After suffering four years of scrutiny from her PhD 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. Oh, and to make matters worse? Tom’s mum and Liz’s dad announce their impending marriage after a whirlwind romance. So when Liz’s landlord tells her to move out, pronto, it tips her over the edge. Desperate for a place to stay and in need of a saviour, the last person Liz expects to offer her a temporary home is Tom himself.

This STEM enemies to lovers romance didn't hit the mark for me. Tom and Liz didn't seem to have much chemistry (kind of ironic), and Tom came off as a petulant child. Liz just plays games with Tom's head and cannot let go of the past and is still seeking revenge for how he treated her during he PhD. I found it unrealistic for two smart characters to be written so childish and it distracted from the plot.

2.5
Well... this was an ok book.

The science theme of the book got me interested from the start, love in the laboratory... nice :)

But then...

I had a problem with the chemistry (pun intended) between the two main characters, Lizz and Tom. At the start of the book, the way they meet and start their story felt kinda off, purely physical... A few years forward and they are enemies and the reason they are enemies could be completely avoided if someone just acted as an adult and a scientist, that they both were, and talked to each other.
The story goes too fast and without an explanation of how things happened, they are just enemies now... I did not care for them, he was horrible to her in the present time, with red flags all over the place. Even with the ending, he was not the type of person that gave a reason for forgiveness with that kind of character development... Not much of a character there...
Both of them change their minds a lot...
The "sexual tension" between the two of them was closer to torture than tension...

Another thing that was bugging me was the science thing....there was not much science happening. They could have been in any other field of work and it wouldn't make any difference. Science wasn't an important part of the story.

I liked the part of the story that shows us that love is something that you can find at any age and we can see that through their parents. It is never too late to find the right person for you and for you to heal. On the other hand, there was that odd moment of the main characters being step-siblings, but let's ignore that...

The writing was ok, that is all I have to say

This book was provided to be by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Honestly the beginning of the book ruined what could have been a fun and angst filled academic romance. The prologue tells us the story of a professor who begins lusting after a first year student the moment he lays eyes on her, then spends a page providing us his inner monologue about how their eleven year age gap wouldn't be a problem because many of his colleagues are in relationships with age gaps, without addressing that she is a student in his program. In my opinion there is nothing less sexy than a man trying to justify why his attraction to a much younger woman is certainly not problematic and creepy.
This left a bad taste in my mouth that couldn't be redeemed.

Rating - 3.5 stars
Tropes - Forced Proximity, Workplace Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Guy falls first

The premises of the plot was definitely great but I just could not get into the book and feel the tension. The tropes were brilliant but the way they played out had me going "this is not it" The side characters in the book were good and had their own development and everything didn't revolve around Tom and Liz, our main characters. I loved the characters but I just found some stuff that was very idiotic perhaps. Tom and Liz hit it off the first time they met but then Tom found out she is his student instead of backing off and telling her like a normal person would he make her hate him? That did not make any sense to me at all. AT ALL.

That being said if you are reading this book because you think it's like the love hypothesis (i've seen people doing this) stop because both are very different books and the only thing they have in common is the academia setting.

The Unbalanced Equation by H.L. Macfarlane has a tough premise to sell. An older man attracted to a younger woman who he later is overly harsh as her PhD advisor and then is now going to be her step-brother because her father is now going to marry his mother.

This romance fell very flat for me. For most romances that are good it takes good writing and a good story because so many troupes are used in romance books and for me the writing was better than the story. I just couldn't get into their love story and honestly it was a chore to finish. The last half is definitely better than the first half but this book didn't do it for me.

It felt contrived and slow.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of The Unbalanced Equation by H.L. Macfarlane

Thank you to the Author, Publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

I absolutely loved this STEM-based book. The characters had an enemies/rivals to lovers relationship and i loved watching it develop. I couldn't stop myself from smiling the whole way through!

Brief Summary of the Storyline: For the past four years Thomas Henderson has made Liz’s life a living hell. She’s finally free from him, beginning her post-doc, when suddenly he is forced into her life more than ever before. Instead of spending time apart, they are now forced to work together and live together! The arrangement only has to last for the next three months, but can they make it?

Tropes:
-Age Gap
-Boss/Professor
-Kind of Enemies to Lovers
-Forced Proximity
-He Falls First
-Rich Guy
-Texting

The Good:
-Lots of diversity, good writing, and excellent side characters.
-Daichi is such a well written and hilarious character. I want a book on him.
-Lots of funny and cute banter
-Talk about periods, which I thought was nice (super cute scene in Chapter 22-23)
-Her dad is so wonderful. I absolutely adore him.

The Not-So-Good: Thomas. I couldn’t stand him. He did a lot of things wrong and I truly felt that he didn’t grovel nearly enough, especially compared to the severity of his actions.

The Bad: They are both quite manipulative people. Neither of them particularly care if they are hurting people.

Overall: After the first nine chapters, I thought this was a very cute book. If Thomas was being normal, the book was very enjoyable. The dialogue was very well written and I really enjoyed the banter. Both characters, but especially Liz, were very witty. I think that, granted the Hero didn’t do the same types of things as Thomas, I would very much enjoy reading more books by this author. Especially if they had a book about Daichi and his story.

