Synopsis:

CW: religious trauma, brief mention of suicide, body shaming, emotional abuse, homophobia

Raised by conservative parents, 18-year-old Meg Hennessey just found out her entire childhood was a lie. Instead of taking a gap year before college to find herself, she ends up traveling north to meet what’s left of the family she never knew existed.

While there, she meets Micah Allen, a former pastor’s kid whose dad ended up in prison, leaving Micah with his own complicated relationship about the church. The clock is ticking on Pastor Allen’s probation hearing and Micah, now 19, feels the pressure to forgive – even when he can’t possibly forget.

As Meg and Micah grow closer, they are confronted with the heavy flutterings of first love and all the complications it brings. Together, they must navigate the sometimes-painful process of cutting ties with childhood beliefs as they build toward something truer and straight from the heart.

In Erin Hahn’s Never Saw You Coming, sometimes it takes a leap of faith to find yourself.

Never Saw You Coming is the first book I’ve read by Erin Hahn, despite having had her previous novel, More Than Maybe on my TBR since it was released. And while I was fairly confident I would enjoy this YA romance that also deals with young adults struggling with their faith, I didn’t expect it to be somewhat healing for me, as well.

“I was four the first time I accepted Jesus into my heart. I say first time because I did it at least twelve times before I turned sixteen. Better to be absolutely sure, you know? Like, what if I wasn’t really feeling it the initial eleven times?”

Erin Hahn, Never Saw You Coming

It’s not something I talk about often, but I was raised in a conservative Christian church. (Let me clarify, when I talk about the church, I mean the institution. Not God, not faith. Those are different topics that I won’t even try to get into here.) In fact, it’s only in the last three to four years that I’ve stopped attending church. And it’s not a coincidence that the timing coincided with a certain president-who-shall-not-be-named’s election. I still have unresolved feelings and thoughts about church, and I’ve pretty much been content to ignore them for now. I know it’s something I’ll deal with eventually but it’s true that when you step away from something that has had such a powerful influence over you for so long, it takes time to let go of those influences. When you wake up one day and feel like you’ve been mislead all your life, it’s hard to reconcile that quickly. 

But I’m not here to talk about me (or at least I’ll try not to 😉 ), I just wanted to share where I’m coming from and why I might have connected with this novel differently than someone who’s never been in church… or someone who still is. And I will say that if you’ve never attended church and you pick up this book, it may shock you a bit; it may even make you think it must be embellished. But it’s not. Sadly, this is the experience for many who attend church here in the US. But, even saying that, some of the religious aspects of the novel were a little heavy-handed for me. Without giving any spoilers, I couldn’t understand how Meg, after everything she’s been through, still wanted to attend a church. But it does become a plot point so I was okay with it in the end.