This book was a lot and not in a good way. If you strip down the book to its bare bones, it’s just the Love Hypothesis with dual point of view. The most infuriating part of this book was the dreaded miscommunication trope. It was so unnecessary. Tom should have just told her why he was hard on her during her PhD instead of lying and sabotaging her entire life. It was very petty, very toxic, and not very romantic at all. And don’t even get me started on the professing each other’s love during a wedding speech at not your wedding. It was cringe worthy and selfish. Only thing I did like was they stuck to their guns about marriage and babies to the very end .

The Unbalanced Equation was a swing and a miss for me. From the manipulation to the writing style, I had a lot of issues with this book.

After suffering four years of scrutiny from her Ph.D. assessor, Elizabeth Maclean believes she’s finally free of Dr. Thomas Henderson’s tyranny when she begins her postdoc. But when a fire goes off in Tom’s lab (stupid undergrads) he ends up working in the same lab as Liz. On the same bench, no less. For three whole months.

I have some gripes with this book, but before I get to them I want to start with the things I did like.
- The banter between Liz and Tom
- the steam and spice
- the secondary characters felt sufficiently fleshed out
- The discussions about grief felt realistic and were tastefully done
- I LOVE that there were content warnings at the beginning of this book!
- The pacing was well done
- There were enough nerdy references that it felt authentic to the characters but not so much that it felt overwhelming
- The epilogue was super cute and felt like a good way to wrap up their story

And now to the second portion of my review - the things I didn't love
- the prologue and first chapter made me not want to continue reading the book. Tom falls for Liz so quickly that it felt like insta-love, and then decides that the only way to maintain his professionalism would be to be rude to her for years. The stag do section feels like a lot of awkwardly inserted exposition. It took me a while to get past the first couple chapters and move into the meat of the story
- the writing style felt repetitive. There was one page in the prologue where "a woman after my own heart" was said twice in the same conversation, and it was later used a third time. I read about how Liz and Tom didn't want "marriage, kids, and a holiday in Tenerife" too many times to count. There were lots of parentheticals that I felt could have easily been built into the sentences instead of breaking them up. The descriptions of outfits and rooms were consistently too long. I feel like a lot could be cut to make the book flow better
- the actual relationship. It felt so toxic, especially because of the manipulation from both parties. I don't think any of their reasoning was reasonable, and it certainly didn't make the characters feel their ages
- the public gestures. This is a me thing and not an issue specifically with the book, but I really don't like public gestures. And at someone else's wedding? Double ick. Again, this is a personal preference, but it did take away from my enjoyment of the book
- The idea of two people getting together after their parents get engaged. I know they aren't related, but it still feels wrong to me
- Some of the sexual conversations felt like they were kink-bating a little bit. They kept talking about how they "liked it rough" or jokingly asking if they had kinks, and then the spice scenes were all pretty vanilla. This book isn't marketed as a kinky romance so that wasn't a surprise, but with how much Liz and Tom joked about kinks it felt a bit disingenuous to then have pretty basic open-door scenes.

All in all this book was fine, but not for me. I don't like reading about toxic relationships, and this relationship felt particularly toxic. 2.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.85 ⭐️
1.75 🌶
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A copy of this book was provided by Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
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I was a little nervous that this novel was going to feel like re-reading The Love Hypothesis, and there is no denying some aspects (particularly work environment & time passed since initial meeting to where the story begins) felt quite similar, but the key plot drivers were different ultimately resulting in a different, enjoyable story. I can't help but continue comparisons to the story mentioned above when I say that I found Liz & Tom, the main characters in this story much less awkward and more enjoyable than Olive & Adam.
This story wasn't without flaws, some of the plot drivers seemed far fetched and "not as monumental" as the characters perceived them, but I feel like that's pretty standard of the genre. The novel takes place in Scotland, so it did require a few terminology lookups but that wasn't a big deal at all.

Overall I enjoyed this story very much! Thank you to Netgalley for this opportunity.

Full FULL Discloser - I did not finish this book.

Husband ,when realizing I was packing it in, said, "Maybe it'll get better.'

He could be right, but honestly, if I'm 35% of the way through a romance novel, and I actively dislike a character to the point where I don't want them to get together WITH ANY LIVING WOMAN, let alone the one presented as his love interest?

That's a no from me.

First of all, the entire premise is super-discriminatory. "I'm attracted to you, but I'm your boss, so I have to hide my feelings by TREATING YOU LIKE GARBAGE."

