Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles is honestly the best book I have ever read. Not only did I devour it from cover to cover but I didn’t want to put it down even after I read the last page.
Perfect Chemistry is a forbidden love story; it has the Romeo and Juliet sense but is so much better (sorry Shakespeare).
Elkeles draws you into the book with such description and emotion that you feel like you’re there, you feel like you’re apart of the book, and you want to feel the sincere, real, and true love that these high school students experience.
The book is written in the perspectives of the main characters, Brittany Ellis and Alejandro Fuentes.
Brittany Ellis is perfect, or at least that is the way she portrays herself to everyone at Fairfield High. She is rich, popular, the captain of the pom squad and has the football player captain boyfriend. She wears designer clothes, drives a BMW and makes sure no one sees the real her. Only her best friend, Sierra, and her boyfriend, Colin, have met her 20 year old sister, Shelley. Shelley is mentally disabled, she is in a wheelchair, and can’t talk. Brittany is the only one to look out for Shelley and keeps her parents from sending her away to a home. Brittany’s life isn’t perfect, but she has the image that portrays her as perfection at Fairfield; she is liked by every guy and envied by every girl…when in reality her life is far from perfect and she knows it, but refuses to let anyone see the real her.
Alejandro Fuentes is anything but perfect. Alex, as he likes to be called, is a member of the Latino Blood; he is a member of the gang to keep his mother and two brothers, Carlos and Luis, safe. He watched his father get murdered when he was six years old and was jumped into the gang as protection for his family. He wears the Latino Blood bandanna and has tattoo’s on his arms, showing his pride and loyalty to the gang. He has a tough image to uphold; he’s poor, shares a room with his two brothers, works at an auto-body shop to help his mother pay bills and rides a motorcycle. But underneath the image is a young boy who’s trying to find out who murdered his father, doing everything he can to prevent his younger brothers from being jumped into the gang while remaining loyal and doing whatever Hector, the leader of the Latino Blood tells him to do. At Fairfield High Alejandro is viewed as a gangster, who does and deals drugs and could kill you with his gun…when in reality he is just a member of the Latino Blood to keep his brothers out, doesn’t do drugs and doesn’t deal.
Their worlds collide on the first day of senior year. Brittany almost hits Alex on his motorcycle while attempting to park her BMW, then he threatens her in front of the school and is called down to the Principal’s office where he gets scolded for talking to Miss Ellis in a threatening tone.
When they both enter Mrs. Peterson’s room, their chemistry teacher, they sit at opposite ends of the room. Brittany with her boyfriend and Alex with his fellow gang members. Little do they know Mrs. Peterson will be assigning seats, alphabetically.
Brittany Ellis and Alejandro Fuentes are assigned as partners…together.
“You don’t have to like your partner,” Mrs. Peterson says, “but you’re stuck together for the next ten months.”
Over the next ten months Brittany and Alex experience something real. They have the fire-works, body-tingling-every-time-they-touch, earth-changing love. It doesn’t come easy or without a fight; lives are taken and lives are changed.
But in the end two worlds that were supposed to remain separate crash into each other, and create a perfect chemistry.
