I utterly enjoyed myself during this one. Fun and super easy to get through. Some anime references that I didn’t follow, but it doesn’t take away from the story. Spicy scenes are explicit but they weren’t super long 🥺.

No epic plot, but it was a great pallet cleanser with a side of escapism.

Special thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for this digital ARC.

18+ always check content warnings

The only reason I finished this was for net galley.
This book was so slow and I hate Tom.
He’s a waking red flag. Not even just the childish crux of the enemies to lovers. Because god forbid he control himself or report a conflict of interest sometime in the last four years. Or the fact that he was in her phone controlling her dating life and housing situation. He is way too controlling and it is concerning. He makes everything about him and sucks at being a decent human.

Characters: 24
Plot: 30
Overall: 37

- enemies to lovers
- coworkers
- woman in stem
- forced proximity
- a controlling walking red flag

Cute rom com read. He falls first, she isn’t interested and is quite honestly glad to be away from him when her work in his lab is done and she can move on. Phew! And yet life circumstances keep bringing them together again and again. Will they, won’t they? Its a fun read to finding out.

I don't know if this was funnier because it's set in Glasgow, or because I have the voices of the characters in my head! The accents are fighting for supremacy in my brain!

Tom is a prominent academic and when he meets Liz at a department social event, they bond over cheap booze and give in to an instant attraction. After a disaster strikes and they have to change clothes, what-might-have-been never happens and Tom later finds out that Liz is his new Ph.D. candidate. So that instant attraction has to go into hiding - and he covers up the simmering feelings he has with a snotty attitude towards Liz and her work.

Liz really thought Tom might have been a great friend, even if the attraction she felt was one-sided but in the 4 years since their initial meeting she has learned to loathe him. But after a calamitous series of events, they are now not only working in the same lab but their widowed parents are getting married and they're ging to be housemates!

As I live right nearby where Tom lives and the University stands, all the posh, WestEnd Glasgow accents are alive in my head. I've met many people like Tom and he just leapt off the page for me. He was a complete bampot over Liz and let his attempt at keeping them at bay take over and go too far the other way! Liz rode that fine line between love and hate for Tom and I loved ho her wee clan of friends automatically took her side and hated Tom before they met him!

Tom really has to learn where that line is between helping and programming her entire life! All the secondary characters are fully fleshed out and I could attach them to someone I actually know, like Peter became my brother-in-law, who is also from Nigeria, and therefore became all the more real.

Completely immersed myself in this and read it in one go. A solid 4 stars!

Overall this was a good book. I enjoyed the characters and their banters, I liked the plot and it was all in all an enjoyable read. The writing style was easy to follow and for the first half, it was an enjoyable read.

However, in the second half, the plot dragged on and on and I can't keep up with it. It got a bit boring and in my opinion, that's the worst thing a book can be.

Tom and Liz are supposed to be enemies but it was more like pretend enemies since both of them had pretty strong feelings about the other person. But having said all that I genuinely liked Tom and what a goner he was about Liz from the first glance.

As I said it was an enjoyable read and it would have been better with a more well-paced second half.

2.75 ⭐️.

A nicely written romance with flawed but ok protagonists. First of all, I loved the prologue. I was giddy when I read it and so happy that I got the ARC of this book. That feeling didn’t last.

Tom and Liz were so immature, I could never believe they were 27 and 37 respectively. I hated their manipulative ways with each other nor was I amused with Tom sabotaging Liz’s chances. I also didn’t like the reason Tom started being rude to Liz.
It was all too much.

Halfway through I started enjoying it again but then it went downhill again.

The other things enjoyed was the dialogues and drama. Overall ok read I guess.

Dr Thomas Henderson is attending a staff and student undergrad mixer at Glasgow University when he spots a gorgeous woman across the room in a heated discussion about anime with three fellow students. Drawn to her he heads over and jumps into the discussion, several mimosa's later they find themselves covered in the things as a waiter falls. Cleaning up he hopes to get her number but she never comes back. His hopes are dashed further the following day when he is told that he will be her PhD assessor - sop opts to be an elusive dick to her for the next four years.