Pace: Medium pacing. Nicely done. Progresses nicely.

Hero Rating: 1.5 I actually hated him for the first nine chapters. He has his moments of doing really sweet things for her. He pays attention to the little details and is willing to wait on her hand and foot. He is also funny, smart, and protective. However, he doesn’t respect her boundaries or privacy AT ALL. If he is given any sort of power over her, he immediately abuses it and uses it to control her. In the background you can see that he could be a very good and loveable character, but personally he is too controlling for me.

Heroine Rating: 3.5 I like that she is witty, sassy, and smart. Liz as a character was very satisfying because I felt like she said a lot of things that woman wish they could. She almost never hesitated to say what was on her mind and always stood up for herself. The only thing that I didn’t like was that she is manipulative and didn’t mind hurting others.

Triggers: Yes
-Age Gap
-Alcohol Use
-Death of a Parent (Cancer)
-Manipulation
-Mentions of Groping (Chapters 17-18)
-Toxic Relationship

Diversity: Yes. The heroine is a woman in STEM. There is also a man from Nigeria and an Asian Professor who has his own lab.

POV: Dual Pov

Spice Level: 2/5

⭐️Rating: 2.75/5
⚠️TW: Parental death, Cursing, Step-Siblings
❣️Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Age Gap
Would I recommend this book?: Maybe not


Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley im exchange for an honest opinion. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!


Review:

I found this book to be a quick read. Not bad, but nothing stood out to me. It wasn’t gripping and often times I found myself skimming and then having to go back and reread. The 4 year time skip from the very first meeting to the focus of the book was okay. I would have liked there to have been more detail about how terrible Tom had been given that much of the conflict (at least to start) hinged on his behavior. We as an audience kept hearing about how he was terrible and harsh, but I would’ve appreciated getting to see some of it. Even a flashback would’ve been nice. A more minor point but in the same vein as telling more than showing us, Tom’s wealth was repeatedly brought up but was just dictated rather than organically shown.

The relationship between Tom and Liz often felt more like lust than building love, which made the love confessions at the end feel rushed. That being said the sex scenes (there were multiple) weren’t bad at all. An element I liked was that it did feature Liz’s ex in the story as he attempted a comeback, which is a favorite side trope of mine. Overall its a fine story to binge with a rollercoaster of ups and downs to a satisfying happy ending.

Elizabeth 'Liz' Maclean has finally escaped the hell that is Dr Thomas Henderson as her PhD assessor only to be faced with having to work next to him on the same lab bench after his lab sets fire (if only it was Tom himself instead)! Then to find out, to their horror, that Liz's dad and Tom's mum are getting married! And finally, on top of that, Liz has been kicked out out of her apartment with no where to go besides to the last place on Earth she wants to be - Tom's place. So, now these two people who hate each other are stuck working together, living together and partaking in their parents wedding! But, all that being said, do they really hate each other? Or was it all just a ruse of their true feelings?

Overall, I found Tom and Liz to be really toxic to each other. Sure they had sweet moments between them (for example when Tom goes out of his way to buy things while Liz is having a bad month with her period), but as a whole they were really horrible to each other. Tom interferes in Liz's life without her knowledge, Liz leads him on for revenge, all the while making excuses that it's justified. It's not. If this were real life, it would be considered huge red flags and a super unhealthy relationship. Even though by the end, everything has worked out perfectly, to know your partner is capable of actions like that? No thank you.

Overall, it was easy to read. Sex scenes were nice and spicy. Side characters were fun. And I enjoyed the mentions of anime/manga, but I just couldn't get past the two main characters. Even though they eventually decide to pursue a relationship with each other despite becoming step-brother and step-sister, they are just too immature to be liked. In all honestly, they both just needed to grow up and act their age. 2/5 stars

This was a fun read! If you enjoyed love hypothesis you will enjoy this book as well!

Fun nerdy romcom!

Forced proximity
He’s a jerk to her to avoid making a move
Her dad surprises her with shocking news
She sees him as her mean assessor but will that change?
He sabotages her dates and her trying to find flats to move out of his house
He admits to liking her while drunk but she doesn’t believe it in his condition
I love the pining for each other but how it’s a constant repeat of pinning then making progress and then ruining the progress and repeat gets a bit to much
The pinning should be carried out but not repeated every few chapters because that makes the read a whole lot longer and makes it exhausting eventually
Will all the secrets of him sabotaging her be revealed or will he be able to keep them hidden to keep her?
Will their parents end up getting married?
Will their relationship work out ?

This was a amazing read with nice spice. I rather didn’t like that the experiments mostly was the same as the love hypothesis and i also didn’t like how repetitive the middle of the story was.

4 out of 5 stars - If you ask me, I'll tell you to read it

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for this advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Liz and Tom have known each other for several years. Tom was Liz's PhD assessor, and he was tough to work with. So, just when Liz thinks she is finally done with him and moving on to a new post doc role, he comes boomeranging back into her life. His lab burns down and where does he end up working? Her lab bench. Worse? They learn that their parents met in a grief support group and are now getting married! But wait, that's not the bottom... Liz's landlord gives her less than a week to move out.

