Yes, I know. I should have posted this a few months ago. Better late than never???
Andie Walker’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her summer program at Johns Hopkins fell through. Her Congressman father is under investigation. In the five years since her mother died, Andie’s been left in her Connecticut home in the care of sitters while the Congressman is in Washington. Now he’s home, thinking he can be the father he hasn’t been in five years. However, there is an awkwardness in the air. They have nothing to say to each other and now she’s got a curfew.
The bad news is that the only summer job Andie could get was walking dogs. The good news is that this is the first summer in several years that her ‘group of four: Andie, Palmer, Bri and Toby’, will all be home for the summer.
The bad news is that before she even started her job she got slobbered over by a runaway dog. The good news is that particular dog walker was kind of cute.
Morgan Matson, author of Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Since You’ve Been Gone and Second Chance Summer, is a master of the summer time romance. As you know, I rank her up there with the established Sarah Dessen and newcomer Emery Lord (by the way, her new book When We Collided should be on your reading list).
When you pick up The Unexpected Everything you know there will be romance and the inevitable breakup, there will be unrest among the group of four, there will be father-child consternation. But isn’t that what you expect in a ‘beach read’, which this clearly is (and I mean no disrespect by it). I will admit that it took me about 50 pages to start getting into the book, but once I did, I didn’t want to put it down.
The cover of The Unexpected Everything utilizes the ice cream theme found on Since You’ve Been Gone. With the addition of a gaggle of dogs (is that what a bunch of dogs is called?), the cover makes the book totally inviting. Ice cream and dogs. Made for summer.
So, if you haven’t read Morgan Matson, you should start. If you have read her books, this is a welcome addition to her library.
Two Heads Together 