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Book Review: The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks
Genre: YA romantic comedy
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Evie Beckham has always been too occupied with her love of math and frequent battles with anxiety to want to date. Besides, she’s always found the idea of kissing to be kind of weird. But by senior year, thanks to therapy and her friends, she’s feeling braver than before. Maybe even brave enough to enter the national math and physics competition or flirt back with the new boy.
Meanwhile, Evie’s best friend, Caleb Covic, has always been a little in love with her. So he’s horrified when he is forced to witness Evie’s meet-cute with the new guy. Desperate, Caleb uses an online forum to capture Evie’s interest - and it goes a little too well. Now Evie wonders how she went from avoiding romance to having to choose between two - or is it three? - boys.
Content/Trigger Warnings: Panic attacks, anxiety, given drugs without consent,
Overall rating: ★★★☆☆
I may not be particularly skilled at or interested in STEM, but geez do I love to see a woman/girl in STEM. So a rom-com with a STEM setting and focus just always ends up with a special place in my heart.
I really liked Evie and loved cheering her on as she overcame different challenges to be able and push herself to compete in a physics competition. Though I’m high-functioning in terms of anxiety, her nervous ticks and anxiety-ridden decisions were something I identified with and it made it easy to connect with her character. I couldn’t help but to cheer her on.
I also really enjoyed the book as a whole. I found myself cheering for Evie and Caleb because I felt like I had to since they’re the two obvious love interests. But I wanted Evie to be happy with Leo. I did! And I would’ve probably been happy with that as an outcome.
I do like when gender expectations are switched, so I loved that Caleb was the one in love with Evie and that his character was very feelings-based, while Evie’s character was more logical. But I didn’t like that Caleb catfished Evie to manipulate her and possibly destroy her relationship because of his own jealousy. It’s toxic and annoying, and I would be horrified about that in real life, but I was able to find it more acceptable through a fictional lens (weird, I know).
Overall, I really loved the book though. It was smart and well-written and I genuinely enjoyed the narrators.
*I received a copy of this book free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.
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