’Notes On Infinity’ by Austin Taylor

Harvard undergraduates Zoe and Jack come from opposite backgrounds; she is the daughter of an MIT professor, he… well, Zoe doesn’t really know. After meeting in an organic chemistry class and flirting with an academic rivalry, they become colleagues at a research lab, before taking their partnership further and becoming co-founders of their own biotech company. Their hope? To develop a drug that will reverse ageing—and perhaps even confer immortality. However, after finding initial media success and securing substantial financial backing, their world comes crashing down when a shocking accusation is levelled against Jack, one that leaves Zoe reeling. Will their company and everything they’ve worked for survive? And what about they themselves and their relationship? Was what they had ever anything more than a dream?

‘Notes on Infinity’ starts strong, with a quick pace, relatable characters, complex relationship dynamics and intriguing ideas (and, delightfully, it lives up to the promised ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ meets ‘The Dropout’ vibes); however, after the first third, it begins to fall apart, and although I remained hopeful the author would pull it back together in the end, unfortunately it never recovers. Overall, it was a great idea let down by poor execution.

The positives:
- The characters are well-constructed and relatable. I particularly like the dynamics we see in Zoe’s family, and how that affects the way she moves through the world. She is complex and intriguing. Similarly, none of the other characters are reduced to a single trait, but have multiple facets, and how they appear differs according to context. This makes them feel real.
- The amount of scientific information included is well-balanced. There is enough to inform the story and to make the set-up feel plausible, but it doesn’t bog down the writing.
- The novel offers an interesting insight into how a women are treated in STEM fields, in academia and in the business industry—and how they treat each other. It offers a realistic account of female rivalry.

The not so positives:
- Zoe and Jack lack romantic chemistry, and there’s no indication of any physical attraction, which makes the development of their relationship feel contrived. The almost clinical style of the writing, with an avoidance of delving into characters’ emotions, makes it hard to know how the characters feel about one another, so when relationships develop, they seem to come out of nowhere. ‘Love’ feels like a word stated by the author, not something the characters feel.
- The way the story jumps back and forth from present to past to future and the lack of time indicators at the start of sections to show readers how much time has passed since the previous scene makes the characters feel like they’re unstuck in time, à la Billy Pilgrim, only without Vonnegut’s intent or mastery. It’s disorientating and pulls the reader out of the story.
- The writing, though engaging in the first third, soon begins to feel perfunctory, like the author’s enthusiasm for the story has waned and writing it has become a bit of a slog. At the same time, any sense of cause and effect in the scenes is lost, leading to an episodic feel, with many scenes where the purpose isn’t clear. This makes the story drag and feel repetitive—a collection of random scenes grouped together, rather than a cohesive flow that builds the story.
- An overabundance of sentence fragments. Far too many. Makes the story difficult to read. Distracting.
- All the references to locations at/around Harvard don’t help any reader who hasn’t attended Harvard build a mental image of the scenes. Instead, it feels like a rather heavy-handed way for the author to point out that she herself attended Harvard.
- Although Zoe’s character is well-constructed to begin with, she soon becomes a caricature of Elizabeth Holmes. This detracts from the idea of the story as a piece of creative fiction, and makes it feel uncomfortably like the appropriation of a real person into a piece of pseudo-fiction.
- The insertion of an incident of sexual assault and the glamorising of eating disorders doesn’t add to the story at all, and the issues aren’t explored fully enough to warrant their inclusion. It feels like these, once again, were used to draw similarities to Elizabeth Holmes.
- The idea of immortality and the implications of anti-ageing technology isn’t explored as much as it could have been, and it isn’t woven into any overarching themes of the story. This feels like a missed opportunity. As it is, it feels like the nature of the research Zoe and Jack are conducting and the therapeutics they are hoping to develop is arbitrary and could easily be swapped for anything else without impacting the overall story.
- Towards the end, the story switches to Jack’s point of view. The rehashing of the entire story up to this point, only this time from Jack’s perspective, feels repetitive. It also made me feel like really this is Jack’s story and should have been told from his POV all along. He is the character who is making the decisions and is driving the trajectory of the story, not Zoe. He is also the emotional heart of the story. Seeing it all from his POV, linearly, and informed by his emotional experience, would have been a far more interesting story and might have solved a lot of the issues the story has.
- The way the writing form turned experimental at the end made it feel like the author wasn’t quite sure how to finish the story or what she wanted to book to be overall.

Though I’m sure many readers will enjoy this book more than I did, I can’t say I would recommend it. I would, however, be interested in reading any future works from the author, as I think she has potential as a writer and subsequent books might have fewer ‘first novel’ problems.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

My review will be posted on Instagram, GoodReads, The StoryGraph, and Amazon UK a week before the book’s publication.

⚠️ Disordered eating, sexual assault, sexism, misogyny, racism, addiction, child abuse, drug abuse, suicide

I haven't read writing like this in a very long time. I knew by the end of the second page that I wanted to forget about all my responsibilities for the day and just read, and two days after finishing I'm still finding myself wondering what Zoe and Jack are up to, and thinking that there surely must be more. Notes on Infinity is a very very special book.

The writing is so specific and accomplished, tight from the very first page until the very last. Creative partnership love stories are my very favourite genre, and while I'm not particularly in to science, it's handled here in a way that that doesn't matter - the science is hardly the point, in so many ways. This is a story about people, and ambition, and what it means to create something, be that a world-changing drug or a functional partnership. We sort of know from the very beginning that Zoe and Jack aren't going to pull of what they intend to, but it's still a thrilling ride, where you're always hoping against all logic that they might.

