sammie reads books: An Unexpected Kind of Love

After a long while I read a book from NetGalley and, despite everything, I actually quite enjoyed it.

The book we’re going to talk about today is An Unexpected Kind of Love, by Hayden Stone and it will hit the shelves on August the 9^th, 2021. NetGalley was so kind to send me an ARC copy and I literally binge read it in two nights.

I didn’t expect to like the story as much as I did, regardless of the little flaws I spotted here and there, and yet.

I guess I should start with the basics, as in the plot. This book is about Aubrey, a bookshop owner who is trying to juggle between a breakup, a life who seems to hate him and his bookstore which isn’t doing great. One day his assistant signs up a form that allows Blake’s movie crew to film inside Aubrey’s bookshop. Aubrey then finds out Blake, whom he met a couple of times before in very awkward situations, is an actor and seems to have taken an interest in him.
The story takes off from there, in an attempt to explore the chemistry that seems to have been born between our two characters.

Objectively and critically speaking, this book has gotten three stars out of five, whilst subjectively and more personally speaking I would rate it four stars out of five.

I did enjoy it thoroughly because it was fast-paced and light read, something I picked up because of the heat and that I hoped it would’ve helped me to deal with it and the lack of concentration it brought with him.
I loved Aubrey because he was like my brain when it switches on the Goody Sam mode, too burnt out to actually properly function.
I didn’t particularly enjoy Blake’s character because the author didn’t give too much away about him and this choice made it hard for me to put him into perspective. I basically didn’t empathise with him at all, I almost didn’t care for his presence and his opinions nor actions. I very much preferred Ryan, who wasn’t as detailed as Aubrey or Eli, but with whom I definitely had a stronger connection than with Blake. I also thought that there was more chemistry between Aubrey and his ex, more than with Blake and this kind of threw me off a little. I am not here to deny that I hoped until the very end in Aubrey getting back with him because I thought the ex deserved a second chance, or else I would lie to you.

I was very invested in Aubrey’s adventure and I kind of appreciated the twist that the final bit of the book took. It was different and realistic and probably the most mature thing Aubrey had done since the beginning of the book (no, I am not talking about a certain trip)—Even though it broke my heart.

However, critically speaking, reading this book felt like reading an average fanfiction. The characters were good, but not excellent; they had their flaws (many of them) and occasionally Aubrey felt like he was just whining and like he wasn’t able to sort things out on his own. It was kind of expected from him, given that he’s basically an adult, but if that didn’t bother me whilst I was reading, it could bother you, so it is worth pointing out these little things.
As I said, Blake didn’t have any depth at all, up until the last fifty pages, which precluded me from empathising and welcoming him under my wing. I absolutely loved Eli though, and Gemma. They were very well done.
I also noticed some bits of the plot weren’t as detailed and clear as I was expecting them to be, hence they sometimes lacked realism and objectivity, feeling a bit unrealistic and off, such as Blake’s story or Eli’s one.

One more thing I feel the need to point out, however, it is necessary to keep in mind this bit specifically is something strictly personal and not a flaw of the book itself is that Aubrey and Blake engage in sexual intercourses way too often without a context or the crescendo of feelings such as lust or need. They just look at each other, talk about something random and then they are getting *there* in less than a blink of the eye. It’s one of those things that felt off, as if the author necessarily needed to insert those scenes but didn’t know where or how to put them so that it felt like the sex they were having was actually meaningful and necessary to the development of the plot itself.

I guess overall, speaking objectively, I would’ve liked a little less steam and a bit more depth into the feelings and the psychology of each character. Not as much as to write the next War and Peace, but LGBTQ+ themed (however good this idea actually is) but because I think the book and the plot itself would’ve benefited from it.
I also would’ve appreciated a bit more representation: the author uses a disabled character but doesn’t really look into them, their life and their story and I think it is such a shame, given how this character’s arc had been thought.

Overall I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to those who are looking for a light read, not necessarily character or plot-driven, and for those who are looking for something to keep things out of their mind or survive a particularly hard period of their lives.
I believe the author has a lot of potentials and they will be able to improve one book at a time. I would love to read something different from them, as I had a very good time with this novel, so I will definitely keep them on my radar for future publications. So should you.

And for today it’s all, dear readers. Thanks for getting here, for reading it all. I hope it was helpful, somehow.

Let me know if you’ve read it, ok? And I will see you in my next post. Bye!

Sam.