Unexpected
by Lilly Avalon
Publication Date: July 21, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Rating: 2/5

Book Summary (Goodreads):

Ever had one of those days? Alina Lyons is having one. Everything keeps falling apart and going wrong. Just when she thinks it couldn’t get worse, it does. After a case of mistaken identity and a broken heart, she finds herself questioning the things she thought she knew. She wonders who she can turn to or trust anymore.

An unlikely bond with her former best friend’s ex, Ryan Wilcox, sends her life in a new direction. He offers her a place to stay while she gets her life back on track. His friendship is exactly what she’s been missing—what she’s been needing. Alina’s never felt this alive. As time goes by, the dynamic of their relationship becomes more than either of them expected. A few innocent kisses could lead them in a new direction, but are they prepared for what’s on the other side?

Only one way to find out.

My Review:

I wanted to love this book, I really did. Lilly Avalon is a sweet, and wonderful person, and that more than anything made me want to love this book. But I just couldn’t.

Unexpected follows the characters of Alina and Ryan on an unexpected path of love and friendship. The premise is great. Alina needs help getting her life together, she just caught her boyfriend cheating on her, she no longer has a place to stay, she quit her job and has no income. She needs help and Ryan, whom is pretty much perfect in all ways, takes her under his wing and helps her get back on her feet. And as he helps her love blooms between them that they can’t possibly deny. I love the general idea of the story, I think it has the building blocks for an enjoyable read.

Where it fell flat for me is that it felt like half the book was filled with very detailed sex scenes. I was surprised with how many scenes there were. I typically don’t read books with a lot of sex scenes, and I would have been willing to look past the sex scenes in this case if the rest of the story kept my attention. But unfortunately it didn’t. To me, and this is just my opinion, there wasn’t much character growth. There was no mystery to the story. The characters had no real depth. To me it didn’t feel like a genuine love story because their physical relationship in the story was very prominent. There was no real “problem” in the story, sure Alina needed help, but besides that there was no real drama, no real problem to fix, no climatic ending. The two characters push each other away for, in my opinion, reasons that don’t make sense. Even though their first encounter in the story consists of them kissing each other (and a little more), Ryan tries to keep the relationship platonic because they are just friends, right? And Alina agrees with him, because they are just friends, right? Maybe she was scared of trusting someone else, but a person that is truly scared won’t continue kissing a person they are falling in love with. They won’t stay in their house. They won’t encourage sleeping in the same bed with them. No, if she was truly scared of trusting someone because of how hurt she was, she’d be running full on the other way.

I think the author did okay letting us see who Alina is and to learn more about her. But I felt like I knew next to nothing about Ryan. I couldn’t connect with either of the main characters. And honestly, Ryan was too perfect. Don’t kid me wrong, the two characters were very cutesy together. And there was some REALLY cute and sweet moments between the two. But I need more than that to keep my interest. I need complexity. I need dynamic. I need character growth. I need a story with some sort of climatic ending and maybe even a deeper meaning in the story. Unfortunately for me this book did not meet those needs.

I received an ARC from the author for an honest review. And I was very impressed with Lilly Avalon when she still wanted me to post my review even though I didn’t like the book. I think that says a lot about an author. Please don’t not read this book because of my review. Who knows, you might actually enjoy it and see something more to it than I did. I personally couldn’t connect with the characters but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to. If you like simple, steamy love stories than this book just might be for you. Would I try further reads from Lilly Avalon? Yes I would.

About the Author:

Lilly Avalon is the author of the RESIST series as well as other erotic romances. She’s somewhere in the midst of her twenties and lives mostly in the stories in her head. When she’s not enveloped in the worlds she creates, she’s out in the real world making stories happen. That or reading other romances. It’s a toss-up.

Author Links:
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