A wonderful romantic comedy, with enemies to lovers and a forced proximity trope. I loved Tom and Liz, their chemistry was sizzling. The character and story development was done absolutely well. I loved the banter between Tm and Liz. All in all this as a fantastic rom-com.

Loved this so much! The characters were flawed but so lovable. Their banter was perfect. The storyline was unique. Such a fun read!

Cute and quirky romance that was easy to read it one setting! Yes, it may have been slightly predictable, but isn’t that what we expect in romcoms?

Thank you NetGalley for this early access read in exchange for an honest review!

This was fun, a bit predictable but a great vacation read. Thomas was the Phd supervisor from hell to Liz, so when she gets her dream job she is thrilled, only to find that she now has to share lab space with him. To make matters worse their parents have met and fallen in love..........

This is the perfect book for when you're wanting to wrap yourself up in the classic romantic enemies-to-lovers trope. Tom and Liz are both academics in the same molecular field and meet when Liz is a first year PhD student and Tom is a post-doc? faculty already? Either way - Tom is further along than Liz in their academic trajectories. They're instantly attracted to each other when they meet Liz's 1st year, but a whole bunch of stuff happens during her 4 years of PhD where she actually ends up hating Tom. Fast forward to Liz starting her post-doc: Liz's dad is marrying Tom's mom. Weird, right? This book did ALMOST cross the line into some weird step-sibling fantasies and I wasn't sure if I was going to get on board with a Liz/Tom romance, but of course I did. I read this book in a day and I'm sure you would, too!! Perfect book to curl up on the couch with and there's a good amount of steam. I can't wait for the next one in the series.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for my free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book.

Tom and Liz's initial meeting and mutual attraction before everything went to hell was a cute and entertaining start that had me hooked and it set the scene for why Tom was a bit over the top as her PhD assessor.

A lot was made of how horrible Tom was to Liz during her PhD but we aren't given any specifics so it was difficult to get overly annoyed about it on her behalf. However, it went on for four years, making me wonder how she was still attracted to the man after that.

Their interactions from when they reconnect in the bar where she works to the inevitable HEA are filled with funny quips and one-liners. There were laugh-out-loud moments all the way through this book but also a few charming scenes.

Tom lacks good judgement when it comes to manipulating Liz's life so they have to spend more time living together but the story is so cute and funny it's easy to gloss over that. When the time came, the pair made an adorable couple. The side characters who were keenly watching their progress from enemies to lovers were also a likeable, funny and relatable bunch.

Another thing I really loved about Tom and Liz was that they didn't want to get married or have children and they didn't change their minds or have a surprise pregnancy at the last moment. This was refreshing to read and I hope to see more couples like this in mainstream romance.

The unbalanced equation is a light-hearted, very funny and low-angst romantic comedy that will lift your spirits.

I really enjoyed this book! Tom and Liz are researchers who both love anime, but when Tom suddenly becomes her assessor, there's no room for romance. Four years later, is there a hope for a second chance? The characters are well written, the story moves along easily, and there's loads of UK humor.

I really wanted to enjoy The Unbalanced Equation by HL Macfarlane, set in and around my alma mater. The premise, as outlined in the blurb, was promising but the reality for me didn't measure up to that promise. The action moved slowly, and Liz and Tom annoyed me from the outset, striking me as immature and childish. I kept plodding on through the book, but it just didn't gather enough momentum. I'm holding out hope for the next in the trilogy though.

a great story with great characters that was very easy to read. It was written very well and I loved the combination of tropes that were in included in the story.

The Unbalanced equation is everything you look in a book. It has enemies to lovers trope, i-want-you-but-cant, slow-burn and everything in between. When i read the synopsis I thought it to be as similar as "The love Hypothesis" but it wasn't. It may have the same type of storyline but I can guarantee it that it wasn't the same.
The characters meet cute was an unexpected one and the turn of events that took place was too. Both Liz and Tom were well written. Tom being the professor, who is stoic, hard to please and well...too good to be true. Liz on the other hand is the strong female character with sarcasm, anger issues and is a smart as ever. Both of the characters have their own traumas and issues and I love how they have helped each other through it. I feel destiny and fate had a real big role in this book as it brought both the characters back together even though Liz passed out of college years ago.
Each character played an important role, especially Tom's best friend who by the way was always Team Tiz (that's what Im gonna call it). I loved the moments when there is a scene of vulnerability from both characters showing that even the strongest can let their shields down. There are some sentences in this book that really made me go full emotional mode which is something that doesn't happen often.
A must read for those who loved "The Love Hypothesis" and "The Spanish Love Deception".
Overall the book is a 5/5 star.

4.5 stars. I absolutely loved this book! The MC's are so relatable even though they're pretty much geniuses :) I love the enemies-to-lovers progression. Tom= swoon :)

I mean, the epilogue was better than the entire book, but the book isn't that bad. Slightly intolerable at times but well multiple romances are then. Ehhhhh. Read it if you want to, don't if you don't want to. It's really mediocre.

I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers and anything in STEM. I loved the banter between Liz and Tom and they had wonderful chemistry. I also enjoyed the dual POV. Sometimes Tom came across as juvenile, however, the dual POV allowed us to "see" him which helped me understand his intentions, making him more likable overall. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and it was steamier than I expected! Overall a solid, 3.5 star read I'll round up to 4! I recommend this to anyone who loves enemies-to-lovers, banter, and characters in STEM.

This was a DNF for me, although it sounded really good. I could not connect to the characters and the area of science didn’t interest me.

This may just not have been a book for me, but may work for someone else.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

this book was 50/50 for me

during the first half, i was entertained by the characters, their angst and exchanges, the way everything led to them being together

during the second one, i was mostly bored as the story was unnecessarily long, again and again the same thing - the characters having a sexual moment then pushing the others away

it made me realize that there wasn’t a real connexion between them apart from their sexual attraction

i also didn’t like other things like the fact their parents are getting married and they like each other and the reasons behind their manipulative behaviors

2,5/5

I couldn’t quite get into it. It felt like a knock-off of Ali Hazelwood books. A STEM romance with a cute cover.

3.5⭐️, but I rounded up. 2.5🌶️/5

I truly did not like either of the main characters, they both treated the other person absolutely horribly. But the writing was good and so was the spice so I’ll take it.

I liked this book for the most part but there was one thing I didn't like. I though Tom was really out of line for the things he did to Liz, even though he did it for important reasons. It still doesn't make it right to me though. Other than that I enjoyed the book, it was a fun read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

This was such an excellent book: I was so genuinely surprised! As a fellow woman in STEM, it was great to see such a perfect focus on being in a biology/genomics lab. But in the same view, I thought it was great that this faded into the background a bit to clearly stand the romantic storyline front and center. It gave a backbone to Liz and Tom, but wasn't pushed too heavily.
The sexual scenes were incredibly well written, just the right blend of hot and heavy with descriptions, and the B story of the parental romance did serve the story really well.. If I had any criticism at all, and its minimal at best, it would be that the final 'conflict' between the leads seemed a bit forced, and I never once considered it a major obstacle. That is probably more of a reflection of how good they were as a partnership than poor writing, but just something to consider!

3.75
Thank you to Net Galley and the Publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book!
The Unbalanced Equation is a delight from the start to end. It begins with a meet-cute gone wrong and takes you through an unusual love story. The characters were really unique and had lots of chemistry! The manipulation was not something I personally enjoyed but it did not take away from the overall book.