Liz and Tom, researchers in Edinborough feel the sparks at a chance meeting at a university mixer. Unfortunately for them, Tom becomes her Doctoral supervisor believes he must make her life hell in order to keep his job and not arouse suspicions of his attraction for her. Years later, circumstances force them together and to reckon with their tumultuous feelings toward each other.

I have mixed emotions about this romance. On one side, the two main characters clearly care for each other as demonstrated through the ways they serve each other with so much thoughtfulness and care. On the other side, holy crap they were ridiculously immature and awful to each other while they got there. Honestly, I struggled because of all of the manipulation involved.

The Unbalanced Equation is an enemies-to-lovers rom-com following a post-doc student and her ex PHD assessor who have secretly had feelings for each other for the past 4 or so years - things just keep getting in the way!
I enjoyed this book for the most part! I really liked the main female character, Liz - she is sassy, funny and smart and knows exactly what she wants. You really feel like you get to know her as the book progresses and think she becomes a very relatable character, which shows that she has been written very well.
The male main character however, is much more flawed. He is very manipulative towards Liz and some of his actions and behaviour are just totally unacceptable. For me, this sadly made it a little more difficult to route for the pair as a couple. On the other hand, I appreciate that the author addresses this, and Tom also becomes aware of the consequences of his actions.
The side characters are great! Without giving spoilers, the Mum and Dad character are by fair my favourite couple in the book, rather than the main characters. They bring brilliant humour and are incredibly likeable.
Overall, this was a nice read! I just had a few niggles with Tom and the way he behaves, and I think I would have routed more for the couple if he was less possessive and immature in his actions. But the writing is great and the author has good comic timing with some nice, witty comments. The ever growing sexual tension between the pair is written perfectly, and the steamy scenes were handled just right!

this was a super cute story!! a quick easy read with super lovable characters. some of the plot points were quite outrageous but it was a fun escape :)

If you love the love hypothesis this is an amazing books for you I really enjoyed it. It was an amazing second-chance romance with a hot male main character. The booktok girls really need to get a hold on this!

I throughly enjoyed this novel. In fact, it’s one of the few lately that has held my attention throughout the entire story. While I could see a few things coming, I never felt like rushing though it. I would definitely recommend it to friends.

📖Many thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the book!
The Unbalanced Equation is the first book in the Hot Mess Trilogy, which is a series of standalones, all rom-coms set in Glasgow.
The book follows Tom and Liz, the first being a Professor and the latter a postdoc, who first meet at a university party but end up in bad terms once he became her assessor. As they are forced to share their workspace due to an accident that happened in Tom's laboratory their relationship progresses in an enemies-to-lovers style.
Having read The Love Hypothesis I cannot avoid making a sort of link between the two novels as they are both centered around a STEM setting, but I still enjoyed both for different reasons. The Unbalanced Equation is definitely a quick read for me and not too serious, but I did enjoy the development between the two protagonists and I also appreciated the dual POV. I found the first half better than the second one but it doesn't really take away much from the book itself.
The writing flows very smoothly and it is a nice read if you're in the mood for a romance novel.
It's a 3.75 stars read for me ✨

We love a woman in STEM and sexual tension that rivals the best of them! A fun and quick read that had me rooting for the couple the entire time. Lovers of Ali Hazelwood who want a little more would love 'The Unbalanced Equation'. Highly recommend this enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC of this novel. The novel itself is well written but oh my goodness the character of Thomas is not appealing at all. Yes he admits near the end that he is acting as a spoiled entitled child while closing in on 40 but none of that excuses his reprehensible behavior of sabotaging Liz's home search or her dating profiles. You made her a better student but that could have been done without being an asshole. I cannot recommend this book for his character alone. How he still gets the girl in the end is ugh.

I don't normally find myself loving age gap relationships, especially not when they also fall under the family issues topic. That being said, the spice in this was great, the banter hilarious. If you enjoyed The Love Hypothesis, this is a great option!

I'll also be post reviews on my Instagram account at @blondesbooknook

Many thanks to NetGalley for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my opinion.

This book was okay. Simply okay. It wasn’t great, but also not atrocious. That being said, the romance at time felt forced, and really tied the line of consensuality at times. This book has a lot of really funny, well written moments as well though, and I don’t regret reading it.

I really wanted to like this one. I"m a science nerd myself, and tend to fall for the science based love stories. But this one, I didn't quite get. Yes, it was cute, and yes, it had some fun moments. However, the characters were not really believable and it did feel quite forced.

I might have been able to believe in Liz and Tom's attraction if they weren't forced together by so many factors. Once it was revealed their parents were getting married and they would be forced to see each other outside of the academic and laboratory setting, I had a moment of "ugh". It's one thing to have a comedy of errors push people together in such a romance trope, but this one felt like there were a few too many things pushing the relationship to occur.

It was definitely a quick and fun read, but not the most believable.

