Antonia Bernardin

My 29th read of the year was The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren, I am a huge fan of this author duo and recently bought a whole bunch of their books to make my way through.

I’ve already read Love and other words, Twice in a blue moon and The unhoneymooners, so it won’t be long before I’ll need to create a compilation post with all my Christina Lauren reviews!

A sort of summary

This story follows our main character, Jess, a freelance statistician who lives with her young daughter. She lives across from her Grandparents in the building they own and spends everyday working in a local coffee shop with her best friend, who is a romance writer. Everyday they see this hot, but arrogant guy, they’ve nicknamed ‘Americano’, after the drink he comes in and tersely orders, saying nothing else.

Through the gossip vine they discover that he actually runs a company that’s making a dating app, unable to reconcile this robotic guy with romantic-ness of a dating app, Jess pulls him aside one day to ask him about it. It turns out it is a dating app that uses an algorithm based on your DNA and your answers to some compatibility questions to calculate different levels of matches ranging from bronze to diamond. Since this kind of thing is the perfect fuel for her books, Jess’s friend insists that they go and sign up for the app.

In a shocking twist, the computer matches Jess with Americano, A.K.A: Dr.River Pena – the lead scientist and inventor of the technology the app is based on. Not only did they match but they are the highest scoring match the company has ever had and as this has happened ahead of the company going public, other people on the app’s team propose that they pay Jess for her time, as long as she gets to know River and does a few press things for them. With a kid and elderly grandparents to support, Jess isn’t going to say no to 10 grand a month, so she agrees.

To her shock, they get on incredibly well and the chemistry is instant. As they get to know each other and as River meets her daughter, Jess finds herself starting to rely on him, which terrifies her. Jess grew up on unstable ground with her mum and she never wants to put her daughter through the same. So, when something comes to light that throws into question their match and rocks the foundation of River’s company, it brings up both of their worst fears.

What did I think?

I really enjoyed this book, every Christina Lauren book is completely different from the other. I liked the main character in this, she was funny and interesting, plus the feral romance writer friend adds some really funny parts to the book. The thing I liked about this book is that there isn’t really some big third act miscommunication, they fall hard and fast, the conflict is based around this app and whether or not Jess trusts what she’s feeling or is it just because the algorithm told her too. Plus, whether she can handle relying on someone else after being on her own for so long, which is pretty relatable no matter who you are.

If you’re curious about Christina Lauren’s book, don’t worry, I will be making my way through all of them soon! Subscribe or follow my socials to see them.