Advanced Physical Chemistry

Chemistry Lessons Series, Book 3

By: Susannah Nix

Narrated by: Caitlin Kelly

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

After four lousy boyfriends in a row, chemical engineer Penny Popplestone swears off men until she can figure out why they keep cheating on her. But her no-men resolution hits a snag when the mysterious and superhumanly hot barista at her favorite coffee shop strikes up a friendship with her. 

Penny strives to keep things platonic, but when Caleb gives her the kiss of her life, she realizes he wants to be more than just friends. Tired of always being "good little Penny," she throws caution to the wind and pursues a no-strings fling with the hottie barista. It's not like they have anything in common beyond scorching physical chemistry, so what does she have to lose? Only her heart. Now, this fanfic-reading, plus-size heroine faces an unsolvable problem. What do you do when being apart is unbearable... but being together is impossible? Contains mature themes.

©2018 Susannah Nix (P)2018 Tantor

Delightful!

Sweet modern romance. The pull and push of attraction with an expiration date. Penny is an open book. Caleb is closed off and a man of mystery. Good writing and narration. Loved it!

Letdown

Compared to the other 2 books in the series I have listened to, this is a complete let down. Penny just sounds like a mostly whiny, wimpy girl (perhaps it’s the narrator) that is not aligned with the previous female leads.
There is also a lot more Harlequin romance type of language in this book that makes it seem forced and unoriginal.

LOVED THE WHOLE SERIES!

I loved the whole series and can hardly wait for the last book to be released. I found the books fun, well written & perfectly narrated!
I am a mature reader and found that there were characters of all ages that we could all relate to.
ENJOY!👱‍♀️😀💞🙏📖👍🥰

I am sorry, you’re sorry...we’re all sorry.

Lol I couldn’t figure out if it’s a 4 or 5 stars but what win 5 stars is probably because it was well-written and I did get suck into their type of love, love at first sight & yet pursuing it a lot later...way later. It’s interesting how they keep saying sorry to each other but I think they are just both sensitive people. They care very much for each other & other people! They want the best for each other and went beyond measure to do so. Penny was just too cute of a character as well of Caleb- chemistry off the rocks, for sure! I have to say, I do like that it had more of Caleb’s insights of things/life v.s. Penny’s insights. Overall, I dig the this 3rd book and as usually, I dig the audio narrator, to put these characters into life!!!!

Fantastic book - deserved the RITA award!

I very much enjoyed this book! 4.5-stars.

My first Susannah Nix and definitely won't be my last. I read this one first (even though book 3 in the series), because it was a RITA Award winner (2019). I have the first 2 in the series and will be reading them very soon.

I was very much taken with the character of Penny and how body positive she was, being a bigger girl. She had just experienced a few break-ups after guys cheated on her, and the start of the book it happened again, for the 4th time... she kept thinking she was doing something wrong, not that she was picking the wrong guys.

Enter Caleb, "hottie barista" at the coffee shop where she and her knitting group liked to meet (also where she goes for her coffee break every morning during "work from home"), and where the boyfriend brought his side-chick, on a night he didn't realize she was going to be there. Caleb normally didn't speak to her, but came to check on her in the bathroom where she ran to hide out and cry after spotting the cheating bf. Caleb had admired her from afar, but she always had a boyfriend so he kept his distance, being shy and reserved. She had also admired him (obviously, with the nickname she and her knitting friends had given him), but he seemed unapproachable.

They begin chatting and strike up a newfound friendship. It builds from there - and what a beautiful friendship and relationship it is! I highly recommend this book!

Not a romantic comedy

There are a few funny moments but about 40% of the book is tragic despair and self doubt. Probably more true to life than I was looking for.

Slow and humor lacking

The other books in this series were really funny, this one was really slow moving, think it's going somewhere with depth to make the slow build up seem worth it, but then the back story didn't really follow through leaving the slow build up a no bills up. Lastly didn't have as much of the hilarity of the first two books.

beautiful!

I think Susannah Nix googled me, stalked me around for a little bit, and wrote a book about my life, just tweaking a few things to make it fit in her LA world. without giving away too much personal information, I am a chemical engineer from VA with a barista boyfriend who came from a military family... my boyfriend and I had a kick out of this book just seeing how many things related to the two of us. we even had the same exact conversation as Penny and Caleb did when he took her over to his house and told her not to clean it! It was a wonderfully cute read and I can't wait to read more of this series!

Perfect

I really liked the first book in this series. I read the second and was disappointed. I almost didn’t listen to this one on Audible, but so glad I did.

Characters to root for & clean language

Before getting deep into review, I wanted to clarify that while 90% of modern romance stories seem to rely at least moderately on both swearing & dirty bed-talk for whatever reason (maybe to for spiciness or shock factor or realism, not sure), you will not find much of it in this story or other ones by this author. Maybe in some stories it adds to depiction of the character's personality & "hip" social circle and maybe some readers look for the steaminess factor, otherwise why would authors do it, right? Well, not much steam or language here. Yet, author is not prudish or conservative and does depict life in trendy CA areas.
My impression is that modern romance genre is for entertaintment & feel-good factor that can only come with some but not too much drama and must have a happy-ending. At least that is why I prefer this genre & I believe we all thrive on sense of hope in our life & in movies & books.
I am impressed by this author and her narrator for several reasons. One, is that author did not rely on sex or shock factor of swear words to keeps reader off balance & interested. Character development for the heroine & hero follows path of them revealing their true nature & growing backbones - of course with some influence from each other.
A common theme in three of intetconnected books by this author, which I read so far, is that one of the characters is "cliche" (perfect & desired by all on the outside) and is totally out of the league of the other one and yet love overcomes all the circumstacial challenges & differences. I'd say this author is an interesting read/listen and does a good job of pulling you in and making on root for the protagonists who seem hopelessly mismatched yet irresistably & unknown to the other pining for each other. Such suspence to the very end & such a great ending for each love story in each book, especially this one.