Emory has never been with anyone before; never been kissed, dated, nothing. His journey is about first times, experimentation, and first loves. He gets embarrassed easily, and has definitely cornered the market on adorable blushes. Being in love with his best friend Casey is hard when he believes Casey is straight. To confuse things more, he has feelings for his new friend Auggie…but he’s confused because he can’t have feelings for both of them, can he?
Casey has never been with anyone before either, but his reason is not at all the same as Emory’s. Casey is the asexual jock, though he’s never realized before what his sexuality was, or why he’s never had any sexual feelings for anyone. Not that he was ever bothered by this; he just went about his life, happy to have his best friend Emory at his side willing to cuddle him at the end of the day. Casey overthinks things once Auggie enters the picture, particularly once he starts to feel happy butterflies not just when Emory makes him happy, but with Auggie as well.
And then there’s Auggie, our once-and-done player who’s just out for a good time with no interest in anything serious. He’s a party guy, not interested in his classes—though there’s a reason behind that—but the more time he spends with Emory and later with Casey, the more his attitude changes as he realizes what he really wants.
All three are young—right about nineteen/twenty—and that shows in their interactions and how they speak. Emory in particular comes across as very naive, a wide-eyed innocent. Each has their own journey to follow, aided by the others, so there is a good deal of self-discovery going on with all three of them. There is plenty of character growth for all three, and even Auggie’s overbearing father (with his unrealistic expectations) gets in on the act. The majority of the book is Emory, Casey, and Auggie finding themselves and how they fit together, with a touch of family drama that I knew was coming, but felt very satisfied with when it happened.
Overall, Lessons in Chemistry was a 4-star read for me. This is the first college-age romance I’ve read in a while that has the characters at an earlier portion of their studies; I usually stick to books with older characters who’ve had time to gain life experience and not sound so young. But the interactions between these three were well written and concentrated on character growth, which I do appreciate and that made this an enjoyable read for me. If you’re a fan of M/M/M, enjoying new adult romance, or representation of asexual characters, this story will tick a lot of boxes for you and you’ll want to add this one to your collection.