A review by isitcake
Earth Bound by Emma Barry, Genevieve Turner

emotional lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Oh so this is the original Lessons in Chemistry. Same types of characters - they're both obsessed with their work - and it's set in the 1960s when sexism was alive and well and Dr. Charlotte 'Charlie' Eason is treated with far less than the respect she deserves by most men. Luckily she knows how to play the system too and she uses her good looks to her advantage. Parsons is generally a good guy - he evaluates women on their skills equally to men - he just doesn't advocate for them as much as he should. He's more focused on the space missions being a success rather than the politics behind them. This was short and sweet and I loved how it was set in the early space missions. Extremely unique story.

Parsons hires Charlie to "head up" the computing dept, but she's still forced to report to a man, Hal. They both keep their relationship professional at first but then agree to nightly meetings a motel to have sex, with the rule they won't mix work and personal lives. Of course that doesn't work out and they fall for each other. But Charlie feels betrayed after a job to create in-house computers for the first in-space docking of 2 objects when Hal outsources the job to the industry, a company called Maynard. Charlie expresses her concern that they won't create all the necessary backups and failsafes like ASD will but only Parsons listens to her. She breaks it off with Parsons because he knew this was happening and didn't do anything to stop it. Weeks pass as they prepare for the mission. Parsons becomes increasingly thin and haggard with all the guilt he feels. Then the mission happens and the Maynard computers do miscalculate. Charlie manages to catch it and her computing department saves the day. It ends up making Hal resign and she takes over. She also reconciles with Parsons and they admit they love each other, Parsons first by saying a physical relationship isn't enough for him.

There's also a bit of backstory with each of their families. Parsons is from a big Oklahoma farm family so he was ridiculed in college for his "Okie" accent and told maybe he should go into ag engineering. He also had an older brother, George, who died in the war which devastated their family.
Charlie is from a family of geniuses, they're all tenured research scientists who look down on her for going into non-academia. When they visit the ASD campus with Charlie, Parsons gets involved and its great seeing how he cares and defends Charlie against her family.