I loved this cute little friends to lovers story. It was relatively predictable but a fun adventure to get there. I do love when characters won't really admit to themselves that their feelings are real. It was a cute rom-com I'd  definitely recommend. I was lucky enough to read the eARC alongside listening to the audiobook and it really helped set a tone.

** Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. **

A cute, quick read that I absolutely adored! While the characters felt a little flat, the chemistry between them didn't suffer. This is a nice, cozy, friends to lovers romance with a moderate steam level.

If you loved any of the fiction that has come out lately featuring women and men in STEM, then you will enjoy this. Very reminiscent of The Love Hypothesis and The Kiss Quotient, this book made me root for the main characters. While it wasn't my favorite story ever, it filled the space for wanting to read more books about academically-minded, maybe a little less common-sense minded people. It is a fun and cute romance.

This book was weird. I did not like Lyric’s immaturity and I did not vibe with this book at all. 

A huge thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for providing me a copy of the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this book.  I love a friends to lovers set within the world of academia, but couldn’t get behind the amount of miscommunication and lack of maturity between the main characters. 

Overall this book wasn’t for me.  I really liked her short story “Booked for Christmas” and her writing style so I am going to read more from her in the future. 

I want to thank NetGalley, Lily Menon and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for the e-ARC of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are honest, my own and left voluntarily.

I'm usually the biggest fan of the best friends to lovers trope, but this one just didn't do it for me. It was hard for me to connect with the characters and their chemistry just wasn't coming through for me. I was not as invested in the characters or their relationship. The third act break up fell a little flat for me because of the miscommunication and just really bothered me, it felt completely avoidable. Even them finally getting together fell a little flat for me and I really just wish there had been a little more communication.

The Sizzle Paradox by Lily Menon

This was another fantastic romance by Lily Menon (which is the pen name for one of my favorite YA authors, Sandhya Menon!)! She writes great characters, and her plots are always fun. Overall, I would definitely recommend!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

I haven't read Lily Menon's prior book, so she's a new author to me. Overall I was.... disappointed by this book. I was so ready to love it. It has women in STEM, a grad school setting, friends to lovers, all my favorites. However, the thing that killed it for me was the miscommunication and lack of maturity between the characters. My pet peeve in books is when authors forcibly cause tension in the book through annoying miscommunication and lack of communication. It's a tired concept and doesn't feel real to me. This book has a great premise but was a letdown overall.

I really enjoyed The Sizzle Paradox. I read The Love Hypothesis before this, and I think they line up quite nicely, so if you liked TLH, I'll bet you'll like Sizzle, too!

I would recommend this novel if you are looking for a  friends to lovers contemporary romance.  Lyric studies sexual chemistry but has yet to have a successful romantic connection with anybody. Lucky for her, her friend Kian has a few tips and tricks that he is willing to share. When Lyric and Kian start fake dating for "research purposes" they get a lot more than what they had originally bargained for. 

This book is set within the world of academia between two grad students.

While I enjoyed the premise and the overarching idea of the story I also believe that it could have been better executed. In particular, the characters feel like they would better fit into a high school setting rather than a graduate program in university.

i thought the concept of “the sizzle paradox” to be quite interesting and i love representation of women-in-STEM in general. but i felt that the paradox itself was a bit unrealistic… someone who fits both components of the paradox seems like a prince charming to me. having said that, i loved how comfortable lyric and kian were together! but as soon as they began their dating/tutoring sessions, i noticed that all of that vanished! despite knowing each other for years, i got frustrated at how "off" their communications seemed to be. 

lyric and kian both have their share of family drama; lyric comes from a giant family (who individually have obstacles of their own) and kian’s parents’ relationship has been strained for decades. although it added some background into their pasts, i felt that following through with these personal conflicts seemed out of place with the rest of the plot. their families each get a chapter or two but other than that, the novel focuses on lyric and kian’s relationship. i adore how they complete each other and would’ve loved to see more of this vibe throughout the novel

This is a cute, quick read about best friends to lovers. I felt the plot slow at points. I was never really fully invested in the romance between Lyric and Kian, so it was hard for me to get behind their romance. I loved the plot, but it was not well executed, making me enjoy it less.