Elizabeth McClean (Liz) is just finishing off her last bar shift before she prepares to start her post-doc placement. Her night goes from bad to worse when Tom Henderson is there on a stag night. She'd been hoping to be finally rid of her PhD assessing professor who made the last four years hell. Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse she finds out that she will be working in the same lab as him due to a fire in his lab, Her luck is clearly on the downturn when she discovers her father has been secretly dating none other than Tom's mother and they are getting married at Christmas. The cherry on top of her run of bad luck is her landlord selling the flat she lives in and finds herself forced to move in with Tom and their parents!

Over the course of the weeks and months to the wedding, Tom is determined to win Liz's affection now that there is no professional reason that they can't date. But whilst his attempts are somewhat successful his method requires some improvement Liz is confused as to how she feels towards Tom, after feeling dejected after the mixer and his harsh assessments. But she grows to like him despite not wanting the stereotypical life of marriage, kids and a holiday to Tenerife.

To say that I was completely obsessed with the tumultuous relationship between the two main characters is an understatement!

It all started at an university mixer where Liz was speaking with a group of male students about Anime and they didn’t value her opinion or listen really and Tom Henderson came to ‘save’ Liz from the situation.

From there, there were many lows caused by both parts while trying to navigate a shift in family dynamics and to save an upcoming wedding.

Both characters had major flaws especially in what they considered to treat one another, with Tom especially presenting with narcissistic traits.

The writing style of the novel could have been better, with some parts being a simple recount of mental thought processes. I did enjoy this, but it could have been done better.

This was a funny quick read - if you love Ali Hazlewood this will be up your street. Smart, funny and a lot of fun.

Tom and Liz meet at a Ph.D. staff-student mixer and bond over dodgy mimosas and anime. There's an instant attraction, but when Tom becomes her assessor, he (incomprehensibly) decides to quell that by making her life hell. Four years later, they find themselves sharing a lab bench. And when Tom's mum and Liz's dad announce they're getting married, it grows harder for Liz and Tom to continue denying their attraction.

I was so excited to dive into this. It had the potential to be a really great enemies-to-lovers STEM romance. Their banter sometimes worked really well, and there was an obvious attraction (though it seemed to be about 95% physical for most of the book). Once they actually start talking, it was really enjoyable, however that took until the final third of what was a 400k+ word rom-com. There are some well-drawn supporting characters, and I actually loved the plot surrounding their parents. I also enjoy anime, so those references were fun. Perhaps my biggest concern was the central male character. Tom, is a walking, talking 🚩 for a lot of the story. Going into Liz's phone? Creeping on her dates? Essentially being a d¡ck for 4 years simply because he fancies her? Entering her hotel room without even knocking? None of it was acceptable. The only thing that made mecontinue was that he at least expressed remorse. Both Liz and Tom acted like teenagers at times, and the story meanders through several sexual scenarios with dubious consent, without either character properly addressing their feelings, and definitely not anything more than sexual attraction until well into the latter half. Miscommunication or rather total lack of communication is the order of the day, and I applauded Liz's friend Chloë when she finally called Liz out on exactly this, relieved it wasn't just me who was so frustrated.

There are enough coincidences and romance tropes in this book to make you dizzy. It's like the author threw them all in to see which would work and then just decided to leave them all in regardless. Some worked really well, but because there are so many, we end up with most of them not really going anywhere. Rather like the title, the story is ultimately unbalanced, which is such a shame as it had so much potential.

Overall Rating: ❤️❤️❤️
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥
Emotional Rating: 😬😡🤦🏻‍♀️🤔🙈😂🙄😊

I thoroughly enjoyed this scientific romance, the chemistry was amazing between the main characters,
Laughed out loud in places and kept me on my toes in others!
Would recommend this for some fun Summer reading.

