This was a heart-warming and joyous read, filled with emotion and a hint of mystery. It's a story about family and grief and regret. Ultimately it's about living life without regret and never giving up on your passion.

Mimi and Art are siblings. They live together and Mimi takes care of Art, who whilst being a brilliant mathematician, does not have the best life skills. But Mimi is lonely and tired of being invisible.

When she meets Frank she feels seen and loved for who she is. But Art has reservations and trying to keep everyone happy takes its toll on Mimi.

An accident leads to many life-changing discoveries for everyone, and a definite shift from hopelessness to hopefulness.

There is so much to love in this book. Family dynamics, mystery and suspense, quirky humour. And all the feel good we need right now.

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is a tender and intelligent novel about love, mathematics, and the bond between siblings. Art and Mimi Brotherton are housemates and siblings who agree on not quite everything. Art believes that algorithms are the answer to making sensible decisions, especially when it comes to love, whereas Mimi knows that maths isn't the answer to everything. When Mimi decides she needs more from life than devoting herself to her brilliant brother, she starts looking for love. However, Art has a condition: that she finds her soulmate using a strict mathematical principle.

Initially, things seem promising until Mimi meets Frank, a romantic, spontaneous stargazer, and also a mathematician. However, Frank is not algorithm-approved, and Art's mistrust of him grows. As Mimi's feelings for Frank deepen, the siblings' relationship is tested to breaking point. Something about Frank doesn't quite add up, and only Art can see it.

One of the main themes of the book is the P versus NP problem, a mathematical problem that could solve many problems but could also put everything at risk, such as bank details, login accounts, and even every system in the world overnight. The problem that Art has been working on could help treat some illnesses, but it could also put many things at risk.

The book is written in short chapters that help move the novel along quickly. Both main characters are given their own point of view throughout the novel, which helps readers get to know them better. The characters are well-developed, and their emotions are well-portrayed.

Overall, The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is a complex novel that takes some time to get into. However, once the reader gets past the first few chapters, they will find the book enjoyable. The relationship between Mimi and Art is at the heart of the book, and the author does an excellent job of portraying it. The book's themes are thought-provoking, and the characters are well-developed.

This novel is about a pair of siblings and the strong
connnevtion a⁰nd love they share.
Art (Arthur) his sister Mimi (Naomi) Brotherhood, they both live together in their parent old hous. There parents died when they were just into adulthood.

Art believes in algorithms and not love as he is a mathematical genius.
Mimi is looking for love but Art insistestes that she uses a 'strict mathematical principles'. Initially this seems promising, untill she meets Frank a matherematotion whom she meets at a maths award ceremony, which she goes to with Art.

As her relationship grows so does Arts mistrust of him, something doesn't add up he believes. 'Art never understood how boring his maths could be'
Mimi explains.
Their friend Rey who they know since she was ten years old.
New job for Mimi, working for Rey, being her assistant.

Mimi wants to meet a man, Art agrees if she follows his plan! Theres a time limit, and must select 37% of the requeest she gets, then go out with the next best man that comes along. Art is happy to find best online dating sight for her

A theme running though out this book is the P versus Np idea, is the project Art has been working on, it a mathematical problem, that could solve some many problems such as help treating some illnes but also put things at risk such as Bank details and log in accounts, and even every systemin the world would be vulnerable overnight. 🌎.

As time goes on Mimi goes out to dinnertntroduce Frank,to Art and Rey.
Intally they all got on. But Art is still suspicious.

So they all go out again to wathch a cricket 🏏 march for Arts birthday, Frank brought tickets 🎟, another gesture to show Art he's a good guy and can be trusted.

Frank and Mimi talking about moving in together, trying to leave Art alone for a night.
Theres an incident so Mimi has to go away for a while, to Wales, for some time just for herself. No signal where she is staying.
Mimi returned but something felt wrong in the flat

Discovering his emotions through his diary, they go back years and years since her parents died 💔.

Ernest is Arts friend and states 'he's not been in a good way' due to his mathematical work!
Then Mimi tells of how he's 'on medication. That I [Art] would not cope with major change' in his life. Mimi believes this is what's happening.

Has someone been spying on Arts work?

Mini reads a newspaper article about her parents death, 'Mrs Brotherton had taken a sleeping taablet and died peacefully from monoxide poisoning. Prof. Brotherton died from carducci arrest brought on by the carbon monoxide, the coroner confirmed. The inquest ruled joint suicide and there will be no further investigation"

The maths problem has been solved, it's on the BBC news. Mimi states 'he's going to be devastated, if he ever Wakes up. This is his whole world'.