And that was only the first red flag.

Not only did he abuse his position of power over the leading lady, he actively did his best to make her housing-insecure, and 'accidentally' memorized the password to her phone. He used that password to block callers he thought of as competition.

I stopped reading at that point.

The worst part is HE KNOWS his behaviour is inappropriate, acknowledging his actions to be 'dick moves', but does them anyway.

That's not adorable.

That's, at best, problematic, at worst, abusive.

Dude, you need therapy, not a girlfriend.

RUN, LIZZY. RUN

I was really interested in this book because I enjoyed The Love Hypothesis, & I can tell you the only things the two have in common are: women in STEM, & cute cartoon-ish covers.

The Unbalanced Equation follows Liz & Tom: they meet at a university social event and hit it off, but Tom finds out the next morning he's going to be her advisor for the next four years so he does the only rational thing and bullies her into hating him so they won't flirt with each other and make things wildly unprofessional.

When Liz graduates and thinks she is finally free of the evil Professor Henderson... his lab burns down and he's forced to work alongside her.

So we already start off on a good foot with enemies to lovers & forced proximity... my fave tropes. Based off this information alone, I'd tell you this book was made for me, however things get weird really fast.

Immediately after they find out they are going to be working together... they find out their widowed parents are engaged to each other.

And of course, to top it all off, when Liz goes home she finds out she's being evicted.

So they were: teacher/student, and then coworkers, and then step-siblings, and then roommates!?

This all happens in the first 15% It's literally in the synopsis so I'm not even spoiling anything there's just so much that happens in this book I couldn't help but laugh... and not in a good way.

"I knew it was a dick move. It wouldn't be fair to go behind Liz's back like this just to force her to spend time with me.
I was going to do it, anyway."

I did not like Tom at ALL. You mean to tell me this man is 38 years old and he's gonna play games like that?? And his manipulation? This man is the definition of a red flag!

"Do you actually want to argue or is that the hormones talking? Because I'm content to leave Friday behind us and wait on your every whim if you would only let me do so."

If a man ever spoke to me like that, he'd never speak to me again 🥰

Don't even get me started on his grand declaration of love, he could not have chosen a more inappropriate time or place for him to have done that.

And Liz is just as toxic and a total hypocrite so whatever I guess they deserve each other 🤷🏼‍♀️

Another thing that weirdly, really stood out to me in a negative way were all the anime references. & this is coming from someone that does enjoy anime. If I counted correctly, there were 12 direct references to anime throughout the book... it didn't feel natural at all.

This book was such an amazing read. It had me smiling from start to finish and the spice was perfect. Daichi was the best character in the whole book and he was basically Tom and Liz’s fairy godfather. The only bad thing I can say about this book is that I feel that there were some unnecessary parts that made the book longer than it should’ve been. E.g. the three page breakup between the mum and dad was unnecessaryAlso, chapter 46 should have been scrapped because the last line on chapter 45 would have been a perfect end to the book and chapter 46 did not add anything to the plot.

Thank you Netgalley for this eARC in exchange of an honnest review.

I am an indecisive mood reader. And sometimes I just don't know what to read. At this time, a rom-com is the perfect choice ! And oh my what a good choice. I was hooked from the beginning and couldn't put it down. Easy to read, I liked the writing and the story. It changes to see characters working in sciences.
I really liked the MCs even if they made me scream couple of times for just how stupid they were toward each others (in a good way I was angry and frustrated of course ;) )
I do recommend this read and that made me want to read other books from the authors as she also wrote fantasy. Go and read this !

- STEM romance
- Enemies to lovers
- Losing a family member/grief
- Parent romance

Overall a quick and easy read. FMC was very likeable and decently relatable. Would not say the same for MMC. Found hip very one note. Also not a very big fan of their parents being together.

This was a cute story and I loved the setting of a science lab. My only problem with it was that some of the circumstances were so contrived that they took me out of the story.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book had such a strong promising start….I loved the prologue, the obvious chemistry between the two characters but the reasoning for the male love interest to act as if he disliked the female love interest was immature and considering their work environment, toxic. He goes further in sabotaging her living situation and dating life, whilst the female character doesn’t seem ti know if she wants him or not.

The use of the forced proximity trope was carried out badly as well. No caring, loving parents would invite their mutual kids to a dinner and announce in rapid succession that they’re seeing each other, getting married and hope that the whole group can play happy families. I waited for one of the characters to calm out how manipulative a move the was but it didn’t happen.

