Recommended for those who enjoy Ali Hazelwood and Abby Jimenez, I was intrigued to read my first book by Jodi McAlister. I quickly saw the parallels between her focus on two individuals navigating the turbulent world of academic life and what I remember from The Love Hypothesis. As for the comparison to Abby Jimenez, having read almost everything Abby has written, I wouldn’t quite say the comparison hits the mark, but I can see the appeal: the realistic issues the characters face will resonate with readers who are either directly familiar with the precariat or have witnessed the journey of trying to secure a permanent position. In either case, this foray into the lives of those surviving academic precarity was an eye-opening experience. Fictional or not, An Academic Affair reveals a truth of academia: merit may be enough to get you through the door, yet lasting security often hinges on how you play the system.

What started as a bickering match between two undergraduates bloomed into a longstanding rivalry spanning thirteen years. Sadie Shaw and Jonah Fisher have been at each other’s throats through every major milestone of their academic careers. Determined to prove who is the best, the opportunity arises when a coveted teaching position opens. For Jonah, it would let him move closer and help his newly separated sister. For Sadie, after struggling for most of her life, it could finally bring security and financial freedom – and prove once and for all that she is the better scholar. Which is where her plan comes in.

Having a soft spot for sisters, Sadie is determined, despite her better judgment, to give them both a real shot – by invoking the partner-hire clause. The only catch: to qualify, they have to get married. If nothing has happened between them in well over a decade, nothing could possibly change between them now – right?

There were several things I truly enjoyed about this book, but primarily the style in which it was written. The footnotes had me in stitches! I loved how Jonah’s sections were written almost as if they were a research paper – even when he quoted sources, he made sure to cite them. It wasn’t just two characters the author labeled as intellectuals and called it a day; the dialogue, the idiosyncrasies – every aspect of who they were on the page – screamed literary genius. While that’s great for those who can relate, or those open-minded enough to respect unfamiliar topics and still enjoy the story’s context, I can see how some may quickly lose interest – especially moving through their lives month-by-month and truly watching their relationship shape, mold, and flourish over the course of a decade.

As for the characters themselves, I’ll warn that some may find Sadie overbearing, but in her particularly male-dominated environment, she recognized the need for her outer armor. You also couldn’t fault her for her attitude toward Jonah’s father – and, by extension, Jonah – based on how they both consistently treated her. I enjoyed the evolution of her character throughout the story, as well as Jonah’s = especially learning quickly that his “Tweed” side was just as much armor as Sadie’s teeth and fists, giving way to the “Cardigan Jonah” we constantly saw through his POV. Their on-page retorts, banter, and wit were highlights of the book and made the overall read more believable than anything else. These felt like two people you knew – or could imagine witnessing firsthand.

What I enjoyed most was the branching relationships of the secondary characters. In some stories, the secondary characters stand on their own but lend support to the primaries on their journey. In An Academic Affair, the secondary characters were an extension of the primaries – we learned more about Jonah’s past, present, and desired future through his relationship with Fiona. Sure, we got a quick snapshot of what was happening in her world and a very clear hint that her story may be coming (same with his brother, Eli, and his nemesis, Julia), but if you remove her, we lose a significant branch of who Jonah is. Same with Chess and Sadie. We only knew one side of Sadie from her rivalry with Jonah, but Chess reveals an entirely different side – softer, less combative, more validation-seeking – that we’d completely miss without her. For this reason, the secondary characters didn’t act as simple stepping stones delivering advice that anyone could give; instead, they were instrumental in revealing facets of the protagonists that, within the confines of their rivalry, we would never have witnessed.

I did find the steamy scenes off-putting in this book. Don’t get me wrong – I am all for spice in a contemporary romance – but it didn’t feel necessary, especially given how late it arrived. Removed or fade-to-black, the book would have still held the intimate connection between Jonah and Sadie when they finally revealed their feelings. It would have thrived just as strongly as a clean romance as it did with the spicy detour it decided to take. To be honest, the way those scenes were scripted made some interactions more awkward than captivating.

The one thing I did appreciate, again, was the well-roundedness of the characters. We could see how the past contributed to who they were in the present, from Sadie’s abandonment issues after losing her mother and having a father who left, to Jonah’s overbearing father and nontraditional upbringing that pitted one sibling against another. These weren’t two people who decided they were going to become literary scholars at any cost (in fact, because of Jonah’s father, he had no desire to follow the same path). These were two people who, because of one another, fell in love with the world they created together – full of challenges, arguments, pushback, and, on a deeper level, mutual respect and love.

There are clear hints that at least three books are possible in the future – Chess and the mystery person in possession of her phone, Eli and Julia, and Fiona and Satoshi. If Jodi doesn’t pursue these storylines, I’ll be disappointed – but if she does, I am here for it.