Love On The Brain
BY Ali Hazelwood
Rating: 2/5 Genre: Contemporary Romance Steam: Explicit Publisher: Berkley Pub Date: July 26, 2022 Thank you so much Berkley and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC. All opinions are my own. Available: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop
Love On The Brain Synopsis:
Like an avenging, purple-haired Jedi bringing balance to the mansplained universe, Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project—a literal dream come true after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia—Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.
Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. And sure, he caught her in his powerfully corded arms like a romance novel hero when she accidentally damseled in distress on her first day in the lab. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school—archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.
Now, her equipment is missing, the staff is ignoring her, and Bee finds her floundering career in somewhat of a pickle. Perhaps it’s her occipital cortex playing tricks on her, but Bee could swear she can see Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas…devouring her with those eyes. And the possibilities have all her neurons firing. But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?
Love On The Brain Review
Let me say this first: if you loved her first one and thought wow I would love to read this exact book in a different setting but also the same—this book is for you!!! I’m going to try to be nice. I think there are some things going for this book, I really do. But are those things for me? No.
Like if sunshine-grumpy enemies to lovers with a small naive friendly fmc and LARGE painfully introverted mmc is not your exact want again then this book isn’t for you. I think that Hazelwood has found her groove in banter and in understanding tropes, but I think she needs to venture out of her safe zone just a bit and test out some others.
Loves:
I did find the writing to be easy to follow and fairly engaging. It’s a lot of internal dialogue. Some of which is entertaining and a lot of which is cringe. I appreciated the Marie Curie moments. Truly the highlight of the book.
Side characters were better than the first by actually being present, setting was neat, the neuroscience was beautifully done. The romance was better than her first book too.
Meh:
Let’s start off with THIS IS ALMOST THE EXACT SAME BOOK!!!! I get that it sold and there’s the hype, but ???????? I like tropes and HEAs, but I need some variety.
Moving on, I do appreciate that we have STEM characters written by a woman in STEM. That’s great. But as a woman in the tech side of STEM working with only men this book is a little 😬. Honestly I feel like it does the environment a disservice by making the misogyny so blatant and borderline unbelievable. Sometimes the sexism is that blatant and awful, more often than not it’s super nuanced and I feel like the book would have better served by that additional layer.
I also have issues as to how the characters are written. If Bee is supposed to be this outgoing friendly character how in the world does she not continue to try to make Levi her friend?? Like that would be goal # 1 to annoy him into friendship? Also how do you just walk away from so many important convos JUST IN TIME TO MISS EVERYTHING???
Long Story Short:
Do I recommend this book? Honestly, I can’t. I mean maybe borrow it? But I can’t say to go out and buy it. Maybe that’s just me. Perhaps go for it if you absolutely loved The Love Hypothesis and wanted another just like it, then yes buy it.
If You Liked This One…
Obviously I’m going to have to put The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood here. Otherwise if you love Christina Lauren this would also be good. Check out my reviews of The Half-Night Stand andThe Unhoneymooners for my thoughts on those! Otherwise Sarah Smith’s Faker would be another great option!
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