Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
You know when a book starts off with a Marie Curie / Pretty Woman mash-up that you’re in for a winner. Love on the Brain (Berkley), the follow-up to Ali Hazelwood’s wildly popular The Love Hypothesis doesn’t disappoint.
THE CHARMING EQUATION CONTINUES
Love on the Brain is a charming, brainy, slow-burn romance chock-full of romantic tension. This novel will leave you feeling as giddy as a second grader at a science fair who realizes that adding vinegar to baking soda will make lava bubble and flow from your homemade volcano in the most satisfying way possible.
The story follows Dr. Bee Königswasser, a neuroscientist who has just landed her dream job at NASA. The only problem? She soon discovers she’s co-leading the project with her graduate school nemesis, Dr. Levi Ward — an impossibly tall, brilliant and sexy engineer.
Bee has had a bumpy career as of late and she desperately needs this opportunity to go well. But soon after she arrives in Houston to start her dream job, she realizes she’s being sabotaged.
Fans of The Love Hypothesis will adore all the STEMinist goodness this book has to offer. There are many interactions throughout the book between Bee and Levi and their chemistry is off the charts. Bee is a unique, ambitious and likable heroine. She’s brilliant, funny and extremely relatable. Levi is a formidable match, equally brilliant and flawed.
REAL ELEMENTS, REAL PEOPLE
Hazelwood, to her credit, has created characters that feel like real people. The author’s background as a real-life neuroscientist — and her talent for writing the kind of romantic comedies that will have you forgoing food and sleep to find out what happens next — are a boon for smart romance readers everywhere.
Throughout the book, the author addresses a number of real-life issues in the STEM (Science, Technology, Math, Engineering) field that plague women in particular — from the rampant sexism and misogyny to the expense and inherent bias of the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), particularly for non-wealthy students, women and people of color. Hazelwood handles the issues deftly in a way that adds gravity and significance to the story.
I won’t spoil the surprise, but one of my favorite charms of this book was the chapter titles. That, and the fact that the entire book is just infused with geeky goodness. Levi’s cat is named Schroedinger, and the parallels between Bee’s life and Marie Curie’s add additional layers of both depth and fun. Plus, there’s a charming homage that will delight fans of the rom-com classic, You’ve Got Mail.
Love on the Brain is one of the most effervescent romantic comedies to be released this year, and Ali Hazelwood is one of those magical authors romance readers should have on auto-buy.
About Ali Hazelwood:
Ali Hazelwood is the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis, as well as the writer of peer-reviewed articles about brain science, in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy. Originally from Italy, she lived in Germany and Japan before moving to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. She recently became a professor, which absolutely terrifies her. When Ali is not at work, she can be found running, eating cake pops, or watching sci-fi movies with her two feline overlords (and her slightly-less-feline husband).
