Quirky, free-spirited Valerie Marquez likes to make sure her kindergarten class has fun while learning. Uptight, by-the-book Andrew Wexler is allergic to fun, and loud music gives him a migraine, which makes sharing a wall with the other kindergarten teacher who loves to blast music all day his worst nightmare.
But during the end-of the school year party, their shared tension morphs into a night of wild sex. What neither expected was the surprise consequence of that night.
A baby.
And, if sharing a wall with her nemesis was hard, sharing a classroom with him, while she’s feeling hormonal and hungry, is much harder. Turns out that co-teaching isn’t the hardest thing they’ll have to overcome. Trying not to fall in love with her baby daddy is much harder.
Review:
This was a case of this is cute!…but.
I loved the idea of a friends-to-lovers workplace romance between teachers–yes, please! My habit of never reading the blurb (or, apparently, even looking at the cover all that closely) meant that the surprise pregnancy part took me a little by surprise (I read the first 2/3 of this while on vacation and floating in the pool. As I was closing the book on the first day to get out, I saw the doodles on the chalkboard and yes, figured it out then). It’s not my favorite trope, but I can work with it if the rest of the story is solid. Which this…kind of was? Sometimes?
There were a lot of little fun and/or funny bits that I would have highlighted if I’d been reading on my ereader, and I did like both Andrew and Valerie as characters. The progression of their romance felt very uneven, though–it was either nothing was happening/going on in their heads relationship-wise or bam! *everything* was. I also didn’t love that the “enemies” part of their trope essentially came from having different teaching styles? I mean, OK, but…really? By the time they were team teaching, especially, so much of that seemed not OK to be doing with an audience of 5- and 6-year olds. Weren’t they supposed to be the grown-ups in that scenario?
The chapters being named after fruits and vegetables that are commonly used to demonstrate how big the baby is in utero was really cute, and the ending was all kinds of sweet. I’m still not totally convinced that they would have ended up together if it weren’t for the baby, though.
In short–not my favorite book of the year, but it had some fun bits. I’d be more than willing to read another book by the author–but would much prefer that it doesn’t include the same (enemies-to-lovers, surprise pregnancy) tropes.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars / B-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.