[REVIEW] Beginner’s Guide to Love and Other Chemical Reactions by Six de los Reyes

This one’s for my old [STEM gurl from Science HS] life. 😉

Beginner’s Guide to Love and Other Chemical Reactions
By Six de los Reyes
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Category: New Adult
Rating: 5/5

Blurb:

Falling in love is a chemical reaction.

Just ask Kaya Rubio, twenty-five year-old Molecular Genetics graduate student and research assistant. Fed up with her spinster aunts’ relentless reminders and unsolicited advice regarding her Single Since Birth status, she designs a scientific, evidence-based methodology to find her a suitable partner in time for her cousin’s wedding. As any good scientist knows, any valid experimental design requires a negative control. Enter the most unsuitable candidate for a potential boyfriend: the messy, easygoing, café owner Nero Sison. Her null hypothesis? Going out with Nero would establish her baseline data without catalyzing the chemical reaction she seeks.

But when Kaya’s recorded results refuse to make sense, she is forced to come to the conclusion that there are some things in life that are simply, by nature, irrational and illogical. And that sometimes, chemistry doesn’t always happen inside a lab.

Review

I’ve been meaning to read this one since Sounds Like Summer. The cover and the blurb were just instant wins for me. I mean, that minimalist blue cover with a test tube. Of course, it’s going to be about Science, my weakness. My love even when we did not exactly work out together.

And it lived up to my expectations! Granted, the start of the story needs a little getting used to. The pacing and the language of a scientific journal can be a little alienating. I get that the use of the clinical language could have been intentional, since Kaya is a scientist and this book is her headspace.

But power through it and you will be rewarded!

Characters

I am a little wary of falling in love with LIs lately. I want to firmly love the MCs first before loving the LIs. Maybe I just want to give more airtime to the female characters. I feel like I always owe them more time to gush over.

But then Nero happened. Nero, who was the perfect ideal guy for girls who refuse to face their emotions, for stubborn but passionate women bent on succeeding. And sigh, it’s hard to keep the love for LI from showing.

Six’s strength in her storytelling lies in the complexity of her characters. I love how dynamic everyone is, from Sounds Like Summer to Feels Like Summer. Her characters feel so real and the richness of the world building just follows.

I also love her way around steamy scenes. They are Really Fucking Steamy. I could feel how single I am with her stories. As in, I want a Nero to make out with, kind of awareness.

So yes, read this! Read this is if you’re a fan of Penny Reid. Science and romance can happen. There’s no binomial opposition here, only a union of two sets of amazing and awesome fields of passionate women.

RECS: For Our Very Special Man

I am proud to say that I am a Daddy’s Girl. And it’s sad because this is the fifth Fathers’ Day that I didn’t get to spend with him because he’s living in Dubai, and I’m here in Manila. Can you imagine how much I cry whenever I read topics about Dads and daughters and ughh. That just breaks me.

So, in (late) celebration of Fathers’ Day, here are the books which made me sob my lungs out that have a special place for fathers.

1. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

I know Nicholas Sparks has a rep, but you should really set aside this bias for this book. Although in the tradition of Nicholas Sparks, somebody also dies in this book soooo.

This book is about Ronnie, her teenage angst against the world, and yes, her father. She and her brother were forced to spend one summer with their estranged father that will eventually pave the way for one of the most heartbreaking reunion ever. And although it is written in the usual Nicholas Sparks fashion, which is Boy meets Girl, Some Crisis, Somebody Dies, Cathartic Ending, what I loved about this book was although there is a romantic journey for Ronnie, her bonds with her father was never out of the spotlight. It turns the story and grips you until you are in too deep.

The movie is not so bad, so if you’re not really into reading, I don’t know what you’re doing in my blog. Loljk. The movie’s not so bad. But the book is still better, for me at least. The books is definitely more cathartic than the movie.

 

2. 52 Reasons To Hate My Father by Jessica Brody

This one is what you read after the tear-jerker The Last Song. It is funny and very light, but at the end of the book, there are some things you may or may not pick up and use in real life.

The story starts as Lexi, daughter of a billionaire media mogul, crashes herself into yet another thick situation. She is your stereotypical billionaire-daughter-turned-attention-whore, so she definitely made some bad decisions. So her father thought that maybe it is high time Lexi experience how it is to work your way up. So in order for Lexi to keep her trust fund, she has to do 52 odd jobs in 52 weeks to prove herself to her father.

The book is very light, but it is written very interestingly. Though the story is somewhat cliche, the writing keeps you reading and reading until you’ve hit the last pages.

3. Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

I’m keeping this list short because all I really want to do is to rec this book to all you people!

I have to admit I loved The Last Song. But, once you read this book, you will realize how more excruciating you will love Second Chance Summer!

Like the first two books, Taylor doesn’t like the cards she had been dealt with. But she have to suck it up because her father’s dying and this might just be their last summer together.

I really don’t know what exactly made me love this book, but I know how much I was gripped and engrossed by this book that I was literal sobbing by the last chapters and didn’t even realize I was until I had to come up for air. So you see the pattern of the books I love: books that will slowly creep on you until it’s too late to put them down. I love it when I don’t have to think about the story, just dragging you along the flow until you’re already drowning in the emotions evoked by the book.

And that’s how it is for Second Chance Summer.

 

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