Kaylor second book hit me in all the feel, just like her first book did. Kaylor knows how to tell a powerful and emotional story, that keeps me eagerly turning each page, while feeling deeply for the characters, and healing something within myself at the same time. Love Serena Kaylor’s books and will always support her!

This YA romance novel will entice many younger readers, especially if they are neurodivergent or have autism. I liked that Marlowe is different and recognizes her differences. I felt like she was portrayed well regarding her autistic traits. I have a stepson who is on the spectrum, and I saw some of him in her. It is mentioned a few times but not built upon in the story. It could have been a more significant portion of the book. That said, it is easy to see why she was so focused on her ex-boyfriend, Josh, and wanted him back. It is the obsessive trait of those on the spectrum.

Enter Ash. Marlowe is paired with him on an English project, and she uses this situation to get help trying to win Josh back. What she doesn't realize is that Ash is interested in her. It is just like the Cyrano de Bergerac storyline. There are multiple classic tales scattered throughout the book that reference what is happening to the characters. I liked that tie-in. I also enjoyed all of the interactions between Marlowe and Ash, especially when you look at it through their eyes and not as a reader. 

While Marlowe has issues to work through, she could sometimes get a little annoying. But I felt like she learned a lot about herself and that maybe how she shows love and affection is ok and doesn't have to fit into a mold that someone else expects. I liked her two best friends, Odette and Poppy. While we learn more about Odette than Poppy, this trio of friends sticks together through thick and thin. 

This book is filled with tropes and loveable characters, and we give it 4 paws up.

Title: The Calculation of You and Me
Author: Serena Kaylor
Length: 336 pages
Format: ebook arc
Pub Date: June 18, 2024
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Rating Out of 5: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Spice Level: closed door
Summary:
Marlowe Meadows understands many things, including that her love for calculus and Python coding isn't universally shared. Despite being seen as a "weird, math-obsessed" girl, she became part of her school's "couple goals" with Josh, who later dumped her for not being romantic enough. Determined not to fail, Marlowe teams up with moody musician Ashton Hayes for an English project. They strike a deal: he'll help her write love letters to win back Josh if she can create a data formula to make his band go viral. As they work together, Marlowe starts to question if love can truly be solved like a math problem.

Thoughts:
This was such a sweet YA romance! It gave me major Better Than the Movies vibes. The author did such a great job of creating real, quirky, relatable, and diverse characters that you get to know and love (or hate *cough*Josh*cough*). I really loved getting to follow Marlowe on her romance + self discovery journey. And Ash was incredibly kind and ridiculously patient and loved all the parts of her that her that Josh just dealt with or tried to change. I was fully immersed in this book and loved every second of it!

Special thanks to the @netgalley and @wednesdaybooks for the arc in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 stars

I absolutely adored this book. The story follows Marlowe, a calculus enthusiast and one half of the school’s golden couple. That is until her popular boyfriend dumps her and takes all of their friends with him. Apparently, Marlowe isn’t “romantic enough”. Marlowe is determined to win him back and enlists the help of the mysterious Ashton Hayes to write romantic love letters. However, Marlowe soon begins to question if her relationship is even worth fighting for.

This book was so good and perfect for people who just love books. I loved the romance between Marlowe and Ashton, as well as the neurodivergent rep. Overall, just an excellent YA romance.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Calculation of You and Me is a very cute YA romance. It took me a little bit to get into but overall i enjoyed this novel!
I think Marlowe was represented so well in the book!! The different dynamics of personalities in high school were well represented too.

A lot of funny and cute moments. Really enjoyed this!

Thank you for the ARC!

Neurodivergent/autistic Marlowe is a senior in high school whose boyfriend of two years, jock Josh, breaks up with her right as senior year begins. Josh breaks up with Marlowe because she is "not romantic enough". Simultaneously, Marlowe gets partnered with Ashton (Ash) the very tall, all-black wearing, guyliner adorned "new" kid for their senior English project. One thing leads to another and Ash makes a deal with Marlowe--if she will help with some grassroots PR for his band, Never Mind the Monsters, he will educate her in how to be more romantic.

