The Unexpected Everything

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Title: The Unexpected Everything

Author: Morgan Matson

Series: N/A

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s UK

Release Date: May 5th 2016

Rating:

Andie has a plan and she always sticks to the plan.

Future? A top tier medical school.

Dad? Avoid as much as possible (which isn’t that hard considering he’s a Congressman and never around).

Friends? Palmer, Bri, and Toby—pretty much the most awesome people on the planet, who needs anyone else?

Relationships? No one’s worth more than three weeks.

So it’s no surprise she’s got her summer all planned out too.

Until a political scandal cancels her summer pre-med internship, and lands both her and Dad back in the same house for the first time in years. Suddenly she’s doing things that aren’t Andie at all—working as a dog walker, doing an epic scavenger hunt with her dad and maybe, just maybe, letting the super cute Clark in closer than expected. Palmer, Bri and Toby tell her to embrace all the chaos, but here’s the thing…can she?

– Blurb courtesy of goodreads.com

My Thoughts On…

…The Plot

“The idea that you could rethink the thing you’d always thought you wanted and change your plan—it was almost a revolutionary concept. That you could choose what would make you happy, not successful.”

When a political scandal means her father has to stop working for the summer it’s the start of all of Andie’s carefully laid plans falling apart. After actively avoiding each other ever since her mother died Andie and her father are occupying the same space for the first time in years, and due to the scandal Andie soon discovers the hard earned pre-med internship she has planned for the summer falling through.

Desperate to find a job so there isn’t a hole in her CV Andie takes the last available position she can find, and starts walking dogs. However even though this summer is falling short of Andie’s expectations it’s not all bad. For the first time in years Andie and her three best friends – Palmer, Bri and Toby – are all in the same town at the same time, meaning there will be plenty of opportunities for them to spend time together in between their respective jobs.

“DAD!” I screamed as I barrelled into the house, Toby at my heels. A second later, I realised how that sounded. “Everything is fine!” I yelled a moment later. There was no need to give my father a heart attack.
“No, it’s not!” Toby yelled, though a little less loudly than me. “We need help!”
“What’s going on?”

There’s also Clark, a really cute client from Andie’s new job walking dogs, who could end up being something more. The only problem is he wants to be let in closer than Andie has ever let anyone in before, and she’s not sure how to do that. Also with her dad spending more and more time at home, his work unable to take him away his summer, it could be the perfect opportunity for him and Andie to repair their relationship; if they can work out how.

The Unexpected Everything is definitely a perfect YA contemporary read for summer. The story had everything that I love in contemporary books; great characters and even better friendships, a sweet romance, an interesting family dynamic, and above all it made me crave the kind of summer days Andie was spending with her friends and Clark. The plot was enough to get me interested, but it was the individual characters and their relationships that had me hooked on The Unexpected Everything.

…The Characters

“I could do this. If whole galaxies could change, so could I.”

Andie has spent most of her life conforming to some kind of plan. Her father is a Congressman, and as everything Andie does is a reflection on him every action she takes has to be carefully thought out so it doesn’t impact his career negatively. Andie is very similar to her father in a lot of ways. She has a plan set out for almost every aspect of her life, and it’s only when her pre-med internship falls through that she starts to realise how fun it can be not having a plan for once in her life.

After losing her mother at a young age Andie and her father drifted apart. Her father’s career came first, and he was often away for business leaving Andie with a revolving door of different and distant family members. The two of them no longer know how to speak to one another and it makes for a lot of uncomfortable silences as they are alone in the same house for the first time in years. There are time when Andie clashes with her father, too used to her own independence to follow the rules he tries to set out for her, but the more time they spend together the more you see them find their own rhythm for their relationship.

“And as I touched his cheek and his hand tightened on my waist, I leaned forward to kiss him again, knowing as I did that something was ending while something else had already begun.”

When she meets Clark Andie has a standard way of running her relationships. She spends three weeks with her boyfriend’s before dumping them, and never opens up to any of them. Clark however wants to know the real Andie. He doesn’t follow her hints about things she doesn’t want to discuss and instead pushes her to be honest with him, to make their relationship deeper which is something Andie isn’t used to doing.

“Wait,” Toby said, talking over her as she looked around at all of us. “So this means all you guys are off, like, rounding the bases and I’m still in the dugout. I’m the person selling Cracker Jack in the stands.”
“This metaphor is getting weird,” Palmer murmured to me.

The best part of this book for me was the friendship between Andie, Palmer, Bri and Toby. The three of them have been close friends for years and you can see that close friendship in all of their interactions. Everything Andie needs to do to conform to her father’s position has already been ingrained in Palmer, Bri and Toby, and their text conversations were so much fun to read, full of inside jokes and emojis. The three of them share everything, and between boys, boyfriends and jobs they make time for one another whenever needed.

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It took me ages to get around to The Unexpected Everything, but in the end it was a book that was well worth the wait. This is a really cute story and one perfect for a sunny afternoon when you have nothing else planned. The relationship between Andie and Clark was cute, but it was the incredible friendships and the cute dogs that kept me reading this book.

What did you think of The Unexpected Everything? Was it a favourite of yours or could you just not get into the story? Let me know.