This was a fantastic read! If I could give it more than 5 stars I would! The relationship between the main characters was perfect. I would read so many things by this author!

Big thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced review copy (ARC). All opinions are my own.

Set in Glasgow, Scotland, The Unbalanced Equation is an enemies-to-lovers story following postgrad student Liz working alongside her previous hellish PhD assessor Tom. This is a spicy age-gap romance and dual-pov.

I enjoyed this book and gave it three stars. I felt like the two main leads had a lot of chemistry. They bond over watching anime which was cute to read. The characters are both flawed, but they also own up to their mistakes. Another detail I appreciated in the book is Liz’s confidence in her appearance. In most romances, the main woman is self-conscious and critical of herself; Liz’s attitude in this book was a breath of fresh air. I also enjoyed how the characters discuss not wanting to have children and following the traditional path of marriage. This is something that should be more normalized.

If you like STEM-themed romance books, such as The Love Hypothesis, you will enjoy this one. Liz is a postgrad student working on a chemistry project and there are multiple scenes of her working in the lab. The author has a PhD in molecular genetics, and you can tell that these scenes feel genuine and well-researched.

However, I found a lot of Liz and Tom’s relationship was built on their physical connection (this stood out to me particularly in the opening scene—it seemed Tom only had one thing on his mind). I prefer stories that don’t focus on this as much. Plus, towards the end of the story, the book dragged for me. It is over 400 pages, so I found the pacing to be slow at times.

Overall though, if you are interested in an enemies-to-lovers STEM romance, I would recommend The Unbalanced Equation.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶🌶🌶

Thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to read this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Where to begin.... I had a hard time getting into the beginning of this book. Once the parents announced the engagement, the momentum picked up as did my interest. First , I love banter. I love enemies to lovers. I DONT love miscommunication. Granted it seems to come with the territory in romance novels especially when it comes to enemies to lovers. But the miscommunication between these two is from start to nearly finish. Even the parents point it out and they still couldn't get it together.
While the steam was top notch for me, nothing too cringe or overly kinky that is just gross, these two both made horrible decisions that overshadowed the steam. I gave this one a 3 star because of all of the revenge and manipulation. Liz goes to some dirty levels with her revenge (ahem... halloween) and Tom literally derails her personal life (her flat searching and Tinder). To me the lengths they each went to were over the top and unnecessary. Overall, if you look past the red flags and miscommunication, it was an up-and-down ride and a unique plot.

The Unbalanced Equation has a few troupes happening with enemies to lovers and forced proximity along with an age gap. The characters are interesting and while it starts as like at first sight between Tom and Liz, circumstances make it into hate for 4 years. Things start to change with a lab fire force them to work in the same lab and then finding out their parents are getting married throws a whole new craziness to the mix. I enjoyed the science int he story along with the romance and it was a quick read.

Holy flawed characters!!! I was hooked from start to finish. I enjoyed the conflict between Liz and Tom. I thought the story flowed easily. The dialogue was believable, and the chemistry between the two was hot. I really enjoyed the side characters and plot.

Not “quite” a second chance romance, but it has that feeling! I really enjoyed this story set in academia, especially so because it takes place in Scotland. I could picture the locations as I read. The steam took a while to build but was totally worth it. I have already recommended this book to my audience and I only finished it last night.

Fun romance for those that love contemporary, modern romance. The story follows Liz and Tom, as they meet again 4 years after their initial meeting. I enjoyed the witty banter and chemistry between Liz and Tom.

It was entertaining to read this account set in academic research, seemingly by an author who knows that world well - I did love the characters and storyline and enjoyed it. Definite feel good read.

There were a couple of jarring words/moments that I thought had been added unnecessarily to sex it up a little that didn't seem to fit the characters other actions - but that is my only critique. I definitely enjoyed reading this.

*arc for review* the books starting off good but was it really necessary for their parents to be a “couple?” after that i just didn’t seem so interested after. there was many different ways it could have been written if you wanted the forced proximity trope. the step siblings isn’t really my cup of tea.