is a young parent it almost feels like he was written younger. He’s incredibly immature and doesn’t seem to always understand just how serious this situation is. I also wish that Ben and Gio’s relationship was more developed romantically because it just didn’t feel like there was any chemistry there.

Overall this is an enjoyable book. Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book. This is my honest review.

Unexpecting put a new twist on teen pregnancy, with our main character, Ben, being the father of the baby. Adding yet another layer to the story is the fact that Ben identifies as gay... When Ben finds out that his friend Maxie is pregnant and he's the father, he experiences a range of emotions but at the forefront is the need to be in this baby's life. He quickly learns that Maxie's parents see adoption as the best way to eliminate this "problem" and Ben, who has lacked a strong father figure in his life, is determined that won't happen to his baby. The story follows Ben as he tries to figure out how his life will have to change if he takes over parenting, including balancing work and school, realizing his college plans will change, and wondering if he can actually do this even though he really wants too.

I did feel frustrated that no one really listened to Maxie or asked about her in the story - I know the author was working to present the story from Ben's perspective, but it did feel like Maxie was sort of shoved the back in the story and we hard far more from the voices of the other characters comparatively. The other thing I wondered about was the portrayal of adoption in the book. I would be curious what adoptees would think about the story that was told and how the book wrapped up.

Overall, I thought the book was well-written and presented from a unique viewpoint.

This was such a great book! i really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. this is a really unique story and i thought it was really well written. i felt like all of the characters were well written and i could understand all of them.
Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this in exchange for an honest review!

Unexpecting is such a lovely read. I enjoyed this refreshing take on high school dynamics and the consequences of young adults engaging in adult activities. The concept of chosen family is very well described and intertwined throughout the book. The main character is not the typical hero/protagonist type but you fall in love with him more and more as you read the book and you even sometimes forget that he is 16 years old. I recommend this to anyone who wants to read something real and something with true emotion.

Navigating teenage life choices such as college, drivers tests, SATs, friendships and relationships all while dealing with real adult problems is what makes this book so good.

Thank you to NetGalley for access to this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I did not finish this, not for lack of trying. The writing was fine, but I just couldn't bring myself to find any plausibility in the premise or care about any of the characters except for Maxie. From reading other reviews, she doesn't seem to get much of a look in for the entirety of the book. Unfortunately, this one is just not for me.

I really enjoyed Jen Bailey's debut novel Unexpecting. It follows Ben, a gay sixteen year old boy, who has impregnated his best female friend, Maxie. Maxie's parents want the baby to be given up for adoption, but Ben, who doesn't want the baby to feel unwanted as he has without a permanent father figure, wants custody of the child when the baby is born. So he sets off on learning what it will mean for him to be a parent -- baby books, parenting classes, getting a job, and realizing that he will need to sacrifice his own dreams for the baby.

I thought the synopsis sounded interesting, but I admit my hopes were not set too high when I started the book. However, Unexpecting turned out to be a very well written book, especially for it being a debut. I enjoyed the characters, and loved the way Ben was written. He is complex, and while immature (which is to be expected), he was a character I felt I could root for. And the character growth was fantastic! He grew into a mature teenager that truly was able to put others first.

I've mentioned twice that this was Bailey's debut, and if this is how she starts, I can see her turning out to have more successful books in the future. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future projects.

I loved the development of the characters and relationships in this book! It’s not often we get a book from the perspective of a teen male. I felt for Ben with each page turn and definitely recommend this one!

This book had me sold from the first page. I was curious and excited to see how this book would play out from the male perspective and it was hit out of the ball park. I just loved Ben and my heart ached watching him be forced to learn so many hard lessons so quickly at a young age. I just felt like the author put so much effort into writing such an emotionally charged book from start to finish. So well done!