I'm always a sucker for an enemies to lovers romance - and I've been loving these STEM novels I've been reading lately. This author definitely seems to have a background in - or just a major love of - science, which made this a really interesting novel. I loved the banter between our MCs and I really enjoyed watching their story unfold. All in all, definitely could see myself recommending this to fans of The Love Hypothesis - it's got a similar vibe while being in a category of it's own.

After recently reading ‘The love hypothesis’ I was greatly anticipating this book. The Unbalanced Equation lived up to my expectations on so many levels. It has well developed characters, a story which keeps you hooked until the end and an all round good-time. As an avid romance reader and someone who has recently enjoyed exploring the backdrop of a stem storyline, this was a big hit for me.

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book really surprised me! It’s my first read from this author and I found it very very very good! And contains all my favorite tropes:
- enemies to lovers 😈
- Age gap (he is 10 years older than her)
- Forced proximity
- Girls in STEM

The protagonists are: Liz, a postdoc, and Tom, a PHD assessor.
When they first met at a social event the spark immediately broke out, but they were interrupted by a call to Liz.
They have since become enemies because Tom believed that Liz had dumped him with an excuse and refuses to be her PHD assessor and she takes offense that he didn't ask her out.
But they can't hide the attraction they feel for each other every time they meet.
However, a succession of event will bring them closer! 🫢

Liz and Tom are a perfect match, both mischievous and bonded by incredible sexual chemistry 🌶
They also made me laugh a lot!

I recommend this book to anyone who has loved The Live Hypothesis! The plot in this case is more intricate than Ali Hazelwood's book and for this I found it very interesting!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT

First of all, thank you to the publisher for sending me a NetGalley arc of this book. However, I had to DNF this book at 20%. Romance is my favourite genre to read, and I wasn’t enjoying this one. I didn’t feel any chemistry between our two main characters whatsoever, and I also hated the fact that they were going to be stepsiblings. That plot felt a bit icky to me due to the fact that they were going to be family.
I do look forward to reading more from this author though as I enjoyed their writing style, I just didn’t feel like the romance was there.

This was totally fine! I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. The tropes off the top of my head are: Forced Proximity, Age Gap, Kinda Enemies to Lovers, MULTIPLE chance love, romance in the work place. I dunno if this was trying to be the Love Hypothesis or not, there are similarities but I really wouldn't say it was a copy, maybe slightly influenced but whatever. The age gap is fine, the romance is fine, the banter is fine what I found weird was [ the whole 'their parents getting married' thing, and I really don't think that was dealt with enough, I mean I didn't see the need to be honest, there were other ways for this to play out without them becoming step siblings (hide spoiler)] Their parents are also far too much in their life for people who are 28 (ish) and 38 (ish) as in they're like 'oh you shouldn't stay out so late' and stuff. The smut scenes weren't bad but they also weren't my favourite. I also didn't enjoy [ Tom being pretty controlling in terms of BREAKING INTO HER PHONE? SABOTAGING HER GETTING A FLAT?? WHATEVER OTHER UNHINGED THING HE DID WHEN THEY WEREN'T EVEN DATING (hide spoiler)] also the whole book was just multiple miscommunications which I am never a fan of. It was still a quick easy romance though.

I loved this book! The Unbalanced Equation gave similar vibes of The Love Hypothesis in terms of the STEM workplace aspect (love a woman in STEM), but it is still distinctly unique.

Some of the tropes in this book are age gap, workplace romance (STEM), enemies to lovers, forced proximity, and (my favorite) he falls first.

The chemistry that Liz and Tom had from the very beginning was spectacular and the banter they shared was even better. Plus the fact that he fell for her instantly and pinned over her FOR YEARS!?!?Amazing! It was a bonus that the SCENES (iykyk) were so well written. Like I had to put the book down at one point.

On a different note, I really enjoyed that H.L. Macfarlane created Liz with the intention of her to not have kids. I haven’t seen that often in books where the female MC is opposed to the idea of having children! There are women today that are set on not having kids and I feel like that isn’t represented enough in books.

The only thing that made me question a little bit was the fact that their parents got married so they were technically step-siblings. I realize that they had a past before they found out about their parents, but it still was a bit iffy.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this book and everyone should read it when it comes out September 15th!!

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

If you're a fan of The Love Hypothesis or The Hating Game, The Unbalanced Equation is for you! All the best tropes in one with a smart female lead and a hottie hiding his true feelings. This book was a fun, fast read!

The Unbalanced Equation

This book was a cutesy, albeit long, read. There were points that I thought could be a natural stopping point for the book, or sufficient lulls in action or working towards resolution that I felt didn't really do the story or the characters justice, especially because I wanted to see personal growth from them a bit earlier on.

I did like that I could feel the character's emotional and physical connection, and it didn't really feel like a contrived way of bringing the characters together, although sometimes I did really dislike that these people (who are grown adults) would be so toxic to one another, but alas, I suppose a book needs drama!

I decided after chapter one this was not for me. The entire thing felt far too contrived, and we ended the very first chapter with the MMC jerking off to the thought of the FMC. No thanks.