Art breaking in at Frank flat and finds his father's book there but inside the cover he doesn't find a great maths theort but it was grief.
'What else world he descover', if he looked further into this man?

This novel has some great description of characters, for example Mimi and Art their father, Walter, was good 'his depression had been like a flashlight 🔦 with the batteries🔋 removed'.
As well as describing him as a 'vigorous man'.

It doesn't mention it but I get the impression Art is on the autistic spectrum, possibly having high functioning aspergers?
It also has very short chapters helps move the novel along very quickly. Also both main characters were given the own POV thought out the novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me a complementary digital copy of this ebook in exchange for a full frank and honest review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.

Art and Mimi Brotherton have been everything to each other since they lost their parents but Mimi is starting to feel like maybe she needs something, or someone, more. Art is a mathematical genius who likes order and logic and the thought of someone else coming into their lives fills him with unease. He will help Mimi but only if she dates according to a strict mathematical formula.

When Mimi meets Frank in a chance encounter she can’t believe her luck. He’s kind, romantic and understanding about her situation with her brother. Art isn’t so sure however; he has a distinct feeling that Frank is hiding something and is determined to find out what it is.

When an accident threatens to shatter the sibling’s relationship, they must both face up to some home truths.

I assumed this novel would be a romance and to some degree it is. However, it would be wrong to say that it’s the primary focus as that belongs to the relationship between the two siblings. Their parents’ death has affected them in different ways; anger, guilt, feelings of abandonment and they all have an impact on their lives.

I didn’t find myself emotionally connected to the relationship between Mimi and Frank in the way I would have liked and I think this was because I was always viewing Frank with suspicion; I never truly trusted him. I would have preferred it if it was a straight romance without the darker mystery as I felt like the book was never quite sure what it wanted to be.

I enjoyed it overall, especially the way the author used maths to illustrate life. I just felt that the plot could have been tweaked to allow for the drama but not at the expense of Frank.

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is a complex novel. I found it a little hard to initially get into, but once I'd managed the first few chapters, I found it enjoyable.
Siblings Mimi and Art are inseparable, orphaned whilst they were young, Mimi loves Art and Art loves Mimi.
The story begins with Mimi searching for love and maths whizz Art believes he can help by programming an algorithm into a dating website.
Mimi meets Frank, and falls head over heels but is Frank everything he seems to be - Art doesn't think so.
As the novel unfolds, it skips back to the past to unravel how Mim's parents died and why their bond is such.

Preserve after the first few chapters and it's a great read.

‘Like circles of a Venn diagram, Mimi and Art Brotherton have always come as a pair. Devoted siblings, they're bound together in their childhood home by the tragic death of their parents.

Art believes that people - including his sister - are incapable of making sensible decisions when it comes to love. That’s what algorithms are for.

Mimi knows that her brother is a mathematical genius. But she believes that maths isn’t the answer to everything. Not quite. Especially when it comes to love.’

I’d heard people talk about comforting reads before and thought I understood, until now…

I’ve given this one 3.5 stars as it fell into my hands just at the right time. It was so EASY to get into and I immediately felt connections with the characters. I absolutely paced through this one in a few sittings and was sad to see the final page!

This really is a comfort read and is also quite uplifting too!

It’s coming out on 16th March (TOMORROW!), so not too long to wait… I think we’ll need it to get through (hopefully) the last few weeks of winter?

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Kara Gnodde the author and Pan Macmillan the publisher for the advance copy to read.

The story delves in to the familial ties between brother Art and sister Mimi following a tragedy in their lives. It shows the unbreakable bond between siblings and also the yearning for truth in life and in mathematics.

I really liked the characters Mimi and Art, especially how they cared so deeply for each other in their own way. I couldn't truly relate as my bond with my siblings isn't the same, which also left me feeling a bit sad.

If you want to read a book that is more meaningful and has more depth then most rom coms then this could be for you. The characters are quirky, the writing is beautiful and the story is memorable.

Sometimes I feel like I want a lighter read, but when I search most of what I find is cookie-cutter romcoms or cosy mysteries. What I’m looking for is something fun but not formulaic, which is bright and entertaining and offers something fresh. The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything fits that bill.

Mimi and her brother Art are in their thirties and still live together in their family home after the sudden death of their parents some years ago. Art is a gifted professor of mathematics, Mimi is drifting professionally and personally, having somehow decided that she has to be cook and cleaner to her genius brother.

