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A review by justagirlwithabook
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Ali Hazelwood is back with another "STEMinist rom-com" and I'm here for it! In this standalone, we have Bee and Levi. Bee is a smidge obsessed with Marie Curie, anonymously runs a successful Twitter account (@WhatWouldMarieDo), and just landed a dream project working with NASA. The downside? (There's always a downside!) Tall, dark, and handsome Levi, the project's team lead. These two worked alongside each other a bit in grad school where it seemed to be common knowlege that Levi generally loathed Bee. Sure, that was years ago, but there's still no love lost. When the project gets going, things start going wrong. Bee's equipment hasn't arrived, she's not receiving emails, and no one seems to be warming up to her, though there might be a glimmer of hope from Levi, a potential ally in the midst of this mess. All Bee can continually ask herself is, "What would Marie do?"
What I Loved:
- I love how smart Hazelwood's romance novels are! In many ways, I'd consider this (and her previous, The Love Hypothesis) to be modern highbrow romance. I want more of this.
- I love seeing women represented in STEM AND kicking butt and taking names. The underlying feminist commentary is fantastic.
- I loved the quirkiness of all the characters and how easily likeable they are.
- I especially love that with each Hazelwood novel that comes out, I feel like I get to learn a little something new, or at least get a glimpse into a brilliant world that I'm not a part of myself. (Science wasn't "my thing" growing up, but I can certainly appreciate more as an adult!)
- I loved the mixed-media aspect that was included with Bee and another account communicating over Twitter regularly. It was fun to read tweets and their DMs back and forth.
- I'm a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers trope (present here!) and the fake dating trope (present in The Love Hypothesis), no matter how obvious things are and when we all know (as readers) exactly where things will be going after reading the first few chapters. I don't care. I love it.
What I Didn’t Love:
- There were moments when I thought, "Bee and Levi are brilliant, but they're brilliant idiots." What is screamingly obvious to absolutely everyone (on the reader end) is of course not at all obvious to them. That said, we all know that that's how it has to go; we know how the story will play out, we know the characters will be at odds until they're not, and we will continue to read and devour it all because we still love it! So while I dislike the predictability of it all, I can't hate it for being that way when I'm also the type that eagerly binge-reads it all knowing where it will go and what will happen and still enjoys every minute of it.
Overall:
I really loved this one and found myself enjoying it even more than The Love Hypothesis. If you enjoyed that one, you'll certainly enjoy this one! We were given quirky characters to really like, an interesting backdrop at NASA dealing with neuroscience (all very fascinating!), and a couple more chili pepper scenes/moments sprinkled in this time around. As far as fun, intelligent, don't-have-to-think-too-much-to-really-enjoy romances go, this one is a winner.
What I Loved:
- I love how smart Hazelwood's romance novels are! In many ways, I'd consider this (and her previous, The Love Hypothesis) to be modern highbrow romance. I want more of this.
- I love seeing women represented in STEM AND kicking butt and taking names. The underlying feminist commentary is fantastic.
- I loved the quirkiness of all the characters and how easily likeable they are.
- I especially love that with each Hazelwood novel that comes out, I feel like I get to learn a little something new, or at least get a glimpse into a brilliant world that I'm not a part of myself. (Science wasn't "my thing" growing up, but I can certainly appreciate more as an adult!)
- I loved the mixed-media aspect that was included with Bee and another account communicating over Twitter regularly. It was fun to read tweets and their DMs back and forth.
- I'm a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers trope (present here!) and the fake dating trope (present in The Love Hypothesis), no matter how obvious things are and when we all know (as readers) exactly where things will be going after reading the first few chapters. I don't care. I love it.
What I Didn’t Love:
- There were moments when I thought, "Bee and Levi are brilliant, but they're brilliant idiots." What is screamingly obvious to absolutely everyone (on the reader end) is of course not at all obvious to them. That said, we all know that that's how it has to go; we know how the story will play out, we know the characters will be at odds until they're not, and we will continue to read and devour it all because we still love it! So while I dislike the predictability of it all, I can't hate it for being that way when I'm also the type that eagerly binge-reads it all knowing where it will go and what will happen and still enjoys every minute of it.
Overall:
I really loved this one and found myself enjoying it even more than The Love Hypothesis. If you enjoyed that one, you'll certainly enjoy this one! We were given quirky characters to really like, an interesting backdrop at NASA dealing with neuroscience (all very fascinating!), and a couple more chili pepper scenes/moments sprinkled in this time around. As far as fun, intelligent, don't-have-to-think-too-much-to-really-enjoy romances go, this one is a winner.