Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Love on the Brain

i did not like bee. at all. she was super annoying, very stupid for someone with a PhD, and felt like a pick me/"not like other girls" kind of woman. i felt like she was only vegan for the sake of making her seem special and same thing with the whole running plotline.
levi is a fine male lead. good, even. but ali writes him like his size is the only important quality about him for the first half of the book, and it just gets worse as bee gets to know him and they have sex (more on this later). hulking, towering, huge, massive, broad, big, tall, 6'4", oh my fucking god it never ended. and bee being like 5'2" just seemed ridiculous. overall, he seemed like a good guy, but all the shit with his family seemed unnecessary and he genuinely just needed to go to therapy (i feel like it was only mentioned that he'd gone before to make him more of a desirable Self Aware romantic lead). i normally love love love an obsessed male lead (go ahead, be a simp!!) but considering how long ago he fell for bee and the time in between that and the story, it just seemed weird and kind of creepy at times. like, why is she your phone passcode? do you even know her? ugh.
the miscommunications between the two of them were unreasonable. bee wearing her grandmother's ring ON HER RING FINGER was just dumb and created unnecessary tension for 2/3 of the book so that levi would think she was married to tim.
- side note: the whole fiance/cheating/best friend plot seemed thrown in only when it was convenient for the story or to keep levi and bee apart
i was not expecting them to be FWB, which again was an unnecessary miscommunication. she thinks he's just getting a crush out of his system, he wants her to move in. JUST TALK. OH MY GOD.
okay, the sex: honestly, it was just cringey. ali's writing is a whole lot of things that i want to get into, but the sex scenes felt very immature at times and like she thought she was writing super deep and well in others. the way their size difference came into play made me really uncomfortable, and the way levi talked to bee and bee thought about him felt really possessive and steeped in gender roles.
the plot itself (BLINK, guy, the way the romance progressed) felt very predictable. i've read the love hypothesis, so i felt like i knew what ali wanted to do from the beginning and could call what would happen when a character or issue was introduced for the most part.
- side note: the shmac thing was predictable but fine for the most part, though i did hate the huge paragraph that everyone was thirsting over. dude, why are you sending all that shit to A STRANGER? boundary: crossed
- another side note: the cat? really? unnoticed in a NASA facility? and only to serve as a plot device when bee has A GUN pointed at her head? all of the plot climax was ridiculous and i didn't see the point. ali tried to go big and it really did not work for me.
ali's writing in this book was so much worse than TLH. the millennial humor, the galaxy leggings, the unprompted and honestly annoying interjections of rants on the GRE and marie curie that just overloaded the book, all of them could have been made into a drinking game that probably would have poisoned me before the halfway mark. my favorite thing to hate was the TM jokes that i think were supposed to be another quirk of bee's but instead made me want to scream. i unfortunately didn't have the ebook, so i couldn't search, but i counted 41 instances while reading the physical version. even 2 was too many.
things i actually did like: wlw!! banter was not terrible at times! fuck standardized testing!!
i finished this book last night, so i think i might need some time to process still, but as of right now i'm going to give love on the brain 1.5 or 2 stars. i originally was going to do 1, but i think the fact that it was such a fun experience to hate it should count for something.
fuck reylo all my homies hate reylo

Content Warnings

ashlislibrary's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

lieseljp's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny hopeful informative lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

things100's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny informative reflective tense medium-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

5.0

Amazing Ali Hazelwood is iconic and now a must read author for me. I love her books and how they focus on women in STEM. Love on the brain was amazing, Bee and Levi’s relationship from enemies to lovers immaculate and that plot twist oh my gosh I was so stressed while reading that

Spoiler

like dang it was Guy and when he had the gun like it was legit gonna kill her if it was for Féliciette.

It was written so wonderfully and I can’t wait to read her next book. 10/10 recommend

Content Warnings

bayleereads's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

I'm beginning to think Ali Hazelwood is going to be one of my go-to authors. I loved this book so much! I adored Bee and Levi so much, both together and individually. The banter was hilarious and there were so many details I enjoyed about this book, such as Star Wars references, cats, the WWMD twitter page-- literally SO good and I never wanted to put it down! It didn't quite hit five stars for me because I was confused fairly often throughout because there are *so many* science/neuroscience/NASA references that I just simply do not understand lol. I found myself googling every now and then to look up a specific word or person mentioned. Other than that bit, I loved this and totally recommend!

Content Warnings

More...