REVIEW: Motion by Penny Reid

Motion by Penny Reid is the first story in her Laws of Physics new adult trilogy and it ends with a cliffhanger! But don’t let that put you off – the books are being released with only a month between each installment. If you prefer to wait for the whole series you’ll be happy to know it will be complete by mid-April.

Mona is a brilliant young woman with a bright future ahead of her in physics. While interviewing prospective schools to begin her PhD at nineteen, she gets a call from her estranged twin sister Lisa. Lisa is in jail and if their parents find out, she’ll be in even worse trouble than she is right now. She need Mona to pretend to be her and go to their family home, where their brother Leo’s friend Abram is awaiting Lisa’s return. Abram is a de facto ‘babysitter’ as their parents are away and they don’t trust Lisa on her own. He’s only met Lisa once (though Mona isn’t clear on the circumstances) so it should be easy for Mona to impersonate her. But pretending to be her twin around a hot guy who seems interested in her has all sorts of complications and ramifications to contend with. Including the big one – will he discover her ruse and does she want him to know who she really is?

I enjoyed the start to this series! It takes place over a week and is all from Mona’s point of view. Mona is very conflicted about what she’s doing especially since she and her sister haven’t gotten along ever since she tattled to their parents about Lisa and their best friend Gabby sneaking some alcohol when they were younger. The fallout from that event was Lisa being sent off to boarding school and a seemingly irrevocable split between her and Lisa, and her and Gabby. Gabby has remained as Lisa’s best friend so she’s reluctantly helping Mona ‘become’ Lisa to fool Abram. Lisa is all sorts of trouble, the party girl who is clearly in over her head and pretending to be her is a challenge for Mona who hasn’t spent time with her sister in years. It’s especially difficult for her to hide some of her own quirks (like her set list of favorite responses that work under any occasion) and things she knows would make Abram suspicious.

While Abram is an irritant at first with his rules (like no leaving the house without him, and no phone) he starts to grow on her and she soon finds it harder and harder to hide her real personality so she projects someone who is a bit of both her sister and herself. And she and Abram grow to like each other, a significant problem for Mona with the knowledge that Lisa will out of jail soon and returning home to take Mona’s place.

Mona has experienced discrimination and she’s been taken advantage of by adults wanting to use her brains for their benefit, making it difficult to trust anyone. And she has an aversion to touching from an incident in school. While there are lots of funny parts, there are some serious parts too.

I was prepared for the cliffhanger (and you will be too now that you know it exists) and didn’t find it as dire as I expected. If anything, it’s made me excited to continue the series! Readers of Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series will recognize Marie, Abram’s sister who plays a small role here. The slow burn romance between Mona and Abram has started and continues in Space, coming March 11th, 2019!

Book Info:

Publication: Feb 11, 2019 | Pub: Cipher-Naught | Laws of Physics #1

One week.
Home alone.
Girl genius.
Unrepentant slacker.
Big lie.
What’s the worst that could happen?

Mona is a smart girl and figured everything out a long time ago. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. When your parents are uber-celebrities and you graduate from high school at fifteen, finish college at eighteen, and start your PhD program at nineteen, you don’t have time for distractions outside of your foci. Even fun is scheduled. Which is why Abram, her brother’s best friend, is such an irritant.

Abram is a talented guy, a supremely gifted musician, and has absolutely nothing figured out, nor does he seem to care. He does what he feels, when he feels, and—in Mona’s opinion—he makes her feel entirely too much.