As someone who lives in Scotland and Glasgow for a spell I was really excited to read a story based in a place I know and with Scottish people, their mannerisms, phrases…but that didn’t happen. The characters speak as if they’re American, it reads as an American rom com book.

It had so much potential, but I couldn’t continue after the two main characters walked into a florist and asked for “Scottish themed flowers.”

3.75/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance set in a STEM lab in Scotland is a fun romp, perfect Sunday afternoon read for fans of Ali Hazelwood and anime lovers!

Liz and Tom met four years ago, drunk at a faculty party, and hit it off right away. But when they had a missed connection at the end of the night, everything seemed to change. Tom spent the next four years as Liz’s PhD assessor, making her life hell. Now that she’s graduated, she thinks she’s free of his torment (and her annoying crush on him!). But fate has other plans when they find out his mom and her dad are engaged to be married, and they’ll have to move in together. 🧪

Full of enemies-to-lovers banter, miscommunication tropes, and a cast of fun side characters, this book was really fun to read. Liz and Tom, while flawed (and a little toxic) are loveable and you ultimately do root for them!

But in the first few chapters, I almost put this book down. The dual-POV internal dialogue was bordering on cringey for me. I was also getting squick-y feelings from the power imbalance between the two, as he’s been her advisor and there’s an eleven year age gap. Tom’s character seemed a little immature for being thirty-eight, and Liz, despite being a badass scientist, was a little too messy to be dealing with him herself. I am also not personally an anime fan, so a lot of the references went over my head.

However, the tension between the two characters and their flirty banter kept me going, and I’m glad I did! The sexy (🌶🌶🌶) scenes were fun to read and well done (though arguably some of the build up foreplay/kissing scenes were better than when they finally went all the way!). There were some really sweet moments of Liz and Tom taking care of each other. His love language is definitely acts of service, and hers is definitely gift giving! Their parents love story perfectly echoed their own and provided a lot of sweetness and cozy vibes.

Overall, this was a fun read that kept me going. I’d recommend to any fans of academic romance, nerd culture, and lighthearted happily-ever-afters! Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the advance copy! 💙💚

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of my honest review.

I went back and forth with the rating of this book. In the end, I settled for 2.5 stars. This might have been a case of it's not you, it's me. I'm sure many people will enjoy it.

The premise was very interesting and I really enjoyed the last part of the book and the epilogue because the characters have stayed true to themselves. My main issue was with the main characters and how immature they were acting. Tom was also pretty manipulative in my opinion and did some not so ok things. Most of their issues could have been resolved if they just talked to each other.



I did like that both Tom and Liz were honest about what they wanted out of a relationship and that couples that don't want children are represented ( and as I mentioned stay true to themselves until the end).
There were some fun quotes and the Calippo was mentioned ( I didn't know they made them still, but so fun . I grew up eating them)

There were also some spicy scene though out the book.

Other things I liked were the secondary characters mainly Chloe and her girlfriend and professor Daichi.

While this story wasn't my favorite I enjoyed the writing and I will try another book by the author!

A thank you to NetGalley for sending an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Where do I begin.. 🥴

Liz and Tom meet at a school mixer where Liz is a PhD student and Tom is a Professor. They hit it off then by unfortunate circumstances Tom is assigned as her assessor. So he takes this as “I’ve gotta be a complete dick to her because I can’t control my hormones.” So what does he do? Spends the next 4 YEARS doing just that. Now once she’s no longer his student he thinks “how can I date her.” To make matters even more weird… they find out their parents are marrying each other and then for some reason all four of them end up living together.

Y’all. These two, yes Liz too, are so damn immature. They are both so manipulative and Tom does some real shady shit. He is so emotionally abusive and controlling and then it’s painted as a romcom. There was nothing romantic or comedic about this book. Full stop.

Edited to add:
I feel like I need to stress that I really never give 1 star reviews so no one is more surprised than me.

This was cute! Essentially another Love Hypothesis with the grumpy/sunshine roles reversed though. It seemed to be marketed as enemies to lovers but instead felt much more like pining and miscommunication.

The Un-Balanced Equation firstly was (of course) giving me major Love Hypothesis vibes, and although follows the same themes, I really enjoyed this book just as much!

Liz and Tom were likeable and relatable characters and the side characters added to the story, and were just as enjoyable as the MCs! I also loved the element of the parent’s side storyline which kept the main one going!

The sexual tension between the two MCs was so good, and doted about in good amounts, and then the spice was *chefs kiss*, also SO GOOD, and was ‘slow-burn’ enough to leave you wanting more!!