I adored this book. The writing is snappy, funny, crisp, and clean. The characters are well developed, diverse, and friends anyone would love to have (Odette and Poppy are just delightful). The family dynamics of Marlowe's mom, stepdad, and half sister are supportive and realistic. Poor Ash's parents having to travel all the time felt plausible too. I thought this was a sweet story of helping Marlowe find out what she wants through "romance fieldwork" and reading romance novels for research. It's a little predictable and the scenes are just oh so perfect. I enjoyed the depiction of Marlowe's autism through her narrator perspective. And Ash is just...swoon. what a cinnamon roll wrapped in all black.

This was a sweet story about self-worth and love. There were some great moments between Marlowe and her family and friends, and I was cheering her on as she confronted incorrect assumptions she had about herself as the story progressed.

I absolutely love that the character who Marlowe describes as “allergic to color” is well-read in romance and makes a great pitch for why romance novels are for everyone. I also loved how patient and kind (and funny) Ash was throughout the story!

Marlowe is neurodivergent and I thought the representation was really well done.

This is exactly the kind of positive and funny story I love to see in the YA genre. This is a great choice for a YA-loving adult (like me!)
I absolutely loved the nods to classic literature. If blending YA and classics is going to be Serena’s trademark style, sign me up.

Thank you to Wednesday Books for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

This book just wasn't my cup of tea. I ended up DNFing due to the cringey southern accenting and confusing writing style. This was just my initial reaction and suggest you give the book a try yourself if you're drawn to it!

Marlowe Meadows, Lo to her friends and family, is looking forward to her senior year. Even though her relationship ended at the start of the summer, when popular boy Josh said he thought they should take a break for a couple of months. He had gone away for the summer, but Lo was ready for him to come back to town and tell her that he’d reassessed their relationship and he was ready to get back together. Someone who understood social cues might have thought he’d broken up with her. But Lo is autistic and hopeful, and she thinks she can convince Josh that they belong together.

But when school starts, he doesn’t call Lo over and tell her he’s ready for them to get back together again. In fact, when she confronts him, he says he wants to think of it as a breakup, not just a break. And then Lo has to put up with the humiliation of being paired with him in AP English on a team project. To dissolve the tension in the room, Ash Hayes offers to trade places and work with Lo. Lo is surprised but glad to get out of the difficult situation, and very happy not to have to work with Josh on a long-term project.

Lo doesn’t know Ash very well, but he seems smart. And he seems smart with words, not just with numbers, which Lo prefers. And they’re faced with having to do an in-depth study of a romance novel. Lo is not excited about that, until she realizes that romance novels may hold the key for her getting back together with Josh. He had told her that she wasn’t romantic enough for him, and Lo thinks that reading romances can help give her ideas for being more romantic. Ash thinks it’s a bad idea because he has a low opinion of Josh, but he does work in a romance bookstore and reads a lot, so he’s willing to help her out.

Ash will pick out novels he thinks will help Lo and offer some fieldwork training, so Lo can feel more comfortable on dates. In return, she will revamp the website for his band, Never Mind the Monsters, and help with their social media presence. She will also take photos of the band for the website and post some videos of their songs, to try to help them get attention and some gigs, and get them set up on some streaming services.

As the weeks go by, and Ash and Lo spend more time together, Lo finds that she enjoys spending time with him. He has good taste in novels, and his bandmates are all good friends who are excited about her changes to their website. Ash never makes Lo feel less than because of her autism, and he does his best to meet her where she is. Meanwhile, Lo is trying to woo Josh back with anonymous love letters.

But the more Lo learns about what love really is, the more she questions what she had with Josh. Is that really the relationship she wants, or does that just not add up anymore?

The Calculation of You and Me is a sweet YA rom com about being a neurotypical teenager in a typical high school. Lo, her struggles with relationships and her obsession with mushrooms, is honest about what she’s thinking and feeling, her logic providing a different perspective on teenage relationships. This story has tons of heart, many laughs, so many romance novels, and a lot of mug cake experiments. And of course, there is a happily ever after ending.

I was really impressed with this novel. I am someone who is not neurotypical, and I found myself nodding along with Lo as she got into challenging situations by not being able to read the room and not understanding when people would say one thing but do the opposite. High school was confusing for me, like others had gotten some kind of rule book that I missed out on. I thought author Serena Kaylor did a really good job of putting the reader in Lo’s shoes, and this novel is itself a good novel to read to learn more about what love is and what it isn’t. I wish I could have read it when I was a teenager, but since time travel isn’t a thing, I can just be glad that I got to read it now.

