Never Saw You Coming by Erin Hahn was an exceptionally good book about two teenagers, Micah and Meg, grappling with their pasts (or in Meg’s case, her mother’s past). These internal struggles stem from growing up in religious households, but learning that there are levels of hypocrisy and a lack of forgiveness when it comes to people at the church.

Told from the perspectives of both Meg and Micah, we really got to know the characters and the inner conflicts that they are experiencing. Despite the seriousness of the conflicts they are facing, the overall story is uplifting and funny at times. I loved the blossoming romance between the two characters, and appreciated how realistic it was.

I was especially excited when I realized that Never Saw You Coming is a spinoff from Hahn’s book, More Than Maybe. While it’s not necessary to have read this before reading Never Saw You Coming, I really enjoyed reading Meg’s story and the cameo’s from the first book were fun.

Overall, I would recommend this book! A big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read the book and give my honest review.

This is my favorite Erin Hahn book to date. I loved the characters and their journeys so much. I flew through the book and had a hard time putting it down to do other things. Five stars isn’t nearly enough.

I am a big fan of this author and when I realized this was a story about Meg, I was thrilled. What the author does in this story is takes many of the ideals of Christianity and conservative Christianity, and discusses them through the characters of Meg and Micah. Both characters are dealing with their own personal issues related to their faith in their family, and are able to find solace in each other. I think this is a very powerful story and I think that it has a very strong thought provoking message. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion

*ARC provided courtesy of the publisher*
I really enjoyed this book, even though I’m not convinced I was the target audience for it. That’s a good thing. As an avid reader of YA, I really like Meg and Micah as protagonists. Although I’m not a Christian, or all that familiar with the issues Meg and Micah face directly, I am religious and I do really appreciate the way the author writes about their struggles and the entire cast of characters’ relationship with God, the church, and each other. I thought the characters were well developed. I liked their relationship and I like that their storyline progressed realistically and didn’t rely on communication issues as a foil. However, I do wish that it was more diverse and that we were introduced more to the other characters, who really feel like background characters.. (I wish I could give it 3.75 but I’ll round up to 4).

This book felt complicated to me. Many people will love this book and I loved it about 65% of the time.

I thought this book was going to be one of those sweet little teen Christian romances. But what I got instead was a book that is heavy on the theology debates using two younger adults who have had some major upsets in their lives that would make them question God AND a sweet little teen romance. I know next to nothing when it comes to the heavy the religious content is in this book. I only know what I believe from my limited knowledge and point of view. So this is it.

This book reminds me of a documentary I once watched about these girls who pledge a chastity promise (complete with a ring) before their pastor/church and go to a yearly chastity dance with their fathers (which looks fancier than prom)…some of them are so extreme they claim they won’t even kiss a boy until they’re married, or even be in the same room with a boy unless they are chaperoned by a father figure…and then we have the few girls that fell off the chastity wagon just to offset the overwhelming tones of the other 90% of the cast.

Meg reminds me of these chastity girls. She’s 18 and rebelling; if you call wearing a tankini, kissing a boy, and showing some shoulder actual rebelling. Which I don’t. That said, I absolutely love her. Meg is a wonderful girl and anyone would be lucky to have a girl like her in their lives.

Micah (who is also a wonderful person anyone would be lucky to have in their lives) is contradictory. He’s a pastor’s son. Only the pastor got nailed for stealing money from the church and sleeping around. He says he’s agnostic (If I am remembering correctly). But I don’t think that’s what he is based on everything he says in the book.

Micah totally says multiple times that he believes in God and his revelation in the church supports that thought. Along with telling Meg a bunch of super conservative Christian info that he believes. So what I think he is supposed to be is, non-denominational. Because his father tainted that relationship he had with his church life, which is part of Micah’s major struggle throughout the book. And oh boy, when you near 40% of the way through this book does the religious talks start ramping up hard for a while.

Meg talks about singing in church and Micah has a revelation when he accidentally hears a tiny bit of a speech given in the same sermon. He talks God with Meg on the top of the ‘mountain’ giving these extremely religious views of how even thinking a thought that isn’t pure is a sin but god offers grace and understanding about such things and has known you would have these thoughts since before you were born so it’s fine…yeah. Not agnostic by a long shot my friends.

This book tries to be inclusive too. Dane is not quite sure what he is, but with a strict military background father he’s mostly afraid to explore. Dane is the most natural inclusion character of the book. I appreciate Dane.

For example a not so natural inconclusion, Meg just bomb drops out of nowhere that she thinks her stepfather (who is currently in the middle of divorcing her mother after over a decade of being married) is probably gay. How does she know this? Why are we getting this info? No idea. Does it get mentioned again…well not for the next 15-20% of the book because they are too busy going on with their teenage-hood lives and having conversations on how kissing and thinking about wanting more is totally a sin but God must be okay with it or why would we have these thoughts and feelings? *cough* free will? *cough cough*

Back to trying to be inclusive though. Meg tells Micah about her friends Cullen and Zack back home, who are obviously in a relationship. Fortunately, I think their names were mentioned in passing right at the beginning of the book so I don’t think this ‘we’re inclusive’ talk is quite as random the bomb drop the step-dad one was. I could go on. But I’m not.

Conclusion

I’m going to be honest, this book flipped back and forth between being really cute and somewhat irritating me. To me it felt like I was reading a massive example of the word contradiction. But that feeling is 100% based on my own life experience. Maybe there are people out there who hold all these conflicting ideals in their hearts and I’m just totally missing them from my life.

Maybe I just hang out with too many hardcore Catholics and non-denominational people with no one in between

Anyhow, this one just missed the mark for me. I’m sure other people will absolutely love it. It’s well written with super loveable characters who have a cute romance going on.

This book was such a breath of fresh air! The story was sweet, heart wrenching, empowering and so REAL! I loved everything about this book. Hahn was able to spin a beautiful story that was warm, witty and flowed so well. I love how it was just explanatory enough; not too much, not too little, just enough. The peak into the hypocrisy of the church really resonates with me. As someone who grew up kind of in between the two, I can envision myself in either Meg's or Micah's shoes. This hits me on a very familiar level as I'm sure it will several others. There is a great message in this story and I'm so full of warm fuzzies after reading this. After reading Never Saw You Coming I discovered it was a follow up to another book. You can believe I will be reading more of Hahn's books, especially if any of them are remotely as engaging and charming as this one.

Thanks to Netgalley for an E-Arc of this book. I think Erin did a phenomenal job. Meg and Micah are two young adults at the end of their teen years dealing with tough situations with their parents. Meg moves to Marquette to meet some of her family that she didn't know that she had growing up. Just a very short time after her move there, she meets Micah, who is dealing with his own situation regarding his family. The two click right away and are accepting of each other's family issues. They find strength, comfort, love, and acceptance together. Erin does a great job of portraying that life is messy and not perfect. We see Meg and Micah struggle with issues and question different things as they grow up and learn to be on their own. Also, she deals with the tough topic that there are many churches where the people that make up the church body are very judgmental and have double standards. Many teens will relate to this book and find comfort that if they are questioning who they are as people, they aren't alone. Many people out there (even outside of social media) portray only the good parts of their life or make their life look perfect. I really like how Erin made the characters feel real and had their lives be messy, and had them questioning things. Teen me definitely could have used this book.

WOW another great story written by Erin Hahn. Never Saw You Coming grabbed me from the start and I couldn't put it down. I love when a book has a dual perspective because it adds something special to the story. Meg and Micah are great characters and I think everyone should read this book because it really opens your eyes to many issues.