I’ve seen this compared to The Love Hypothesis. The theme is the same but this one didn’t meet my expectations. I love a friends to lovers story with dual perspectives. I think the characters lacked maturity and chemistry.

Replace sizzle with fizzle because that's what happened here. I thought this was going to be promising, or at least just a simple, cute read. that was over before it even started. the MC was so immature and truly does not grow at all. maybe academic settings are just not for me.

I did not enjoy this book - DNFed at 27%. I thought the exposition at the beginning was clunky and the tone was too familiar for my liking. I just couldn’t see myself liking it or the characters more if I continued.

the sizzle paradox seems to fall along the lines of the love hypothesis and the kiss quotient in subject matter, with women of stem being main characters and their minds being as important in development as the romance. the problem i found with the sizzle paradox is that it doesn't feel as if a scientific mind is at use with lyric.

while the character is presented as someone who is very smart and capable, there are numerous moments throughout the book that it feels as if lyric is more a caricature than fully formed. her actions with kian don't feel like those between two people who are best friends and when they finally do give into their feelings, it doesn't feel like a natural progression— as she spends much of the beginning trying to pair him with another friend.

between that, the lacking info on her thesis that she's supposedly spent ages on, but doesn't seem to hold much of a scientific basis or importance, and a romance that doesn't hold much heat, this read ultimately fizzled rather than sizzled for me.

A great read. Great loved both characters and wanted everything Ronaldo out for them. Looking forward to more from this author.

This book was so cute and funny. I smiled and laughed a lot and didn’t want to put it down. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to read it. It’s the perfect summer weekend read.

This friends to lovers romance follows grad students Lyric and Kian.  Lyric is studying sexual chemistry in romantic partners to try and crack the code to long-term happiness in partnerships. She has the data, the interviews, and a year before she has to defend her thesis.  Only problem is that she doesn't have a personal connection to the data since her own romantic relationships were always lacking in one aspect or another.  Her best friend and roommate, Kian, has the opposite problem - he has no problem talking to women or getting into a relationship but he always leaves before things get too serious. With her thesis advisor pushing to see some progress from her, Kian agrees to teach Lyric his methods for attracting a partner and she'll work on setting him up with women outside of his usual type. What neither of them expect is for the lessons to feel so real and for their perfect match to be their best friend all along. This was cute, but overall I found it a little lacking in chemistry.  Friends to lovers is a real solid trope that I almost always enjoy and there were some really great moments of that dynamic in this story.  However, those moments were then undercut by some underdevelopment of the characters and their relationship.  Lyric and Kian seem to be constantly reminding everyone in their lives (and, thus, the reader) that they're best friends and would never work out as a couple but they never really get into specifics.  Their communication style was also odd because they didn't seem to have problems discussing anything in the beginning but then once they started to develop feelings, they could barely speak a few words to the other one.  For pretty much the last half of the book, they were in some weird holding pattern where they both recognized their feelings but were so determined to not ruin the friendship that they wouldn't even give a hint that they were actually attracted to the other one.  That being said, when they did open up and give into their feelings, it was really cute and I really liked them together. 

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC. Publication date was June 28, 2022

While I generally am a huge fan of Lily Menon’s romances, The Sizzle Paradox, unfortunately, fell a little flat for me.  I wanted to enjoy the characters and the plot as much as I did in her previous books, but I struggled to get into the narrative.  The Sizzle Paradox did have some really fun RomCom elements, though, which were definitely my favorite part of the story!  I loved the use of the Best-Friends to Lovers trope, which did lend a spark to Lyric and Kian’s romance in a nice way.  Lyric was also a delightfully intelligent leading lady, which is something I look for in romance novels.

My Recommendation-
Though The Sizzle Paradox wasn’t my favorite read, I still quite enjoyed parts of it!  If you love a good RomCom with a Best-Friends to Lovers twist, you might want to grab a copy!  I would especially recommend this book to fans of STEM-based RomComs like The Love Hypothesis!