Egalleys for The Calculation of You and Me were provided by Wednesday Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this novel.

Marlowe starts off her senior year of high school looking forward to her last year. Her popular boyfriend, Josh, had suggested that they take a break while she went to her dad's for the summer. When she gets back, she expects things to go back to normal, but is confused to find out that the "break" Josh had told her about, he wants to make permanent. He says that she doesn't do love correctly.

Stung by this revelation, she is determined to learn all about love to win Josh back. She enlists her best friends and reluctantly drafts her English partner Ash to help out. In exchange for his help to show Marlowe how to be romantic, Marlowe will help Ash's band get some social media exposure.

The Calculation of You and Me by Serena Kaylor is a fun and entertaining book about finding out who you are and figuring out that you should find yourself instead of twisting yourself to fit into someone else's ideal. I really enjoyed it and hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I was only able to get through about 20%--what I always make myself read to. It was just a matter of not connecting with the main character. The writing wasn't bad. The story just wasn't for me, personally.

What a fantastic YA romance book!! Marlowe Thompson had been dating Josh but Josh dumped her out of nowhere. He told her that she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to, he wanted her to be more romantic. Determined to win him back, after Marlowe is paired with Ashton in English class for a project, she makes a deal with him wherein he helps her learn about being more romantic. But what does Marlowe really want?

I really loved this book. It is such a well written YA romance novel. There isn’t a dull moment at all, and I really enjoyed seeing Marlowe’s growth. Marlowe goes from being obsessed with getting Josh back to realizing that maybe he wasn’t who she thought he was. Ash does that for her. Ash is a singer in an emo band, wearing black, with a lip ring, and wears eyeliner (so really every guy I liked when I was a teenager haha).

Marlowe is also autistic. Josh doesn’t seem to be understanding of that, but Ash is thoughtful. He also doesn’t treat Marlowe as “a person with autism,” he treats her as a person. It’s really beautiful. Ashton is thoughtful, and caring. He takes a step back for Marlowe. I love Ashton and Marlowe together. He made her open her eyes to what a relationship was really like, a healthy relationship.

The ONLY thing I wish.. was that I got more after the end! I wanted to see more of Ash and Marlowe together. They will be living rent free in my head for a while.

This is a MUST read for any fans of romance books.

This was adorable. It gave me "She's All That" and "10 Things I Hate About You" vibes. It was a lot of fun! Marlowe and Ash were a great balance to one another, and the comedy elements were great. I also thought Marlowe's friends were hilarious and loved how much they supported her.

This has a great balance of romance, comedy, friendship, family, and mental health elements. I enjoyed it from start to finish and definitely recommend it to anyone looking for their next YA contemporary romance!

Another sweet, thoughtful, joyful read from Kaylor, as she follows up Long Story Short with a story about a girl trying to win back her ex with the help of a goth, romance-book-loving musician who pens meaningful songs and knows a thing or two about love. Maybe from the books. Maybe from the songs. Maybe from a crush he’s been harbouring since long before the story began. While love letters are written and romance tropes are explored in date-like “field work,” the heroine rethinks the notion that love has to be all-consuming, full of grand gestures, and defined by heartfelt outpourings of affection. I enjoyed the meta-conversation about romance as a genre—the tropes, the characters, the commonalities—and the look at Wuthering Heights as a questionable template for love, which anyone who’s studied Bronte will resoundingly agree on, and Bronte, herself, is likely cheering from the grave. The affection the leads here share for one another is obvious from the start, and Kaylor does a great job keeping us in the emotional space of her heroine, even while she *thinks* she’s still interested in someone else. We know the truth. The other characters know the truth. But like all good stories, the heroine has a journey to go on. And what a lovely journey it is.

Serena Kaylor has become an auto-read author for me & The Calculation of You and Me was such a good coming of age story about finding yourself & finding love from the unexpected.

I love Marlowe’s character, especially with the growth & development, and I really loved Ash - the boy in black, who wears eyeliner, and surprisingly writes love songs. Although, I hated how much time that Marlowe spent pining over her ex.