I think this might be one of those books that I can't talk about in a normal way! It made me want to step up my game like nothing else has for a long time. Favourite of the year so far, hands down.

I read this book for a late valentines and unfortunately it wasn’t for me. This leaned into a kind of intellectual romance which if that’s something you enjoy then this is the book for you

So, I've just finished this book, and it was brilliant! I've read nearly 40 books this year so far, and this one is most definitely at the top of the list. There's so much I want to talk about! My heart was in my mouth for much of this book, and I had no idea how things would pan out. I was captivated, reading it over a short period and into the early hours!

I loved reading about academia, startups, investors, and the high stakes. Then came the aftermath—the fundamental questions of chasing dreams, the toll it takes, and whether it’s all worth it in the end. Do we want to be successful? To defy aging? Is it truly worth it?

Beautiful writing, fabulous characters—I actually want to read it all over again! Loved it. 5 stars plus!

This is basically a love story between two brilliant Harvard undergraduates, Zoe and Jack, who think they have discovered a cure for aging. Most of the first part of the book is concerned with their research, setting up their company and basically becoming rich. `There is far too much technical explanation of both the research and the business jargon, which I did not understand, also the way that American universities work seems very different to here in the UK. Then things start to go badly wrong. It is only towards the end when the narrative switches to James' past life - we know all about Zoe but Jack has kept his background quiet. This is the real story which I could relate to. The writing is good but the technical passages kill it for me. The author is a Harvard graduate in chemistry and English which explains a lot. Hs is just showing off with the Gilgamesh quotes!

I'm so gutted that this book just didn't live up to what I imagined it was going to be. Unfortunately I did abandon this around the 40% mark, and I was torn with whether or not to persevere, but I just feel like reading should never feel like a chore.

I will say that I LOVED the concept for this book. That's what drew me in and got me so excited to dive into it - it's so unique. I just wish it was executed differently. I made it to 40% of the book, and still all that had really happened was a lot of back and forth between Zoe and Jack at the lab while they work on this project. There were a lot of long, drawn out scenes that I think could've been skipped over as they didn't particularly add anything or set the story up, and the entire first half of the book is just very slow-paced, which I'm not used to.

What I would've loved is if the book started with some backstory as to *why* the cure for aging was significant, how it evolved, how Zoe and Jack bonded while developing it - but then quickly getting into the execution and the bringing it into the world and the press interviews and the fame. THAT'S what I was excited to read about, and I just didn't get that, and if it comes later then I unfortunately just couldn't stick out the wait.

Additionally, there was quite a lot of technical jargon that went over my head and at times I read entire pages without fully knowing what I read, so it would've been nice for it to perhaps be written in a slightly more accessible way. Carrie Soto is Back comes to mind as an example - this book largely centres around competitive tennis, which I knew NOTHING about, but it was written in a way that explained everything clearly to the reader and even had me fully invested and wanting to learn more about tennis by the end of it. That's what I was hoping for here, with the science side of things.

Like I said, I do still think the concept of this book is fab, and I think anyone who doesn't mind a slow-paced, descriptive book and who has a passion/understanding for science might enjoy this. It may well be one of those books that completely picks up in the second half and gets amazing - I'm just sorry I didn't get there.

This book is the story of Zoe and Jack who meet at Harvard university in America where they undertake internships in the biotech fields. Between them they come up with a potential breakthrough in the ability to increase organisms lifespan. They break away from the university abandon their university studies and set up a start-up company to research this further and take it forward towards drug development. The pace is initially fast and they quickly become wealthy with the potential of this new development.
There are an awful lot of acronyms at the start of this book that I didn’t actually understand. I wonder if there was specifically American University terms
I was struggling to get into it to begin with as I didn’t understand the science ( this is different to tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow to which it has been compared where we all understood basic computing )
I liked the way that the narrator changed from
Zoe to Jack at the three-quarter stage in the novel .It was good to see things from his point of view
I liked the way the novel switched from an increasingly being entirely on the upwards trajectory to potential disaster. This added some level of threat to the novel which made it much more interesting.
I didn’t really understand the Gilgamesh story which was amended to some of the chapters
I did not predict the plot twist in the middle it was fantastic
The author has a clean clear easily red writing style and the novel was an easy read once I got into it.
I’ve seen the book compared to tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow which was one of my favourite novels and this is what made me reach for it on NetGalley UK. Personally what I can’t see the similarity I found this novel rather more difficult to read because I didn’t really understand the underlying science as well as I felt I needed to.
I felt there was a lot of similarities with the television series Dopesick so I think if you enjoy that then you might enjoy this novel
I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK. The book is published in the UK on the 10th of July 2025 by Michael Joseph Penguin a random house.
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. After publication it will also appear on Amazon UK.

In a Harvard chemistry class, Zoe and Jack engage in a fierce intellectual rivalry, each determined to outsmart the other. But as they clash, they also spark a connection that goes beyond academics. United by their passion for discovery and ambition, they form an unstoppable partnership, both in research and in love. Their collaboration leads to a thriving startup, and their relationship seems perfect. But when a shocking accusation threatens to destroy everything they've built, their love and trust are put to the ultimate test. Will their dreams and ambitions survive the turmoil, or will the costs of success prove too high? This captivating novel explores the cutthroat world of innovation, the blurred lines between truth and deception, and the intoxicating power of love and ambition.