Thank you for netgalley and the publishers for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review

3.75
This book while predictable, has really hard to put down.
Jen Bailey I think captured Ben journey to very from finding out he is going to be a father and how he went going about find what was the best option for the baby. While the books comes from Ben's pov, I really wish we could get a little more character development from Maxine.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Ben is a junior in high school and is an expectant father. Not what his mother thought she would be dealing with after Ben came out as gay to her and his stepfather. He and his best friend, Maxie, decided to do a science experiment to make sure he was gay and get her virginity out of the way as she thought it was a social construct. Unfortunately, their experiment had an unexpected outcome. Ben is gay and Maxie is no longer a virgin, but now she's pregnant. When she gives legal papers to Ben to sign over his parental rights, he makes the decision to raise the baby. His mother is supportive and helps him understand all that will entail.

This part is in response to some of the negative reviews saying that Ben is immature, stupid, etc. My thought is that Ben is on the autism spectrum. The author never states that, but his behaviors seem to indicate that to me. He's very focused on certain things, can't always read facial expressions, doesn't think of others, along with other behaviors. I was a special education teacher for nine years and have been a school librarian for twelve years and have had a lot of experience with students who have autism.

Rating: 3.5

This was a sweet, easy read. I was excited by the premise of the story, as it's a different take than what one would normally see. Juno meets Heartstopper really does describe it well.

I did find parts of the story to be slow and my eyes skimmed some of the scenes. At first, I found Ben, our MC, to be irksome and immature (which, he's young, so can't terribly fault him for that). But there did seem to be a good amount of character development by the end.

Which, the ending was very sweet and definitely put a tear in my eye. It did seem a bit rushed, though. Nothing too bad, but something that I picked up on.

The blurb made me think the story would be completely different. It's frased as if the main character is trans or as if there was a science experience that made him get pregnant. It's not to say that this makes the book bad, but I wish it had been less misleading.
I did not like how Maxie, the pregnant teen, is never asked what she wants. She wanted to have an abortion and her parents did not let her. This anti-choice discourse was quite insensitive.
The Robotics team isn't nice at all. They just spend their time being angry and snapping at each other. It's not the ideal friend group for sure.
Roger was quite of a nice stepdad, he tried to help Ben whenever he needed.
Ben's mother had a right to be upset, but she also could've been more supportive of Ben's choices. She wasn't exactly considerate of his feelings. Trying to constantly make her son change his mind about keeping the baby was so irritating. In the end he ended up changing his mind, but it´s like the author doesn't understand that there's always some trauma with adoption and that for Ben, being around the couple who adopted his child (since they're close) and watching someone else raise the baby, this is going to be extremely traumatising.
I do think that this explores well how fathers don't get a lot to say when it comes to adoption, because when society thinks of someone raising a child, they think woman and not man, which dives deeper into the issues with sexism and double standards. of course the pregnant person should always be the one to choose what happens with their body, but since she decided to keep the pregnancy and leave the baby up for adoption she might as well let the father have the child.
This book does speak a lot about teen pregnancy and the struggles pregnant teens face, mainly with classes and gossip. However, I do not agree when the author states that a child ruins the teen's life. While they make life harder for sure, many teenagers keep their children and manage to go to school and even university, while keeping a job and raising the child. Just the whole discourse that a baby ruins your life if you're young felt so weird. People who have gone through pregnancy in their teens or their kids may read this and I sincerely think it would make them feel awful.
In the end, I just skimmed through a lot of it, because the story is written in a very insensitive manner. I wish it was as good as I hoped it would be, but it's just not.

TW:pregnancy, implied sexual content, adoption, anti-choice comments, discrimination, homophobia, sexism.

4.5 stars overall!

I really liked this book. Ben was a fun character to read - he definitely gave me Sheldon Cooper vibes a little bit (and I don't mean that in any kind of bad way.) And be feels different from a lot of the protagonists I usually read about.

This book is easy to read and will keep you turning the pages for sure. It was easy enough for me to guess halfway through what was going to happen, but I'm glad it got the ending it did.

