Cara Bastone

A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love. Eve Hatch is pretty content with her life. Her apartment in Brooklyn is cozy and close to her childhood best friend Willa, but far from her midwestern, traditional family who never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, she’s hoping her passion and hard work will soon help her land a more glamorous role. And sure, her most recent romantic history has consisted of not one but two disappointing men named Derek. At least she always knows what to expect…until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand. The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve's loyal friendship with Willa is feeling off, right when she needs her most. And it’s Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is… suddenly kinda hot? Then there’s the baby's father, who is supportive but conflicted. Before long, Eve is rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself and her world. Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

A Novel

Ready or Not

karina

“It hurts to realize that the world is so much bigger and more complicated than you thought it was. It’ll always hurt. … And all you can really do is be there. And wipe your kid’s face. And try. And learn from your mistakes. And once a year, there’s an absolutely perfect day, where you get to buy them boots that you know, you know will keep all ten of their perfect little toes warm and dry. And that’s the good stuff. It truly doesn’t get better than that.”

Sophia

It’s like I’ve been focusing on a tiny script for years, the words all repeating me, myself, I, me, myself, I, me, myself, I, but now I’m sitting back and letting my eyes relax and luxuriating as I sink down into the blissful blur. This isn’t all about me. It isn’t all about Ethan, or Willa, or Shep, or even the baby. It’s a web and—God, what a perfect system because—each of us is somebody’s favorite.

His eyes are dark and searching me, his short hair mussed. He’s wearing his jeans and an undershirt. And then he does the thing. The one thing that’s hotter than a fresh haircut. He rests his elbow on the doorframe over his head and lets his wrist hang down around forehead level. I can see armpit hair and the scaffolding of his rib cage.

The FMC is insufferable in this book - it woulda been a one star if I didn’t like Shep so much 

Brittany Peterson

“Men are absolute buttheads and for the love of God, please don’t let them dictate your self-worth.”

I made a bit of a mistake with this book, my rating reflects that this book wasn't for me, more than anything about it being good or bad, so take this review with a grain of salt. I did try to be as unbiased as possible. My friend told me I had to give Cara Bastone a try and this book was available immediately to loan at my library on Libby. So I snatched it up without thinking too much about it and started reading without reading the blurb first, so I was a little shocked to find out this is an accidental pregnancy trope, which is probably my least favourite trope. I am someone who is childfree by choice and pregnancy makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. That's totally on me, but I also chose to keep reading, and in the end I actually did mostly enjoy this book. We follow Eve who has a one night stand and falls pregnant, she has to navigate this huge decision and all of the complicated dynamics that go with it. I think this book falls more into the women's lit category and struggled a bit to find its footing with the romcom narrative style, but it was very cute.

It's not so much that I didn't like the storyline because I did find it interesting enough to want to find out what happened, but more that it just felt like nothing really happened except for the pregnancy, and for someone who isn't really interested in pregnancy or having children I did get a bit bored at times. I kept waiting for something else to pop up, some other type of drama to occur that would create some tension or maybe some really comedic scenes to match the tone but it never really did. This is more an emotional read about a woman's inner struggle with coming to terms with being pregnant as a single mother, learning how to become more selfless and forming or strengthening the relationships she has around her. I like that this book was quite realistic and the dynamics between the characters were very healthy and honest, for the most part. I do feel like the drama with Eleni, while defnitely something that can and does happen, felt shallow and didn't work for me. I think because it happened mostly off page and led to Ethan being such a dick for months of the pregnancy when Eve shouldn't have had to deal with that added stress, it just turned me off. I think if we had actually got to meet Eleni maybe it would've worked better. I really liked the other relationships though, her friendship with Willa and Shep was adorable and even though her brothers are so much older and didn't feel very developed, they were very sweet.

The romance was adorable, you could tell from the moment Shep appeared that he had feelings for Eve, and it did annoy me how oblivious Eve was to that, but it made for a cute slow burn. The moment at the end where Eve realises eveything made me laugh a bit, it's like she needed to get underneath someone else to notice who had been standing in front her that whole time. I felt like smacking my forehead and going 'duh!' There were some moments in this book that I found a bit cringey too, and while the author definitely made it known that both pregnancy and birthing are not a walk in the park, I though the way it was dealt with in quirky humorous moments rather than happening on page felt a little bit romantacised. The pacing of the story was also a bit slow for me, we follow Eve through the entire process and it felt like it plodded along for most of it. The way so many chapters started with which day of the week it was really drove home the mundane feeling of this whole book, and I'm sad about that, because despite it not being a topic I'm really into I did feel like this book had more potential than what it delivered on.

I guess overall I feel pretty 'meh' about this book, it didn't really make me feel any really deep emotion, everyone was just very nice and respectful and endearing and it just didn't really excite me or draw me in. You know, it was fine. I enjoyed it enough to perservere but I'm not really in a place to recommend it to others. I'm guessing it's more relatable for people who actually enjoy this trope and I am simply not the intended audience. Whoops, again, that's my mistake. I will try Cara Bastone's other books because the writing was good and this was an easy read, so she may be a good author for palette cleansers going forward!

