The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Title: The Unexpected Everything
By: Morgan Matson
Published: 2016
Call #: YA Fiction Matso.M

Andie has a plan for everything. She knows when what she’ll wear for school the next day, what she’ll eat for dinner that night, what college she’ll go to, what to get her friends for their birthday—she plans for every contingency.  The only thing she did not plan for was a media scandal surrounding her Congressman father.

Suddenly, Andie is thrown right in the middle of a media frenzy and her secured internship at John Hopkins University—and all of her summer plans—falls through. With only days before summer officially starts, Andie scrambles to find a new internship but no one will take her. She eventually settles on a dog-walking job having never walked a dog or owned a dog before. The only advantage to being home all summer is that Andie can spend the summer with her friends but it also means having to spend quality-time with her dad, something she’s avoided since her mother died.

The summer starts normally enough—Andie walks dogs, hangs out friends, avoids her dad and soon meets Clark, a fun and secretive boy  who sparks Andie’s interest. Soon, she begins spending all her time with Clark and her friends begin to notice that all her careful planning is beginning to unravel. Her need for constant control starts to interfere with her personal life and she questions why she needs to hold on so tight in the first place.

Morgan Matson’s The Unexpected Everything is a light and entertaining read about discovering who you are, the importance of family and friends, and how joy can still be found even when you are in pain.

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