ARC Review: "The Scientist" by Kristen B. Cole ★★★★

ARC Review: The Scientist by Kristen B. Cole

This opposites attract slowburn STEM romance was such a cute yet touching and inspiring read. It’s both impressive and incredible, especially for a debut. For fans of Ali Hazelwood.

I was falling for him. I’d *been* falling. The time I’d spent pretending we were nothing more than friends had been a complete and utter waste of time. The truth had always been there, no matter how hard I tried not to see it. He was more than a neighbor, more than a friend, he was just… more. In every single way.

[Contains some spoilers]

PLOT SUMMARY
28-year-old Hadley Olivier is forced to move from New York to California so her widowed mother who has breast cancer can receive the best treatment for it. She becomes an adjunct musical composition professor at Stanford University – which may make or break her, seeing as she has never been one before. And she is not the only new teacher for the semester: 33-year-old Dr. Alexsander “Lex” Strovinski, world-renowned neurobiologist researching Alzheimer’s.

Seemingly to get off on the wrong foot, Hadley also discovers that Lex stays across the road from her. His roommate and best friend is Stuart Benowitz, also a professor of the biology department. After giving her a lift to school on the first day after her car breaks down, the three quickly become friends… or, well, Hadley and Stuart do, with Lex reluctantly joining in.

Little by little, from dinners to buying new cars to showing the sights to house parties, Hadley finds there is more to Lex than a grumpy introvert with whiskey-coloured eyes as his heart opens to her, and she falls for him more with each passing day. But with constant obstacles, like general insecurities, both their exes that are hanging around, Hadley’s mother taking a turn for the worse, and job opportunities that would make long-distance impossible, Hadley and Lex must risk everything for love or lose it all.

His name felt so natural on my lips, but I was at a loss for words. He always could shatter my heart in the best and worst ways. It was an unnerving realization to discover that one person held the potential to evoke my greatest joys while also igniting my most profound sorrows. A beautiful paradox.

This is told from the first-person past-tense POV of Hadley.

OVERALL OPINIONS
This is Kristen B. Cole’s first novel and the effort and research behind this work are evident quite early on. She expertly weaves the issues of the struggles with cancer and sexism in the workplace into the narrative, the former of which is very akin to The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

Both cancer and Alzheimer’s (though the latter isn’t covered much) are topics very close to my heart: coincidentally, one of my grandmothers had breast cancer who passed away before I was born, and my other one had dementia. Usually, when we get older if it’s not mental problems it’s physical. It is absolutely devastating for a loved one to go through either and Cole captured the essence of this pain so well through a huge scope: the moments where we feel we are winning, the times we lose, the frustration and upset that it is happening to us, the helplessness, and the desire to do our own things but feeling we can’t in case we are needed. This was all handled with much care and sensitivity, and I loved Hadley’s mother’s enthusiasm and jokes throughout as she tries to forever remain optimistic about life.

When I saw the title of this book The Scientist, the song by Coldplay of the same name came to mind. I was pleasantly surprised that this is, in fact, a great reference to the song. I really like the idea that Hadley associates this song with Lex, of course, and that she subconsciously writes a version of the song:

I realized I’d inadvertently written the female perspective to “The Scientist.” In Coldplay’s version, we hear him trying to win her back after letting their relationship fall apart because of his work. In this version, we were hearing her side of the story—every heartache, every moment of doubt that they were ever going to make it.

I thought this was so beautiful!

I would say that the maturity level of the characters didn’t exactly match their age. More of this felt like how a student behaves rather than a professor. The drama between Nicky and Hadley, for example, was more like the pettiness from high school than a grown adult (not an impossible scenario though).

<< Positives >>
🠚Cute cover, reminds me a little of Elena Armas’ covers.
🠚A beautiful and healthy family bond, shown through Hadley and her mother.
🠚Hadley and Lex – Halex – were for the win! Love them so much! I couldn’t wait until they got together.
🠚The humour is great: like when Lex inspects the engine of the car and she looks at the “more important features” like the number of USB ports and cup holders. Sarah and Lionel are a hilarious duo. I’ve learned some more sassy insults from both them as well as Stuart and Nicky’s exchanges.
🠚Lots of fun tv references: like I Love Lucy, Narnia, Star Wars, Dead Poets Society, Lex with his Clark Kent syndrome. My favourite description is that Lex’s mask of indifference “I didn’t think Scooby Doo and the mystery gang could rip the mask off that one.”. And you can’t tell me the hand tendon flex isn’t a reference to our one and only Pride and Prejudice man Mr. Darcy!
🠚The epilogue is the sweetest thing ahh!
<< Negatives >>
🠚The amount of people in this story being like “Did Lex not tell you?” – never giving the man a chance to tell her sometimes haha, like I don’t know everyone seems all up in their business ALL the time. This gets repetitive.
🠚The men in this aside from Stuart and Lex were very… one-dimensional. They all throw themselves at her, she doesn’t know how to politely turn them down, they want to give her time to think it through.
🠚Some of the pacing felt too fast in terms of the plot. I think I would have preferred it if Hadley had taken much longer to find out Lex had been the one behind the treatment opportunity for her mother rather than like a page later.
🠚Some characters felt like they didn’t have much of a purpose when it felt like they would. Stanley from his early introduction and rude manners made me think he would cause trouble later – but he never appears again. Merrick, while he really helps flesh out Lex’s background and gives advice to Hadley, just disappears after that.
🠚Other characters were introduced rather late into the story when it might have been better to include them or mention them earlier (Louis, Jimmy, Logan, Stuart’s wife in the epilogue Jane Cohen). Unless there is a plan for upcoming books where Stuart and Jane are explored, this was a missed opportunity.
🠚I think Hadley’s music career could have been explored more. It is only really covered when she is in the classroom, singing songs with friends or producing them (specifically that one song near the end she helps write). And yet, as a video editor myself (mashing up clips with music), I’m constantly drumming beats, humming things or listening to music in the car. Just adding a few mannerisms might have helped.
🠚Minor thing: the epilogue is set 10 years later and I think it would be worth mentioning it underneath the epilogue title.