“To Shep...Who failed pretty hard at something really cool.”

“To Shep...Who did something really hard. Because he’s brave. And is deciding not to be afraid of failure.”

Genevieve 

“Men are absolute buttheads and for the love of God, please don’t let them dictate your self-worth.”

3.5⭐️

I made a bit of a mistake with this book, my rating reflects that this book wasn't for me, more than anything about it being good or bad, so take this review with a grain of salt. I did try to be as unbiased as possible. My friend told me I had to give Cara Bastone a try and this book was available immediately to loan at my library on Libby. So I snatched it up without thinking too much about it and started reading without reading the blurb first, so I was a little shocked to find out this is an accidental pregnancy trope, which is probably my least favourite trope. I am someone who is childfree by choice and pregnancy makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. That's totally on me, but I also chose to keep reading, and in the end I actually did mostly enjoy this book. We follow Eve who has a one night stand and falls pregnant, she has to navigate this huge decision and all of the complicated dynamics that go with it. I think this book falls more into the women's lit category and struggled a bit to find its footing with the romcom narrative style, but it was very cute.

It's not so much that I didn't like the storyline because I did find it interesting enough to want to find out what happened, but more that it just felt like nothing really happened except for the pregnancy, and for someone who isn't really interested in pregnancy or having children I did get a bit bored at times. I kept waiting for something else to pop up, some other type of drama to occur that would create some tension or maybe some really comedic scenes to match the tone but it never really did. This is more an emotional read about a woman's inner struggle with coming to terms with being pregnant as a single mother, learning how to become more selfless and forming or strengthening the relationships she has around her. I like that this book was quite realistic and the dynamics between the characters were very healthy and honest, for the most part. I do feel like the drama with Eleni, while defnitely something that can and does happen, felt shallow and didn't work for me. I think because it happened mostly off page and led to Ethan being such a dick for months of the pregnancy when Eve shouldn't have had to deal with that added stress, it just turned me off. I think if we had actually got to meet Eleni maybe it would've worked better. I really liked the other relationships though, her friendship with Willa and Shep was adorable and even though her brothers are so much older and didn't feel very developed, they were very sweet.

The romance was adorable, you could tell from the moment Shep appeared that he had feelings for Eve, and it did annoy me how oblivious Eve was to that, but it made for a cute slow burn. The moment at the end where Eve realises eveything made me laugh a bit, it's like she needed to get underneath someone else to notice who had been standing in front her that whole time. I felt like smacking my forehead and going 'duh!' There were some moments in this book that I found a bit cringey too, and while the author definitely made it known that both pregnancy and birthing are not a walk in the park, I though the way it was dealt with in quirky humorous moments rather than happening on page felt a little bit romantacised. The pacing of the story was also a bit slow for me, we follow Eve through the entire process and it felt like it plodded along for most of it. The way so many chapters started with which day of the week it was really drove home the mundane feeling of this whole book, and I'm sad about that, because despite it not being a topic I'm really into I did feel like this book had more potential than what it delivered on.

I guess overall I feel pretty 'meh' about this book, it didn't really make me feel any really deep emotion, everyone was just very nice and respectful and endearing and it just didn't really excite me or draw me in. You know, it was fine. I enjoyed it enough to perservere but I'm not really in a place to recommend it to others. I'm guessing it's more relatable for people who actually enjoy this trope and I am simply not the intended audience. Whoops, again, that's my mistake. I will try Cara Bastone's other books because the writing was good and this was an easy read, so she may be a good author for palette cleansers going forward!

“To Shep...Who failed pretty hard at something really cool.”

“To Shep...Who did something really hard. Because he’s brave. And is deciding not to be afraid of failure.”

I love reading books having zero clue what you're getting into and getting sucked in

Annabella

wasn’t the best book ever but i did enjoy it to an extent. if you’re looking solely for romance I would not recommend this book. it is very minimal romance. it focused more on the surprise pregnancy than anything else which was fine at first but after a while it got boring because i feel like nothing was really happening? i also wish we saw more of the love interest. unfortunately, i just feel like there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between them. 

millie

3.25⭐️

wasn’t the best book ever but i did enjoy it to an extent. if you’re looking solely for romance I would not recommend this book. it is very minimal romance. it focused more on the surprise pregnancy than anything else which was fine at first but after a while it got boring because i feel like nothing was really happening? i also wish we saw more of the love interest. unfortunately, i just feel like there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between them. 

Loved this book, especially the beginning/middle. Ending was a little boring. I loved the journey throughout the pregnancy, i personally am a fan of this trope!

