By now, I'm sure you guys already know these tidbits about me—I'm a hopeless, sappy, mushy romantic and I'm a girl in STEM. So of course I adored Love on the Brain.
Bee has a PhD in neuroscience, but she's struggling to find recognition and funding for her projects. So when she gets the call from NASA to work on one of their helmet prototypes, it sounds like a dream come true. The only catch: she has to work alongside Levi, her archnemesis from grad school. But as she spends more time with him, she starts to realize that maybe they don't really hate each other after all and it's actually something else altogether.
If I had to pick the one thing I enjoyed the most about this book, it isn't the romance. Shocking, I know. Rather, it's the writing. There's something about Ali Hazelwood's style, with its blend of snark and humor, that just completely has me in its thralls. Often I would find myself grinning from cheek to cheek, chuckling to myself while Bee held some amusing and sarcastic conversation or inner dialogue. I think it's because she says all the things I want to say, if only I were quick and clever enough to come up with it.
And there were so many puns! Science puns, cat puns, Marie Curie puns. I love me a good pun (or a bad one, I'm not that discerning), so I was in pun-heaven.
I have to mention the science in here. I don't know anything about neuroscience, but reading this book made me wish I did. I wanted so badly for the technology in here to be real, so that I could marvel at how cool it is and totally nerd out learning more about it. Add in the NASA/astronaut angle, and your resident space-science fangirl here was swooning.
In terms of the romance itself, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't my favorite thing about this book. I found the transition from we're-frenemies to we're-getting-it-on to be a bit sudden. It seemed like they were solidly in the former category, and then all of a sudden, they were in the latter category. I guess I wanted more of a slow progression and steamy anticipation than what I got.
Still, the coupling of Bee and Levi was a fun one. Of course due to their previous interactions, Bee would assume that Levi hates her. And of course she'd be slow to figure it out, resulting in rather funny misunderstandings between them. However, I can totally see the pitchforks coming out for this couple—how it's completely unrealistic, how there's no way it would take her this long to come to her senses. I mean, sure, it's unrealistic, but that feels like the entire romance genre to me. It always necessitates a certain suspension of disbelief to enjoy, which totally worked for me here. Your mileage may vary.
As an aside, I was checking out some articles about the author (I was super curious about her scientific research), and found out Ali Hazelwood is a pen name. Apparently, in her real life, none of her colleagues or students have mentioned her books to her, so she thinks no one has made the connection yet. Ha, imagine that!
At this point, I can safely add Ali Hazelwood to my list of must-read authors. I've loved both of her full-length novels (I'm a little iffier on her novellas, but I'm generally not a fan of novellas). I find her writing style to be supremely entertaining and her focus on science and women in STEM to be refreshing. It's always a joy to dig into one of her stories, and I can't wait for more.
Readaroo Rating: 4 stars
This was a pick for my Book of the Month box. Get your first book for $5 here.
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