Hi there! I’m here today to talk through my thoughts about one of my most anticipated 2021 releases. **And every day we are reminded that discrimination against marginalized communities is still a serious problem, so click here to find a compilation of resources where you can donate your time, money, or whatever you can to support these communities. I still encourage you to research these causes on your own to educate yourself and find the best way to lend your support.**
Last year, one of the first books I got the chance to read early was More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn. The release was delayed because of the pandemic and Wednesday Books had some of their titles as “Read Now” on NetGalley. It’s a YA contemporary about two music nerds falling in love, and I absolutely adored it (you can find my review of it here). Afterwards, I picked up Hahn’s debut novel You’d Be Mine, which is about teen country stars and I also enjoyed it. When I heard she was releasing a new book this year, Never Saw You Coming, and realized it would follow Meg, a character we’d been introduced to before, and would discuss some of the toxicity that can come from the church, with a particular focus on the toxicity of purity culture, I knew I needed to pick it up. I have a lot of thoughts, and I might get a bit more personal with this review, but stick around if you want to read about how much I needed this book in my life.
A week ago, Meg Hennessey was ready to begin heading west away from her parents and Ann Arbor, first working at a Bible camp and spending her gap year finding herself. That was until she found out her mother had been lying to her for the past 18 years, her parents are getting a divorce, and she has an entire family that she’s never met but wants to be a part of. So her best friend Vada drives her to Marquette, a town which should help bring answers to the questions piling up in her head. There, Meg meets Micah Allen, a former pastor’s son who has a complicated relationship with the church after his dad ended up in prison and his family was just shy of shunned from their community. The two of them are the king and queen of having complex feelings about the church as a whole, and as they help each other navigate feelings towards harmful childhood beliefs forever ingrained in their minds, a relationship of their own begins to develop, and Meg and Micah come to discover that sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith to find yourself.
First I would just like to commend Erin Hahn, as she is able to explore very complex family dynamics in every single on of her books. In You’d Be Mine, Annie is afraid she will end up just like her parents, consumed by the pressure and fame and ultimately died tragically, and Clay feels like everyone that’s ever cared about him, especially his brother, has died and left him. In More Than Maybe, Vada’s perception of what a father should be is tainted by her birth dad bringing heartbreak to her life and refusing to help pay for college, while Luke is set on his idea for his future, which varies greatly from what his father thinks and that causes household tension. In Never Saw You Coming, Meg finds out that her mother had gotten pregnant outside of marriage when she was a teen, her birth father had died in a car accident before she was born, and the father she’d known her whole life married her mother to hide his own secrets. This causes Meg to really grapple with everything she’s been taught – was her mother truly an advocate against sex before marriage because she believed that to be the right way to live, or did she not want Meg to make the same mistake she did? Micah’s had a complicated relationship with the church and his father ever since he went to prison – it was discovered he was abusing his power as a pastor, sleeping with women outside his marriage, and stealing from the church. After the sentencing, Micah and his family were essentially shut out by the community, which confused him as he was always taught that you help and protect people in their time of need. He also struggles with the concept of forgiveness – people in Micah’s life say he needs to forgive his dad, but his worldview was genuinely shattered and his heart still needs to be healed before he can even begin to consider it.
I really loved the friendship, and eventual relationship, that develops between Meg and Micah. They are both dealing with familial issues, and while they may lean on each other to help them through it’s never a case where they are magically fixing the problems and making things ok. This is also the first time they both have been in a serious relationship, so they’re constantly navigating boundaries, comfort zones, and new experiences, which is done with care. And while Meg is exploring these new experiences, there are times when she feels responsible for other people’s actions – an example is it’s her fault that Micah is attracted to her on Halloween, because she’s been drinking and wearing a costume that came be perceived as “revealing.” It shows that even through self-reflection, there can still be instances when it’s hard to deviate your way of thinking from how you’ve been taught your entire life. And sticking with Meg for this last point, her fairy wings are a big part of her identity. When we’re first introduced to her character in More Than Maybe, not a page goes by where her wings are far behind. So when she leaves home at the beginning of this novel, before she starts her journey to find the family of her birth father, she leaves those wings in the past. I think Meg needed to find herself, and be able to reconnect with her past in a way that didn’t bring more pain and anger into her life. And when she finally gets to that place, or at least a better headspace that allows her to consider her parents actions more clearly, those wings make a reappearance in a really beautiful way. Without spoiling anything, Meg is able to hold onto that part of herself that makes her unique, while being able to grow into the person she knows she’s capable of being.
I went to school at a Catholic institution for about 15 years – up until college, where I attended a state university, it was all I’d ever known. It’s difficult to distinguish harmful ideologies when that’s what you’re exposed to most often, but once you start to distance yourself from them and parse through what is being taught, you might start asking questions. At school I was sometimes praised as a “model student” – I never had my uniform skirt rolled up, I studied a lot, I never went to parties or drank or talked back to teachers, I didn’t date and therefore didn’t engage in any actions that would be considered inappropriate. Maybe in the moment that made me feel good, but looking back people, especially those in positions of authority, could simply have been using me as an example to push their own narrative of how a person, specifically a young girl, should behave. And most of the time my actions weren’t simply me “following the teachings of the church” – I didn’t roll my skirt because even though I’m short and it was too long, I am uncomfortable with my body, I didn’t drink because I don’t like alcohol, even now when I’m legally allowed to drink it, and I didn’t date because I don’t feel romantic or sexual attraction towards any individual. It has been such a struggle to decipher my romantic and sexual identity, because for a long time I’d been told I would feel a certain way towards certain people when I reached a certain age, and I just didn’t, which made me feel broken. A lot of this has to do with society as a whole, more so than just the church, but that was the environment I grew up in. As a young girl in the eyes of the church, I was everything they could have asked for, and so was Meg. But just like her, I still have my own relationship with God, and how I handle that should matter to no one else but me. I truly believe there are people working at the church willing to adapt the way things are taught, but there will always be people who are resistant to change and unable to see the harm these things perpetuate, which is highlighted very prominently in this book.
In conclusion, this book will speak to people differently. It’s dedicated to to church kids, and I hope those who read it will be able to question the harmful rhetoric used in teachings and be able to understand how much they are loved their creator, no matter what. It might not be the book for some people, and that’s perfectly fine, but I hope that it reaches those who need it most. I, for one, shall be screaming about it until release day, and probably for long after as well. Thank you, Erin Hahn, for saying the things that I and many others needed to hear, wrapped around a precious romance that I will forever cherish. Never Saw You Coming will be released on September 7th, 2021, which is four weeks from when this is posted, so I hope that if I’ve inspired you even just a little to pick this book up, you check it out and put a preorder in. *Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Wednesday Books, for the e-copy, all thoughts and opinions are my own.*
Where to find Never Saw You Coming:
Bookshop
Amazon
Goodreads
Erin Hahn’s site
Macmillan
Thoughts About Things 