CHARACTERS
-ˋˏ ꒰ Hadley꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ She is too relatable at times haha, take this example: “Nope, nuh-uh, definitely not. “Okay,” I heard myself say. Internal facepalm. Damn my pathological people-pleasing ways.”. I too am a people pleaser but I am getting better with every year. She is far too nice to Nicky after the hell she puts her through. I would have reacted more like Sarah haha!
🠚People tell her that she can pester them but she doesn’t want to always bother them – that is so me *gasp* how did you know? Haha!
🠚Misses the companionship, not the man – Me when I’m third-wheeling, for sure.

I learned a long time ago you can’t let these guys push you around or they’d walk all over you, especially if you’re a woman in the biz.

-ˋˏ ꒰ Lex꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ “He was probably holding a lot of people’s secrets in that giant brain of his.” Yup haha. Our tall dark handsome man is so fine – there’s something about nerds with glasses that they are always the freakiest under all their reserved countenance. That was certainly the case here. I blushed many times haha.
🠚I like that his name is akin to Stravinsky the composer, adds more of a link between Hadley and himself!
🠚I love how protective he is. There were some moments I didn’t like him, like when he shamed what she was wearing because he was both concerned and jealous.

“It used to keep me up at night,” he said as his hands moved continuously over my body, touching, teasing. “Thinking of all the things I want to do to you”

-ˋˏ ꒰ Other characters꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ I love Stuart, he is so funny. Lex couldn’t ask for a better or more loyal friend. Always looking out for Hadley. His back must hurt from carrying the Halex ship throughout haha. My favourite moment is when he asks Hadley to join them for dinner, and Lex “was looking at Stuart like he wanted to wrap one of the bags he was holding around his head”.
Sarah is lovely, it’s even more heartwarming when you know that Cole based her character on her own best friend Sarah. The way they talk to each other reminds me so much of me with my bestie.

FAV QUOTES
• Music’s the friend who knows your history, your dreams, and your fears—it never judges and is always ready to meet you wherever you are in life. Music knows all your soul’s secrets and somehow, reflects them back to you in perfect harmony.
• “A little education and a great amount of kindness is what is required if we are to secure harmony in this life and the lives of those who will come after us.”
• I leaned over, staring into the well for a few moments, thinking about what I should sing next before looking up into those whiskey-colored eyes. Inspiration hit in the span of a single breath. I chose “The Scientist” by Coldplay. I closed my eyes through the beginning, trying to focus on remembering the lyrics. When I was about midway through, I opened them to see Lex’s impenetrable gaze was still trained on me. I felt ensnared by those eyes as they burned brightly with an almost overwhelming intensity.
• Lex answered with a smile. It was a real, genuine smile that he seldom used. His happiness at the memory was contagious, and I realized I was smiling too. I wished I could bottle up that exact feeling I saw on his face.
• I felt like I was getting a rare insight into who he was. Despite his somewhat cold demeanor toward me in the past, I had still always suspected he was a good guy. Now, I was beginning to think he was one of the really good ones.
• He took my face in his hands before tilting my chin up toward him so that I was looking him squarely in the eyes as he said, “It feels like that’s all I do. From the moment I met you. It feels like all I do is spend my time wanting you. Every second of every fucking day. I’ve never wanted anything so badly in all my goddamn life.” • The me of six months ago would have laughed in your face if you’d told her she’d one day be planting a garden in her spare time when she wasn’t in the classroom teaching. How quickly things could change. That was the wildness of life though, holding the beauty with the chaos.
• “Letting someone you love go isn’t as easy as everyone makes it seem.”
• A gentle pull and my senses came flooding back to me with a vivid intensity as I found the most beautiful pair of whiskey-colored eyes staring back at me. They had always been the most beautiful thing about him to me, a window to an extraordinary soul. I’d missed them more than I could ever have imagined.
• Time and distance kills even the best relationships. At one point in my life, I believed that to be true. But here I was staring at the one person who was capable of unraveling all my tightly held beliefs. As I looked up at him, I was struck by the undeniable truth that nothing could ever change the way I felt about this man.
• “I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you,” he murmured. “But I knew it with every fiber of my being that day at the well when you were singing that Coldplay song.” | I smiled. “It’s called The Scientist.” | “Is it really?” | “Yes. It’s about a man who’s consumed by his work, and he’s trying to find a way back to his love.” | He smiled back at me. “A perfect choice.”

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I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review and I’d like to thank Kristen B. Cole and BookSirens for the opportunity. This has not affected my opinion in any way.

“The Scientist” is out January 21st!