I felt the (inevitable) third act break up was just okay, wasn’t the best one I’d read and I was also wondering if I’d missed a POV chapter as something happened that wasn’t noted before (maybe it was meant to be a surprise to the reader as well?). However the declaration of love scene was SO CUTE and did make up for it!

I love the dual POV (as many people do), I just wish we didn’t have that first chapter from Tom’s POV where the reader knew why he ‘didn’t like’ Liz the whole way through the book to keep the mystery of why they had this great first meeting then he didn’t like her as her assessor!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend!

I recieved this book on netgalley for arc in exchange of an honest review. This book is definitely for a science nerd like me. Though somebody with zero science interest can also enjoy the book. Loved the author's style of writing. If you fantasy a work romance book then thats a plus with this one. A good romantic novel with crazy anime lovers.!!

LOVE IT!! I absolutely devoured this one. I like a good romance with strong characters and this one was it. Loved the strong female character with a mind of her own. The STEM setting was a huge plus for me along with the context of their age gap and academic equation. The tropes in this book are brought out beautifully which was another plus.

The book has good supporting characters and the first few pages draw you in immediately. Loved the writing style and the witty banter of the characters make you laugh. Absolutely recommend this one to everyone looking for a cute romantic book.

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Tom and Liz meet at a department staff-student mixer, they hit it off despite their age difference (11 years, no biggie). But when Tom is announced as Liz's PhD assessor, they spend the next four years in a bitter work relationship soured by Tom's constant critiques (which he rationalizes as the only way to keep him from unprofessionally falling in love with her). Now, however, Liz is a postdoc ready to start work in her new lab and can't wait to keep Tom in the past. But when a series of highly unlikely events results in Tom and Liz's parents becoming engaged and Tom's lab burning down, the two find themselves both living AND working together. The only question now is whether the multiple experiments they have going will lead to any favorable results.

The Unbalanced Equation is a grittier version of The Love Hypothesis. Tom is a Mr. Darcy-type character whose awful and suspect behavior is overshadowed by his clear adoration of Liz. What I actually liked most about this book was that Liz was fully aware of Tom's attraction to her by the time they move in together and decides to use it as payback for the miserable years she spent getting her PhD. Obviously not healthy, but I stan a woman with a plan (especially one who's getting her own just rewards out of it). The writing style wasn't as refined as I typically prefer, but I was still very much drawn in. I absolutely devoured this book.

All in all, the entire plot is based off of some pretty unbelievable circumstances, but I enjoyed the resolutions far more than I imagined. Let's just say, Liz has a PhD for a reason and isn't about to let Tom's bad behavior slide.

Many thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

In the darkness they met, and they helped each other out into the light. That was cheesy. I know. But honestly, who cares? There’s a reason there are a million clichés about love.

I would like to thank BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for giving me an e-arc. I am giving my review voluntarily and honestly.

Liz and Tom met at a gathering four years ago. After meeting again while Liz was working at a bar, they couldn’t stop running into each other, especially after Tom’s lab burned down. Tom’s friend was willing to let him work at one of his available benches while Tom’s lab was being rebuilt. Little did Tom know, Liz had just started working under Tom’s friend. To make things worse, they find out that their parents have been keeping a secret from them. They’ve been secretly dating and are planning on getting married. One thing after another seemed to be going downhill from Liz, especially after being kicked out by her landlord. Having no where else to go, she decided to move in with her dad, who happened to just move in with his new fiancé and you guessed it, Tom.Will the past continue to haunt Liz while she tried to come to terms with her new reality or will she run from the storm?

I really wanted this to be a five star book. The writing was phenomenal, but as the book progressed, I started hating Tom more and more. It’s one thing to make mistakes, but I feel like Tom was being manipulative and all around toxic. With a romance, I want to be rooting for the characters to get through those rough times and make it through, not hoping Liz will leave Tom in the trash where he belongs. Liz had no backbone, she let others talk her into not going with what her instincts were telling her. No relationship is perfect, but it doesn’t excuse the things Tom did to her all around.

To wrap things up, if the author wanted Tom to be like able, I think she with too far with his “mistakes”. I absolutely adored Liz and the side characters. The writing and the premise is something that i really enjoyed. I just hoped Tom wouldn’t drag Liz down like he is with my review.

Perfect for fans of The Love Hypothesis! Absolutely loved the chemistry between the two main characters and seeing their relationship develop.