For me, I just think the second half of the book felt a bit rushed. I wish there was more time spent getting to know Ben and Gio's relationship (though it's understandable why that didn't happen, as Ben gives his reasons in the books.) I wasn't sure how I'd feel about those two because of how they knew each other (no spoilers but it's one of my least favorite tropes) but this book does it so tactfully.

There were quite a few times where I found myself tearing up and ready to cry, especially towards the end. Anyone who reads this is in for one heck of a ride.

"Unexpecting" is the story of sixteen year old, freshly out of the closet, Ben, who gets his friend Maxie pregnant. It's a complicated but important story, one that isn't often told in books today, especially young adult, so I loved that Jen Bailey decided to tell it.

The depictions of Ben's stress and anxiety were wonderful, and so realistic. I had to keep pausing and reminding myself that I was only reading a story, because it really felt like I was going through all the same things Ben did.

I do wish there was more focus on Maxie and her life and relationships, but I understand that this was Ben's story. I'd love to see something about Maxie in the future from this author!

This book was well written and had a unique premise. However I felt like a lot of the relationships in the book between Ben and his friends were forced, and that caused some of the book to fall flat. We didn’t really get to see him interact with his supposed two best friends for a majority of the book, and his love interest was a minor character. For the first half of the book Ben barely communicates with the mother of the child he is so desperate to take care of, which made it really difficult for me to feel any sympathy for him. I also feel as if it was brushed past too quickly that Maxine didn’t even want to have the child in the first place, but her parents would not let her have an abortion. I don’t know if it was the authors intention, but the whole book felt a little too anti-choice for my liking. Everyone got an opinion except for Maxie, and I wish that had been better addressed. Ben was also so incredibly immature, which is typical for a 16 year old boy, but so frustrating when that boy is trying to fight for custody of his child.

In all this book was an interesting read. I appreciate what the author was trying to do, but I feel that some of the messages this book was trying to convey could use some refining.

I was able to read this ARC thanks to NetGalley!

I really liked this book, which is going to sound weird considering how many problems I had with the book. I did not like how none of the adults could see why this kid who grew up without his dad, with a revolving door of stepdads, would be so against giving his child up for adoption. Maxie’s parents were also cartoonishly mean about Ben & the pregnancy itself. They decided amongst themselves what was going to happen and wouldn’t let anyone have an opinion about it.

Now I did really find it really interesting to see a main character coming to terms with his sexuality while at the same time having that not be the main focus of the book. Also how the book ended brought me to tears in the best way.

Heartwarming story about an awkward but brave teen who fights for the family he wants even if that means he becomes a single dad at 16. He struggles with wanting this new life and not wanting to sacrifice everything about the life he has. While some may find this desire to hold on childish, I found it to be about bravery and hope and sacrifice. You don’t have to give everything up to be a parent, even a single parent, but it won’t be easy. His mother discouraged him saying he can’t go to MIT if he has a child, where I disagree with that. I respect the mother of the baby’s choice but don’t understand how she couldn’t see why he would want to keep the baby, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t want children. Especially when you have the backstory of losing his dad and having so many step dads, it makes sense he would want to be the dad he didn’t have.

All in all, really liked this book.

Unexpected is a wonderful story about found family and biological family as it follows a gay teenage boy who gets his best friend pregnant. With the decision to keep the baby, everything changes quickly for Ben as we follow him navigate being a recently out teen and becoming a father.

This book is billed as Juno meets Heartstopper but in my opinion, that’s a bit of a misnomer. Promoting the book this way overemphasizes the role that romance plays in the novel, which does a disservice to the actual plot. While there is a queer romantic story line, it’s more of a subplot that happens in the background, while the real bulk of the story is taking place.

At its core, this is a story about a teenage boy who, two months after coming to terms with the fact that he’s gay, has to tell his family that he accidentally got someone pregnant. It follows his journey to figure out if he’s ready to be a father and what that means for his life, his relationships, and his future.

The true heart of this story revolves around family, friendship, growth, and learning that sometimes you need to do what’s best for someone else, even if that might not be what’s best for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital arc.