Never Saw You Coming

Gr 9 Up–Eighteen-year-old Meg and 19-year-old Micah share much in common: they are both dealing with complicated family situations that have made them each question their previously untested faith in the church. So it is no surprise that when their paths cross in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, they soon become friends and then a couple. Their relationship allows them a safe space to navigate their emotions regarding the adults who have failed them. It also allows them to explore their growing physical attraction to each other, which is complicated by the church’s teachings about premarital sex. Told in alternating first-person narratives, the voices of these new-to-adulthood characters are authentic. This is not your standard coming-of-age novel, though, as the church plays a significant role in aiding and hindering Meg’s and Micah’s maturation from adolescents to adults. In an author’s note at the end of the novel, Hahn describes her novel as “alternative Christian fiction” and explains in moving detail her decision to call out the church’s hypocrisy about sex, body image, and sin—especially as they relate to females—much like her characters do in the book. All characters are cued as white; some secondary characters are gay or bisexual.