When Mimi decides that she wants a relationship. Art, as with most decisions in life, decides that her search for love should be based on mathematical principles. Then Mimi becomes involved with Frank. Despite being a mathematician, Frank doesn’t fit Art’s model, and he is determined to prove that he isn’t right for Mimi.

The romantic storyline is intercut with the unresolved feelings of the siblings about their parents’ death, and the family dynamics during their lifetime. They make the comic moments caused by Art’s interventions in Mimi’s relationship, and her ambivalence about moving on, more poignant.

There are also some user-friendly explanations of the mathematical issues that preoccupy Frank and Art, and a light-touch but thoughtful examination of the importance of intuition versus logic in making key life decisions.

Inevitably there are lots of contrived misunderstandings and miscommunications along the path to true love. I have less patience for them than a committed fan of the romance genre, but they are deftly handled and there are some surprises along the way.

There was one element of the plot, introduced late on, which I felt went too far into the darkness (and had implications that weren’t followed through), but other than that, it sensitively balanced the humorous and painful elements of the story.

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is tender, engaging and – mostly – uplifting.
*
I received a copy of The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was amazing book I loved. I the characters the writing style was a unique book I loved and enjoyed.

A fantastic story about family, loss, relationships and math! A stunning debut novel that will have you chuckling one minute and crying the next. I expect big things from Kara and look forward to her next one.

I don’t know what I missed in this book, because the reviews I read were pretty much uniformly positive. But I found it slow and bleak. I didn’t warm to the characters, and I felt the story was maudlin.
I think that it was probably too slow paced for me, and I wasn’t interested in the character of Art especially.

This is a really wonderful book. Art and Mini are siblings dealing with the death of their parents. Art is is a brilliant mathematician but is highly dependent an his younger sister, to the extent that she feels unable to make a life away from him.
When she decides it’s time to try and find something more, she, and Art, are astonished when Frank comes into her life and she quickly finds herself falling in love. However, despite Frank being a fellow mathematician, Art deeply distrusts Frank leading to a tragic event which threatens to ruin all their lives.
If found myself quickly invested in Art and Mini’s relationship, even though Art is not an easy character to warm to. Frank and Mini’s relationship is a joy to read, and you desperately want them to finally work everything out. The mystery of their parent’s death was carefully paced, and it was very cleverly resolved without too neat a bow tied on it, the range of emotions Art and Mimi go through felt wholly believable. I really couldn’t put this book down, I just wanted to know what happened in the end. A hugely confident debut, I can’t wait to see what Kara Gnodde writes next.

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is the first novel by South African-born British author, Kara Gnodde. For thirteen years now, ever since their parents’ tragic deaths, Mimi Brotherton has looked after her older brother, Art in their family home at 19 Muriel Grove. Professor Arthur Brotherton is a talented mathematician and “the deal of her life has always been: she is ordinary so that Art could be special.”

Early on, Mimi realised that “She’d have to stay home, reduced back to a data point in the great grand story of her genius brother and his all-important maths.” But now she’s finally decided to give up the museum job she hates, team up with her best friend Rey as a Foley artist, and look for romance. She goes for online dating, and gets Art to check out the sites to find the one with the best algorithm.

Art applies maths to the problem and (of course) has a theory for finding the right partner for his sister: having estimated how long she is prepared to search for the ideal partner, he informs her that “after thirty-seven percent, you settle on the very next man who is better than the ones who have gone before. That is the moment you can stop wondering if there is someone better out there. In all likelihood, there is not.”

But then Mimi meets Frank Taylor at a Mathematics Awards night. Frank is a mathematician too, so why isn’t Art pleased? Frank makes her feel truly loved; could Art be worried only about his own welfare? If Mimi leaves with Frank, he’ll have to fend for himself, and that would be a major distraction from his important work.

Art’s main research is on p versus Np, but he’s (perhaps excessively) paranoid that someone, the wrong someone, is stealing his work and will get there before him. It’s not the prize money he cares about; it’s the potential damage the wrong person might wreak with such powerful knowledge. And his suspicions have ramped up since Frank has appeared on the scene. Has Frank been entirely honest with Mimi?

After a nasty spat between the siblings that involves a pepper grinder and a broken wrist, Mimi goes away to break the tension. It’s during Mimi’s short absence that Art is hit by Frank’s car and ends up in an induced coma, with a severe brain injury. Frank swears it was an accident. Can Mimi believe him? Will she lose her brother? And if he survives, will Art lose his maths?

Gnodde’s story is original, her quirky characters easily endear themselves to the reader, and there are a few red herrings and distractions to build the intrigue and keep the pages turning. It is tightly plotted ensuring that even the most astute reader is unlikely to figure out all the angles.

