Ready or Not
By Cara Bastone
Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . 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 tense, right when she needs her the most. And it’s actually Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help Eve. 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, as if she needs one more complication, there’s the baby’s father, who is (technically) supportive but (majorly) conflicted.
Up until this point, Eve’s been content to coast through life. Now, though—maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the way Shep’s shoulders look in a T-shirt—Eve starts to wonder if she has been secretly desiring more from every aspect of her life.
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.
My thoughts:
I’ve read Cara Bastone’s other two books. I absolutely loved Promise Me Sunshine, while No Matter What was fine but didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I’m happy to report this one lands much closer to the Promise Me Sunshine end of things, and a big part of that comes down to how much I loved the characters and the overall story.
Eve Hatch is the kind of person who likes knowing exactly what’s in store and isn’t much of a fan of surprises. She’s got a cozy apartment in Brooklyn near her childhood best friend Willa, a steady if not exactly thrilling job, and plenty of distance from her midwestern hometown. Then an uncharacteristic one night stand leaves her unexpectedly pregnant, and suddenly the predictability she revels in has turned on its head.
The pregnancy puts pressure on all of Eve’s relationships. Her friendship with Willa gets awkward because Willa has been trying to get pregnant for years without success, while Willa’s steady older brother Shep unexpectedly steps up, being there in a way that starts making Eve notice him differently than she used to. Then there’s the baby’s actual father, who’s technically supportive but clearly conflicted about the whole situation (mostly because he and his ex got back together after his fling with Eve). Over the following nine months, Eve has to figure out what she actually wants from her life, not just what she’s comfortable settling for, and how a baby is going to fit into all this.
What really won me over here was Eve’s sense of humor. She’s funny and a little bit of a control freak (mostly to keep anxiety in check). I totally understood this part of her because I am exactly the same way. Also, her relationships with both Willa and Shep felt like actual friendships and not just people thrown onto the page to take up space and add drama. I appreciated that even the baby’s father got written as a decent guy navigating a hard situation instead of getting flattened into a villain for convenience. Everyone felt real instead of forced into a specific character cliché.
What I liked most is that Bastone doesn’t force this story into the usual overdone tropes. She lets things play out through a more grounded, realistic lens instead. The characters feel like actual people making complicated choices rather than familiar archetypes we’ve all read a dozen times before. Shep in particular could have easily been the standard brooding love interest, but instead he comes across as genuinely kind and a little unsure of himself, which made him a lot easier to connect with and root for.
This is a slow burn through and through, and honestly that’s exactly how I like this kind of story to unfold. Watching Eve and Shep’s dynamic shift gradually over the nine months of her pregnancy gave everything room to breathe instead of rushing toward an expected conclusion. The pacing matched the emotional journey well, letting Eve’s realizations about what she actually wants build naturally instead of hitting all at once.
If you’re looking for a romance that skips the usual tropes in favor of something more grounded and realistic, with genuinely funny, likable characters and a slow burn that actually earns its payoff, this one is worth picking up. Looking forward to whatever Bastone puts out next.
