Charlie is very good at math and science. He's so good that he realistically dreams of MIT and has modeled his future around that plan. He isn't good at girls, however. When he sees a girl with an interesting neck tattoo at a donut shop, he isn't at all prepared for the crazy emotional and utterly illogical road he is about to embark on. The girl, Charlotte, isn't exactly looking for love either, just a strong dose of normalcy that being sick so often rejects. Together, the two stand to learn a lot about life and love if they can just get on the same page.
LOVE AND OTHER UNKNOWN VARIABLES by Shannon Lee Alexander is a delightful mix of quirky humor, sweet and touching first love, and the unavoidable complications of life. Charlie is the perfect combination of super intelligent and just the right amount of snarky. His journey in learning to appreciate literature, and the other parts of life that can't be solved with a calculator, is realistic and invokes so much love for the growth of his character.
On Charlotte's end, she provides an excellent contrast to Charlie. Art is her passion, and the moments where her and Charlie find connections in their respective passions are adorable and often moving. Though a story like theirs is almost guaranteed an ending that isn't happy, they will give readers smiles frequently throughout their story.
Shannon Lee Alexander is definitely an author I will be looking forward to reading again. LOVE AND OTHER UNKNOWN VARIABLES has such a uniquely distinct voice, and I can't wait to see what other stories Alexander creates. I wholeheartedly recommend this novel.
Charlie Hanson has a clear vision of his future. A senior at Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, he knows he’ll graduate, go to MIT, and inevitably discover solutions to the universe’s greatest unanswered questions. He’s that smart. But Charlie’s future blurs the moment he reaches out to touch the tattoo on a beautiful girl’s neck. The future has never seemed very kind to Charlotte Finch, so she’s counting on the present. She’s not impressed by the strange boy at the donut shop—until she learns he’s a student at Brighton where her sister has just taken a job as the English teacher. With her encouragement, Charlie orchestrates the most effective prank campaign in Brighton history. But, in doing so, he puts his own future in jeopardy. By the time he learns she's ill—and that the pranks were a way to distract Ms. Finch from Charlotte’s illness—Charlotte’s gravitational pull is too great to overcome. Soon he must choose between the familiar formulas he’s always relied on or the girl he’s falling for (at far more than 32 feet per second squared).
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