Loathe thy neighbor or love thy neighbor?Everything about the guy in the apartment next door drives Esther to distraction: his hipster beanie, his movie and food opinions, and the fact that he won’t. Stop. Talking to her. As far as she’s concerned, they’ve got nothing in common.Until she realizes he’s exactly the hipster hottie she needs…to distract her best friend from a bad-news ex. Lucky for … bad-news ex. Lucky for Esther, Jonathan needs help with a sci-fi script, and she’s exactly the rocket scientist to do it. So they strike a deal. He’ll ask out her friend, and she’ll work with him on his script. Perfect, right?
Only the more time Esther spends with him, the more loathing turns into attraction—and attraction into something even deeper. Before she knows it, he’s broken down her carefully constructed defenses and thrown her well-ordered life into chaos.
Will loving her neighbor be her undoing or her salvation?
”I loved Esther and Jonathan’s journey from awkwardness to comfortable friendship to love.” —Smart B*tches, Trashy Books
”If you’re a fan of geeky romances, you need to pick this one up. It’s geek-rom at its finest.” —Pervy Ladies Books
”Entertaining, often hilarious, relatable, intelligent, realistic romance at its absolute best.” —Fic Central
THE CHEMISTRY LESSONS SERIES:
BOOK 1: Remedial Rocket Science
BOOK 2: Intermediate Thermodynamics
BOOK 3: Advanced Physical Chemistry
BOOK 4: Applied Electromagnetism
BOOK 5: Experimental Marine Biology
BOOK 6: Elementary Romantic Calculus
Each book features a different couple with their own happy ever after and no cliffhangers.
more
I finished the book but it wasn’t great. I figured out the ending after page 3.
Disappointing. Predictable plot and slow moving.
This is not a romance…. it is a study of a very twisted woman’s thinking and reactions with her friend, her coworker her job and her neighbor. It takes over half the book to describe her issues with these 4 …. and then the other half to undo the damage she has done with each only finally resolving the romance with the neighbor.
I read the first book in this series and loved it, so it’ll be no surprise to you that I love this one too.
Ester is splendidly prickly. She decides to interfere in her friend Jinny’s life by trying to set her up with her (Ester’s) annoying neighbour Jonathan. In return, she must help him fix his film scripts.
The gradual change from being irritated by everything Jonathan says and does to falling hopelessly in love with him is lovely to watch. I loved the details of Ester’s job (well, I would, I love a STEM competent heroine). It’s nice to read about heroines who have proper work/life struggles. Her friendships with Jinny and Yemi were lovely too. I also loved that Ester sees knitting as basically maths with yarn.
Jonathan was irritating at the start, but grew on me, in much the same way as he grew on Ester.
There’s another book in this series. I will definitely be reading that one too.
It wasn’t a love at first sight but a slow burn romance that ended in a very satisfying way.
I am so freaking glad I finally made the time to dive into Susannah Nix’s Chemistry Lessons series. If you read my review of the first book in the series, Remedial Rocket Science, you know how much I enjoyed it. It got me off to a good start with Susannah’s writing and the series, but Intermediate Thermodynamics was a whole other level for me. I loved every little thing about this delightful book. I listened to the audiobook version and I think that made it even better. You know I’m loving a book when I make excuses to keep listening, like, more chores. Or more time on the treadmill. Not only was it a wonderful story with characters I absolutely loved, but it was a great motivator, too.
I’m not sure what to say about Esther. She was a difficult character at times. But I appreciated her. Hell, I related to her in several aspects. She wasn’t one to mince words or actions, which might be off-putting to some, but not to me. The only thing I had a bit of an issue with was her setting up her friend Jinny with her neighbor Jonathan. It was a little on the calculated side, but she did also have her friend’s best interests at heart. No one wants to watch their friend date a jerk. Or worse, repeatedly go back to them. Of course, it gets that much more complicated once Esther realizes SHE is developing feelings for Jonathan and her keeping that from Jinny — even after Jinny and Jonathan stopped seeing each other — left a bad taste in my mouth. But, that’s all part of the story and Esther’s growth.
I can’t review this book without mentioning Jonathan and how much I absolutely adored him. He was delightfully swoony. IMHO, Esther should’ve given him a fair shot a little earlier on, but she didn’t. And ultimately she’s the one who got hurt by that before it was all said and done. But if the stuff never happened with Jinny, Esther wouldn’t have grown as she did and I wouldn’t want to lose that. It was an important part of the story. Regardless, I LOVED reading along as Jonathan and Esther got to know each other better. First as friends and then as more. The feels! (Even if it got messy.)
Intermediate Thermodynamics was so much more than I thought it would be. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I thought I’d be getting a cute romance with a smart woman and her artsy neighbor. But, there was a lot more depth to this story. From its look at friendship and workplace dynamics to Esther wrestling with the fear of falling for someone and what it all meant, I couldn’t get enough. I smiled, laughed and even cried. The chemistry! The sexy times! It gave me everything I wanted and more.
As far as the audio went for this one, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Caitlin Kelly did a great job reading this one. She did a wonderful job with both of the Chemistry Lessons books, so I need her to voice more audiobooks. She was Esther for me. I also loved how she brought the other characters to life. Her performance made an enjoyable story that much more enjoyable.
FAVORITE QUOTES
Forget princes. You had to make your own luck in life. If you wanted something, you couldn’t sit back and wait for it to fall into your lap. You had to go out and make it happen.
“Love is madness. It’s a compulsion. It’s passion and torment and exhilaration and fear.”
“You picked cheese over an attractive man who liked you.”
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you, from the first moment I saw you.”
Esther is NOT a people person. When it comes to the general public, she doesn’t have the patience or self confidence to bother with anyone else. She’s great at her job and has a tendency to point out everyone else’s flaws. She does have her small circle of “friends”, sort of. Her best friend, Jenny, and a friendly co-worker, Yemi, work with her at Sauer Hewson Aerospace. Yemi is a special guy on his own. He doesn’t do small talk or sarcasm. Everything he says is very literal. Then she has a knitting circle of friends she meets with on Monday nights. To “save” Jenny from herself she arranges for her next door neighbor, Jonathan, to take her out in exchange for her help on his screenplay. She doesn’t think about how her actions will affect anyone else. The more time she spends with Jonathan, the more she begins to like him. I thought it was so funny that after reading his screenplay, American Dreamers, she said exactly the same thing Melody said about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I had to go back to that book and read that part again. Now, her mother, talk about dysfunctional, her mom has that in spades. I was so glad she had such a good relationship with her brother, especially when her world implodes. I LOVED the way Jonathan changed American Dreamers. That part made me cry. I don’t want to spoil the good parts, but let’s just say the ending made up for it all. I loved this book. I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.