I enjoyed the touch of science that was mentioned without getting too detailed. I enjoyed the characters, even if I found them a little over the top at times. It was a quick read, and I'd recommend it.

Tom and Liz cross paths professionally, and in order to maintain some distance, Tom is less than kind to Liz despite his feelings for her. They end up in each other’s lives again and this is Tom’s chance to show her his true personality. The conflict was a bit much for me and wasn’t very redeemable. I’d recommend to those who liked The Love Hypothesis. Liz was a great main character and easy to root for. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy!

Honestly it was a BETTER version of The Love Hypothesis, because I found it really boring but with a hero that made me mad so much for no reason I couldn’t give it any other rating.
I find it really odd and stalker-ish for him to what he has done to keep her closer.. His “reasonings” were so bad I hated how he treated her like shit, according to both of them( there was never mentioned a situation like that, with details and I wanted the DRAMA!) for four years, just because she was his “student”. That was really immature of his, since he is older and should be kind of wider.
Liz was sweet, although so clueless and ger mind was going 100 miles per hour with the way her mind changed I wanted to just smack her in the head. She lead on Tom so many times just because she could. I was furious with her.
The situation with Liz’s dad made me mad so much too. It was like a little “argument” but he actually hurt his woman so badly I wanted to ugly cry for her. The grovelling between them wasn’t enough. As much as it wasn’t with Liz and Tom. He explained, apologized and she forgave him. I like when the man grovels BAD, understands his mistakes and begs on his knees.
The whole characters just weren’t it for me. I didn’t connect to the book at all, although it still kept me entertained.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was great. Both characters are flawed but the sexual tension you could feel through the book was intense. Can't wait for more from this author.

I am a HUGE The Love Hypothesis fan but this book had many issues and at 41%, I had to stop reading.

1. I felt the writing was far too flat. Instead of telling us that Tom 'had to be mean' to Liz for his own sake, it would've been a lot better for the writer to have either shown it to us or leave us in a bit of suspense. Explicitly saying what he was about to do completely ruined that plot. It made it sound silly. I wish the author could've shown not told us his actions.
2. The consistent anime references were quite off-putting. I understand using it as a way to get the characters to bond, but the author went into far too much detail. As someone who is not interested in anime, it became a little boring as I am not invested in the topic.
3. I take huge problem with Tom's actions. His toxicity is one thing, which made me not want to root for him, but in one chapter of the book he ignores Liz's consent when she tells him to get out of the room and stop. This is the point at which I stopped reading. I could've excused some of his actions up till this point but I just fully stopped liking him as a character at this point.

I think it is a shame that I am rating this book so low because I was very much enjoying Tom's yearning for Liz and how much he liked her as a person.

This is force fed trope-on-trope-on-trope. Take The Hating Game (not enemies to lovers if one is already in love), splash a hefty dose of cringey anime references, the shoe-horn in about a dozen tropes in the first 5 chapters and this is the story you get. A 38 year old man-child who employs high school aged methods to keep his interest snared and a 27 year old woman who is the archetypal "independent working woman" reminiscent of romcoms of the aughts. Every chapter hands you a new absurdity with little reprieve. The spice is hardly worth the ridiculous menagerie of contrived plot points that read like someone is drawing their favorite tropes out of a hat and throwing them into the story at random. I can't even say this is a "feel-good" easy read since it gave me a wrecker of a headache from the eye rolling and "oh come ON"s. Clearly I'm in the minority here, but I cannot recommend this to even the staunchest rivalry romance readers. There are much better options out there.

**Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the eARC**

Thank you @netgalley for my copy of this eARC in exchange of my unbiased opinion.

Liz is a postdoc student who has finally escaped her PhD assessor’s undeserved and over the top criticisms - or so she thinks. Tom has finally made it through the toughest few years of his professional career and is thankfully no longer his dream girl’s assessor. Unfortunately, he’s also blown any chance he may have had with her by being overly critical to try and keep their relationship professional. That is, until life continually tosses them back at each other. First with the announcement of their parents engagement - who even knew they were dating? Then, with a fire in Tom’s lab that has him moving into Liz’s work space for months on end. Followed up by Liz suddenly needing a place to live and having to move in with Tom and their parents. Will their close proximity have Liz seeing Tom in a whole new light? Or will it confirm what she’s thought of him all along?

This was such a witty and steamy read! I love a good enemies-to-lovers, and this one was so well written and had the perfect amount of steam!

This one gets 4⭐️‘s from me!

this book had all the feels. enemies to lover and all that you can imagine. REally liked it and will read more.

I did not expect I'd enjoy this book as much as I did.
I was smiling and giggling throughout most of the book and finished it in one sitting.
This was such a sweet enemies to lovers rom com that follows two nerds, Tom and Liz

Liz was such an enjoyable and funny female main character. Tom on the other hand... Yes, he's hot and funny, but he definitely deserves a smack on the head. He's been pining after Liz for years.
Their banter and tension was just perfect.

There were a few things that bothered me, such as the conflict. It felt quite unnecessary, like in most books with a third act break up.