Unexpecting
A Novel
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Juno meets Heartstopper in Jen Bailey's Unexpecting, a poignant and emotional story about found family, what it means to be a parent, and falling in love.
Benjamin Morrison is about to start junior year of high school and while his family is challenging, he is pretty content with his life, with his two best friends, and being a part of the robotics club. Until an experiment at science camp has completely unexpected consequences.
He is going to be a father. Something his mother was not expecting after he came out as gay and she certainly wasn’t expecting that he would want to raise the baby as a single father. But together they come up with a plan to prepare Ben for fatherhood and fight for his rights.
The weight of Ben’s decision presses down on him. He’s always tired, his grades fall, and tension rises between his mom and stepfather. He’s letting down his friends in the robotics club whose future hinges on his expertise. If it wasn’t for his renewed friendship (and maybe more) with a boy from his past, he wouldn’t be able to face the daily ridicule at school or the crumbling relationship with his best friends.
With every new challenge, every new sacrifice he has to make, Ben questions his choice. He’s lived with a void in his heart where a father’s presence should have been, and the fear of putting his own child through that keeps him clinging to his decision. When the baby might be in danger, Ben’s faced with a heart-wrenching realization: sometimes being a parent means making the hard choices even if they are the choices you don't want to make...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the tradition of Juno, Bailey delivers an emotionally complex debut about a gay Milwaukee teen who accidentally gets his best friend pregnant. Though 16-year-old Ben has "suspected that I'm gay for a few years now," his best friend Maxie agreed to have sex with him so he could be sure—a practical experiment, according to science-minded Maxie. Though the two use a condom, Maxie ends up pregnant, and she seems to agree with her parents to put the baby up for adoption upon its birth. Ben's levelheaded mother and "Stepdad #3" take the news in stride, until the teen—motivated by a need to provide his future child with a stable homelife—reveals that he wants to raise the baby. Determined to prove that he has what it takes to support an infant, Ben attends parenting classes and gets a job waiting tables. But overwhelm from his newfound responsibilities and his increasingly strained relationship with Maxie cause Ben's grades and participation on the robotics team to suffer. Poignantly rendered character dynamics—particularly between Ben and his stepfather, and Ben and Maxie—elevate timely messaging surrounding parenthood and healthy depictions of open and vulnerable communication in this freshly wrought teenage pregnancy story. Ben and Maxie read as white. Ages 13–up.
