A review by cindysbooks
The Unexpected Fall by Anna Salcedo

3.0

Buttercup is the new Shortcake and Will Kobayashi, the new Aaron Blackford.

It was strange reading this book because I kept having flashbacks of The Hating Game and The Spanish Love Deception. If you put them both in a blender, I'm pretty sure you would end up with The Unexpected Fall by Anna Salcedo.

The Unexpected Fall is an enemies to somewhat friends to lovers workplace romance. This book is also delightfully diverse (Latinx and Asian rep), and it has the forced proximity trope (which I love).

It follows Genesis Gonzalez who works for a music label (Siren Music Records) and has always dreamed of producing music. However, she's been stuck in the assistant position for years now. When the company announces that there will be a competition where two employees will have the chance to be featured on the company's most expected album and sign a contract with a record label, Genesis decides to take a chance on her dream and enters the competition.
Unfortunately, she's paired with Will Kobayashi, a Finance Analyst for Siren Music Records, and the one person she can't stand.
Both of them have waited their whole life for this opportunity, but can they set their differences aside for the sake of this project? Can they work together as a team?

This story was unbelievably cute but I found the beginning to be very slow: some scenes weren't necessary and Will wasn't very likeable at first, especially when compared to Aaron Blackford (who's amazing).

All in all, this was an entertaining and addictive read and for a debut novel, I think it was pretty good. 3,5/5