Seventeen year old MJ (Macca, Mackenzie Jane) Olsen-Wang is a bit of an overachiever. She is in her last year of school and is also taking some university courses to help her get into a top medical program. She is studious, organised, focused…and totally clueless as far as reading people and subtle social clues are concerned. She fancies Jason, a fellow brainiac and her project partner, but she doesn’t really know how to go about it apart from being super prepared on her science article notes. Luke is her brother Theo’s roommate. He is a drummer and is failing Introductory Chemistry, a course Macca excelled at. Theo’s trying to help by insisting Macca tutor Luke in exchange for some drumming lessons for her friend Sally. Macca is extremely reluctant to do it. She has already made a lot of assumptions about Luke, but what if she is wrong?
'Can’t beat the chemistry' is a sweet and heartwarming story of an unlikely bond forming between two people who need a little help from each other to work out what they want from life. I loved the main characters, although Luke seemed a little too perfect, despite his difficult past and self-doubts. The double POV works really well in this novel, as it gives you an insight into how similar the protagonists are and how great they would be together. There are some difficult issues touched upon in the novel: overbearing, overdemanding parents who try to live their dream through their children, raising children with special needs and the strain it might put on the parents, dealing with a genetic disorder which runs in your family. I really enjoyed this charming story with a great message of ‘caring about people, not their achievements’. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion Comments are closed.
|
Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|