Emma Kamer

Shut up, this was so cute. I don’t typically read romance (other than Emily Henry) but this book seems to have been sung from every rooftop, so I had to try. It was so good. There was a real plot, not just romance. Something was happening, and it was affecting the main characters relationships with everyone; her best friend, her brothers, the father of the child, her coworkers, and the man who kept showing up for her. It was contained in the length of a pregnancy, but the story sprawled across so many relationships, and it was hard and heartwarming at times. I would definitely recommend.

Emily McMeans

maybe getting pregnant could be an answer to all my problems

This is definitely going to be an unpopular opinion. My friends have absolutely loved this book but I didn’t. What threw me off was my dislike for the female main character. And when she is the only POV it makes the experience not a fun one. That’s ultimately what it was and it was a big one honestly because it kind of brought down the whole books. So again if you are interested in this book look at more reviews because my friends loved this book. Many people have lived this book. It just wasn’t for me. 

Priscilla Stanfield

shep is the blueprint for the sunshine bf trope 🌟

tink 😵‍💫⭐

millena

4,5 ⭐️

the only flaw in this book was the kid not being shep’s, ok i know this would *literally* ruin a lot of the story but what can i do the heart wants what it wants

Rebecca Hurd

Cute read!! Everything you want in a surprise pregnancy trope!! Eve was a great FMC and having 2 guys to think about but in different ways was an interesting experience!!

I pat the top of his head. "Oh, sweet innocent Shep. The honeydew is only there to better illustrate how far superior cantaloupe is”

✨This isn't all about me. It isn't all about Ethan, or Willa, or Shep, or even the baby. It's a web and-God, what a perfect system because each of us is somebody's favorite.

Mariaaa

✨"Nothing like a good honeydew."

I pat the top of his head. "Oh, sweet innocent Shep. The honeydew is only there to better illustrate how far superior cantaloupe is”

✨This isn't all about me. It isn't all about Ethan, or Willa, or Shep, or even the baby. It's a web and-God, what a perfect system because each of us is somebody's favorite.

Really a delightful read. Bit slow in the beginning, and at times the quirky/weirdness of the heroine seemed to be a tad forced as though 

 to be quirky/weird, but I did laugh a handful of times and also cried as many times because there were some truly beautiful moments in this read. The romance plot was delicious and I could hardly put the book down once it got going after the first chapter. Would read again!

Bethany

Really a delightful read. Bit slow in the beginning, and at times the quirky/weirdness of the heroine seemed to be a tad forced as though trying to be quirky/weird, but I did laugh a handful of times and also cried as many times because there were some truly beautiful moments in this read. The romance plot was delicious and I could hardly put the book down once it got going after the first chapter. Would read again!

😭😭 this book was so dang beautiful! It brought so much joy reading how all of these characters came together. 

Murphy-Ann Craig

usually don’t hate preggo trope but this one made me want to stop reading. made me feel so icky and her bestie was a freak for getting mad at her for getting pregnant ( by accident) when she can’t like pls

julie reads

Ellys MC

Once Eve Hatch finds out that she is pregnant, her world completely changes.  Everyone from family to friends treat her differently, and she is unprepared for how different her body feels.  Her best friend, Willa, who has suffered fertility problems is less help than Eve had hoped she would be. Another issue Eve must confront is telling Ethan, the man who is the father of the baby, that their one night stand and condom failure have resulted in pregnancy.  The one constant is Eve's friendship with Willa's brother, Shep, and it isn't long before Eve must decide if what she feels for him is more than friendship or just the result of pregnancy hormones.

Ready or Not is not a romance.  There are definitely romance elements, but they are not the central aspect of this story.  The majority of the narrative is about the ups and downs of being pregnant.  The first part of the novel is cute and funny as Eve's quirks shine while she struggles through the first trimester, but the plot bogs down considerably during Eve's second trimester when the details of the pregnancy are described ad nauseam.  Also, the love interests dance around each other so much, that it becomes tedious by the end of the book.  Overall, Ready or Not is a good story but is not a romance as advertised.

Lynn Braden

Once Eve Hatch finds out that she is pregnant, her world completely changes.  Everyone from family to friends treat her differently, and she is unprepared for how different her body feels.  Her best friend, Willa, who has suffered fertility problems is less help than Eve had hoped she would be. Another issue Eve must confront is telling Ethan, the man who is the father of the baby, that their one night stand and condom failure have resulted in pregnancy.  The one constant is Eve's friendship with Willa's brother, Shep, and it isn't long before Eve must decide if what she feels for him is more than friendship or just the result of pregnancy hormones.

Ready or Not is not a romance.  There are definitely romance elements, but they are not the central aspect of this story.  The majority of the narrative is about the ups and downs of being pregnant.  The first part of the novel is cute and funny as Eve's quirks shine while she struggles through the first trimester, but the plot bogs down considerably during Eve's second trimester when the details of the pregnancy are described ad nauseam.  Also, the love interests dance around each other so much, that it becomes tedious by the end of the book.  Overall, Ready or Not is a good story but is not a romance as advertised.

Ready or Not A Novel

Reviews

Highlights