Title: The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything
Author: Kara Gnodde
Publisher: Mantle
Synopsis:
Meet Art and Mimi Brotherton. Devoted siblings and housemates, they’re bound together by the tragic death of their parents. Mathematical genius Art relies on logic, while Mimi prefers to follow her heart.
When Mimi decides she needs more from life than dutifully tending to her brilliant brother, she asks for his help to find love. Art agrees, but on one condition: that she find her soulmate using a strict mathematical principle. Things seem promising, until Mimi meets Frank: a romantic, spontaneous stargazer who’s also a mathematician. Despite Mimi’s obvious affection for the quirky Frank, Art is wary of him from their very first encounter.
As Art’s mistrust of Frank grows, so do Mimi’s feelings, and the siblings’ relationship is brought to a breaking point. Something about Frank doesn’t quite add up, and only Art can see it…
My review:
The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is an entertaining, thoughtful book which explores some serious topics through characters that make mistakes but feel real.
This book is a slower builder – I think you need to give it some time. I struggled to feel connected to the characters in the first half of the book( and even having finished the book I still felt like I hadn’t properly got inside Mimi or Art’s heads) – they still felt like a bit of an enigma to me. I disliked the way Art treated Mimi, but as the novel continues you start to understand why he behaves the way he does and why they are so protective of each other. Plus it’s always great to read books with a neurodivergent main character.
I don’t want to give too much away but I think the last third of the book, with the surprises and revelations, ramped the plot up a gear and piqued my interest much more – I didn’t find myself particularly gripped by the story until towards the end when I think the story really came into its own with some great twists that I did not see coming!
Overall, I enjoyed this novel and reading about Art and Mimi, particularly the second half of the novel which I struggled to put down, but it took longer than expected to find myself really caring about any of the characters. However, it’s a different, entertaining book and well worth a read so I’d recommend it.
My rating: 3.5/5
The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is out in the UK on 16 March, pre-order on bookshop.org.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest review.