Gnodde’s story touches on grief and guilt, on feeling abandoned, loneliness and loyalty, and, of course, love. Gnodde has a marvellous turn of phrase: “She even made them up in her head when Art wasn’t around, his opinions serving as guardrails to her bouncing thoughts.” This debut novel is funny and moving, and Gnodde’s next work will be eagerly anticipated
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Pan Macmillan.

I was beginning to wonder if I was going to enjoy this book - mathematics has never been my strong point and there seemed to be a significant focus on formulas and statistics. But then Frank stepped into the picture and the whole feel and pace of the book stepped up a gear and was I pleased I had persevered! The clearly defined characters were quirky and interesting. Tension builds as Artie becomes obsessed with searching for romance on his sister's behalf whilst she tried to gain some independence from his needy reliance on her. The book throws up some interesting questions about family relationships, deep seated guilt, misunderstandings and loyalties which can threaten to overwhelm.

I really enjoyed this book by the end, but nearly gave up on it in the early chapters, which were really slow and didn’t quite draw me in. I’m so glad I persevered though as I grew to love Art and Mimi. I would still say that it’s a little longwinded in places, but well worth reading. I loved the cover, but didn’t feel it quite suited the book.

What a lovely book. Slowly unfurling the storyline kept me intrigued to the end. Complex relationships as a brother and sister work through their relationships. A sweet and uplifting story.

Kara Gnodde has written a fascinating novel marrying love and relationships with the intricacies of mathematical studies.
Art and Mimi are brother and sister, bound together by their shared sadness and trauma following their parents' deaths when they were just coming into adulthood.
Mimi has lived to protect her vulnerable mathematical genius of a brother, unaware that he, in his own way, has dedicated himself to protecting her.
This is a novel of; evolving relationships, the art of letting go and, equally, the art of holding on.
As Art tries to solve the impossible problem that is n =np, Mimi tries to solve an equally impossible problem as she tries to move on from being solely Art's sister to become a new person in a relationship with Frank whom she meets at a "mathematical orientation giving"
There are many twists and turns as Mimi and Art find out about their shared past and look towards a future which may not be shared between them.
The four characters, around whom this story revolves , each keep secrets from one another and almost lose each other as they try to keep these secrets to themselves.
Ultimately, this novel is about the messy chaos of love, which transcends all the well ordered algorithms Art and his fellow mathematicans can produce.

A debut novel from Kara Gnodde The Theory of (not quite) Everything is a poignant quirky read that has you going up and down on the emotional scale throughout.

This is the story of siblings Art and Mimi whose parents supposed suicide left them caring for each other. Art is the older brother a mathematical genius but whose ability to live without his sister means problems for Mimi when she wants to invest time in finding someone to love. In comes Frank another mathematician who immediately sets the hares running for Art but whom Mimi falls instantly in love with. Art is jealous and feels Frank is wrong for Mimi and sets about to proof it. At the same time the siblings have questions about the loss of their parents and why they left them alone and Art is trying to solve an unsolvable mathematical equation. They are helped in all the endeavours by Rey and Ernest again believable quirky characters that play important parts in the narrative.

I did find this slow to get into at first not helped by the comparisons to The Rosie Project books which I loved as did many others. The Theory of (not quite) Everything stands up very well on its own and I was soon invested in the characters and rooting for Art and Mimi to find love and solve the mystery of their parents loss as well as the mathematical equation.

There are unexpected twists here and nice short chapters and a thoroughly great story to read. Looking forward to what Kara writes next.

A brilliant read and one I really enjoyed. The characters are loveable and varied, the plot is one that is engaging and medium paced. I found myself completely drawn into the story and enjoyed the writing style.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for approving me for an ARC of this book.

➕ If you are looking for a quirky read then look no further. From Art’s obsession with maths and logic to Mimi’s need to find her own life, this book has a refreshing take on a well-told trope. Whilst a lot of the mathematics did go over my head I enjoyed the different equations that Art came up with. His way of navigating life was unusual but gave this story a different edge.

🏊🏻 With a level of mystery you find yourself playing detective and trying to slot all the pieces of the jigsaw together. The days surrounding Art and Mimi’s separation were intriguing.

🧮 Art and Mimi have a sibling bond that screams loyalty. Bound together through a tragedy you see their faults and the strength they give each other. Anyone who has a sibling will understand how complex those familial relations can be. It was interesting to see them develop together and separately.

🔊 I found myself not trusting anyone in the story and changed my mind about the characters quite a few times. Let’s just say that nothing is as it seems but all the reveals were well-timed and executed brilliantly.