I also loved the neurodivergent representation & I thought it was beautifully done.

Huge thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. And thank you to LibroFM for the ALC!

An absolutely fantastic teens in love story. It reminded me of how I adore stories of teens figuring out their problems and reacting to dilemmas that arise in the halls of high school. Add in an autistic girl trying to win back her ex-boyfriend and the goth boy who is helping her and the plot to a neat story begins.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Marlowe, neurodivergent and uncertain of herself in social situations, is told by her boyfriend Josh that they need a break. According to Josh the jack wagon, she doesn’t know how to love someone or even what love is.

She decides she needs a little help, and here we have an English class studying classics, plus a tall, hot musician who offers to help her write letters to get Josh back.

In the course of this letter writing, plus working on a project for English class, Marlowe begins to see that maybe she is not the one who knows nothing of love. But she's learning fast--and not with the stinker Josh.

There were so many funny moments, great characters, and terrific discussions about love. I loved the lead to the end more than I liked the denouement as I'm not really convinced that confessions of love ought to be performance art, but that might be my age. The rest of the book was a delight

4.5/5 stars

WOWEE I loved this.

Serena Kaylor managed, with this story, to tell a story that was hilarious and swoony, with the perfect amount of tension, conflict, and romance.

THE CALCULATION OF YOU AND ME is the story of math whiz Marlowe, who, after a rough (and insulting) breakup with her boyfriend Josh, enlists the help of her class partner, the school mysterious emo grump Ash, to win Josh back by increasing her romantic skills. But the more time she spends with funny, musical, kind Ash, she starts to wonder what she really wants in a relationship—and in herself. Over band practices, kissing for “research,” laser tag, stacks of romance novels, and arguments about Heathcliff, sparks fly between Marlowe and Ash, leaving her with lots of confusing feelings about Josh, love, and herself that she has to rearrange her long-held equations for.

First of all, I didn’t think I was into emo boys until this book. Serena did that. She has me drooling over a lip-ring and black-clothes clad, eyeliner-wearing rock star with a heart of gold and a mind full of romance tropes and I regret nothing! I love the “dating coach” trope and I loved these characters. I loved that it was funny and romantic, while still managing a believable emotional depth—it was smart and intentional, meaningful and touching. I was captivating by this book early on and I absolutely loved the reading experience.

The only (minor) issue I had was how quickly the book wrapped up — I wanted a little more of a developed conclusion (honestly, just wanted more of this story!), but overall, it was an incredibly readable, swoony story! Highly recommend!

Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. THE CALCULATION OF YOU AND ME is out now!

This was SO FLIPPING CUTE.
We get romance tutoring for our sweet genius autistic FMC, a hot goth and IN A BAND bi/pan mmc, and analysis of the absolute chaos that is Wuthering Heights all in the same book?? MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE.

I absolutely loved it and I need to go back and read the author’s other book now.

10/10 recommend. 😍

I received an advance copy from the publisher, all opinions are my own, and a review was not required.

This is an extremely enjoyable novel. At first, the character of Marlowe is rather annoying. It is infuriating how desperate she is to get back a jerk like Josh, who is clearly unworthy of her love in the first place. He makes her think that she is not good enough.

On the other hand, it is clear from the beginning what a good guy Ashton is. He clearly cares about Marlowe much more than she even realizes at first. Their relationship grows slowly and sweetly. The more it grows, the more Marlowe's confidence grows and she comes into her own and becomes a better person and a more likable character.

Both main characters in this novel could easily be dismissed as less than worthy, unimportant, or not good enough by many people. Marlowe is neurodivergent. Her brain doesn't work like other people's She is unnaturally obsessed with math, she tends to ramble on about things like mushrooms, and more. Ashton is a gothy teen who dresses in black and wears eyeliner. However, the author fully fleshes them out in a way that takes away their otherness and makes them relatable.

The book is also full of a lot of terrific secondary characters. They include Marlowe's two best friends, her mom, her dad, her stepdad, and her younger sister. All of them are extremely supportive of Marlowe. Their presence in the story and their great relationships with her serve to make what was already a good book even better and more satisfying to read