Review: Experimental Marine Biology

Thank you to the author for the gifted ARC of Experimental Marine Biology! All opinions are my own.

SPOILER ALERT! I spoil some minor plot lines in this review! Please consider that before reading.

Susannah Nix has some of my favorite STEM heroine's. I haven't read all the books in this series but I really enjoyed all the previous ones that I've read. Applied Electromagnetism remains one of my FAVORITE forced proximity/"there's only one bed" romances, so I went into Experimental Marine Biology with really high hopes. After how much I loved the last book in this series, I was a bit disappointed that Experimental Marine Biology fell flat for me. I did enjoy it and I think its a great option if you're looking for a quick read. But I think I was expecting more.

Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes and I was so excited it was in this book, and the heroine is a marine biologist! Hell yes! I always really enjoy seeing the other characters from the previous books and I loved seeing the couples in this one (and there's a wedding!) I had mixed feelings about Dylan being this hottie underwear model, while I loved that there's a content warning in the beginning it also made me expect that the disordered eating subplot would be more in depth? It felt very brief and I think that would have been a great way to discuss the problematic expectations models, male and female, have to deal with.

I loved the scenes with Brooke's cat Murderface and Dylan. I think Murderface was my favorite character! I kind of struggled with Brooke's family and her abortion. Her father and family was truly awful to her, and when she went back home it kind of felt like it was on her to forgive them and their behavior, even though they had not apologized or talked to her for years. I love when a heroine unapologetically makes a decision like that about their body and doesn't regret it, but I had mixed feelings about the scenes with her family.

Experimental Marine Biology was a three star read for me! While it wasn't my favorite from the books in this series that I've read, I still highly recommend the Chemistry series!