Unexpected Departure by Shannon O’Connor

This was a quick and enjoyable story about confronting your past, and learning to love and stand up for yourself. There was a wonderful friendship and a promising sapphic romance around the corner, but also a lot of homophobia and a toxic relationship, so please check the trigger warnings before reading.

Unexpected Departure follows 28 years-old Riley, who is stuck in a toxic relationship she can’t get out of and in a job she hates. But after catching her girlfriend cheating (again!) and finding out that her estranged mother is dying, she finally starts a journey of finding herself and reclaiming control over her life.

It was a very quick and short read (only 159 pages) and quite different from the usual romance novel. Most of the story is about Riley trying to get out of her toxic relationship and dealing with her past. The romance part is more of a promise for the future, which I hope we will get to read more about in the next installment in this series!

Riley was both a perfectly imperfect and completely annoying main character. It was almost painful reading about her forgiving her cheating girlfriend time after time and letting the girlfriend control every aspect of her life. There were so many times I wanted to scream at Riley to stop undermining herself and to end the toxic relationship. But on the other hand, Riley was also such a sweet person, always seeing the best in others and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and her and Luna’s friendship was pure gold.

The writing style was perhaps a bit too much telling, not showing, and I really wished that the meeting with Riley’s dying mother had turned out differently. But on the other hand, it was probably more realistic this way, and it gave Riley the incentive to confront her demons and start the journey of self-discovery and self-love.

All in all, this was a promising start of a new series and an enjoyable read about reckoning with a toxic relationship, homophobic parents and finding the strength to stand up for and learning to love yourself.

Thank you to Gay Book Promotions for the free review copy and blog tour invitation! All opinions are my own and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Rating:
​3 stars

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​Author info:
Shannon O’Connor