Review: THE DNA OF YOU AND ME by Andrea Rothman

The DNA of You and Me by Andrea Rothman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Sharp...sets a bittersweet love story within the cut-throat world of academic research, a great pairing [Rothman] explores with heart [and] smarts.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Emily Apell arrives in Justin McKinnon’s renowned research lab with the single-minded goal of making a breakthrough discovery. But a colleague in the lab, Aeden Doherty, has been working on a similar topic, and his findings threaten to compete with her research.

To Emily’s surprise, her rational mind is unsettled by Aeden, and when they end up working together their animosity turns to physical passion, followed by love. Emily eventually allows herself to envision a future with Aeden, but when he decides to leave the lab it becomes clear to her that she must make a choice. It is only years later, when she is about to receive a prestigious award for the work they did together, that Emily is able to unravel everything that happened between them.

“Refreshing...Asks urgent questions about female ambition. Fans of Lab Girl have found a worthy successor.” -- Real Simple

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The DNA of You and Me is such a powerful novel, and it's a romance like none other that I've read. And for that, I really appreciated it.

Let's start with the characters:

Emily is just so real. She's flawed, has a complex about being alone all her life, and is career-orientated. She's a STEM scientist and she's so goal-driven. I loved that. She just felt real. I could imagine walking into her lab and meeting her.

Aeden, her love interest, is... well. He came across as quietly arrogant and selfish, nearly always putting his own wants before those of others--and that just made him so realistic. There were also some really tender moments involving him too though. He's complex, and while most of the time when reading I couldn't decide if I liked him, I understood him.

The romance itself, I just adored. So I'm not a HUGE fan of romance or anything. I much prefer the romance to be secondary to the story, and here it was, yet it was also cleverly woven into the plot. The main focus on the book is Emily trying to achieve her goal as she works with mice to do with a sense of smell. Okay, so I have not worded that at all well. It's a lot more complicated than that, and there is so much science in the book. Yet even for a reader like me who has limited scientific knowledge, it's manageable. So Emily is hard at work in her new lab, and straight away we're introduced to Aeden. At first he's a competing postdoc student, but then they work together. And the closer Emily gets to Aeden, the more we understand him, even if we don't like him that much.

The way the romance started did not seem at all romantic--but it was believable. And from there on, it was possible to see Emily's feelings for him growing, and then his for her too. Yet I was never sure whether I was completely rooting for Emily and Aeden as a couple. I had my doubts because of his personality.

And the ending--[spoilers in this paragraph!]. Aeden is such an arrogant ****! Seriously, I'm so glad Emily didn't take him back. She stuck true to her morals, and I really admired her strength for that. She is a great role model. So I'm really glad that it ended how it did. It felt realistic, and though there's no HEA for Emily and Aeden, I did feel that Emily was happier and truer to herself on her own--and possibly with John? I really liked how John cropped back up here in a non-intrusive way.

The writing itself is beautiful. While it's clear the author has a scientific background, and plenty of science is effortlessly incorporated into the story at an approachable level for non-scientists without it seeming like it's being dumbed down, the language is simply beautiful.

You've also got two different timelines going on, and the only other times I've ever really seen this done this well is in memoir. And this definitely contributed to my love for these characters--because the book just seemed so realistic. I could meet Emily and Aeden and Justin. The events that happened really could happen. It's so believable, and a couple of times I had to check that I wasn't in fact reading memoir. That's how good the writing is, because I was so immersed in the story that it felt extremely believable.

My favourite quote has to be this one: "My father once said to me, shortly before he died, that a discovery is nothing but a moment. The moment when a truth, otherwise obscured, reveals itself, and your eyes are the only pair of eyes in the world to see it, and your mind the only mind to comprehend the truth and certainty of what you see. The moment is all you're left with, because that is all you will ever care to remember."

I just love the message in that. And I'm still thinking about it now.

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