A new STEM romcom addition. 🥼🚀

Bee Königswasser, a neuroscientist has eyes on joining the NASA project called BLINK. A shocker, when she realizes she'll be co-leading BLINK with a grad school nemesis, Levi Ward.

Different story, same - same characters.

Tiny girl, BIG guy. I feel the characters are too similar to the previous books with different names. If I'm not mistaken, the last few short stories have been enemies to lovers trope too. Argh...and how did both assume the other is married, walking on eggshells. Book smart but not street smart. Eventually, they annoyed me quite a bit, especially Bee.

I really want to love and devour it as I did with my first Hazelwood novel "The Love Hypothesis" which I gave five stars.

Hazelwood's writing is great. However, I think I overindulged in her novels and short stories. Maybe my limit is 2 or 3 books, I read five books in the last twelve months so my enthusiasm isn't all there. I thought I would love it, I was excited when I started, but too much eye-rolling on my end to give more than 3 stars.

If you love Hazelwood's successful formula and don't mind the similarity, you would love this too.

I absolutely adored Love on The Brain! Both characters were so unique! I’m just obsessed with Levi 🥹 he is definitely my new book boyfriend for a long time! Bee was so funny I laughed with her thoughts! Together they were a great couple! Loved their interactions and their funny moment plus there are some really hot moments between them! It’s fast paced and it gave me goosebumps ❤️❤️ love love love it!!

Love on the Brain - just like The Love Hypothesis - is a book that is so easy to get into. I immediately adored the main character Bee and the little tidbits about Marie Curie and ended up devouring the book in one day. It seamlessly blends laugh-out-loud funny humor, swoonworthy romance, surprising twists and important themes such as misogyny in STEM. The main and also the side characters quickly found a way into my heart and I couldn’t help but root for all of the amazing women in this book. Love on the Brain was a delight and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet!

I just love the way Ali Hazelwood writes dialogue. It's snappy and sassy and sharp and makes me laugh and cringe and feel all the feels. I can't wait to read whatever else she writes next!

I'm definitely here for more women in STEM romances, but I wasn't wildly into this story. A little too predictable to be really enjoyable. Not horrible, but just didn't do it for me.

Love on the Brain is entertaining and charming romance that focused on the neuroscientist, Bee’s hate-to-love relationship with the engineer, Levi when they collab in the neuroengineering project of NASA.

The plot is predictable and I agree with readers, this has similarities with The Love Hypothesis in terms of broody hero, heroine clueless of hero’s feelings, smart and brilliant in her field, swoon-worthy romance… and yet I loved and enjoyed this more than The Love Hypothesis. This is more fresh and charming with most adorable main characters.

I absolutely loved Bee. It was lovely to see how Levi made her change her opinion, help her get over her fears, take a leap of faith, and give him a chance. Levi is man of every woman’s dream. It was lovely to know him more once he opens to Bee and let us in his life outside the lab along with her.

The plot was more strengthened by layers of science, knowing more about historical pioneer of science, Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie through heroine’s obsession, there is a community of STEM women on twitter, Twitter drama on biases in STEM field and unfair education system.

Romance is best part. I so much enjoyed Bee and Levi’s nemesis-to-lovers relationship, their banter, conversations, lovely and deep moments, and hot sexy scenes, and there were many hot scenes.

Overall, Love on the Brain is refreshing, entertaining and heartwarming romcom with great layer of women in STEM and adorable lovely characters. This is perfect combination of love and science.

Hazelwood manages to make the world of academia far more exciting than it typically appears in books. Sexy, smart, full of heart -- thumb's up!

So if you read my review of The Sizzle Paradox the other day you might know how I feel about these STEM romances.. they are a bit overdone after the hype from The Love Hypothesis and not usually done right!
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But…. Ali Hazelwood does know what she’s doing and Love on the Brain is one totally worth picking up!
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WWMCD? What would Marie Curie Do? That’s Bee’s motto and also her secret viral Twitter account that advocates for women in STEM. Bee is working at the NIH and is a neuroscientist, about to co-lead a project with NASA on some space tech. How cool?!
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Except the co-leader on NASA’s team is her handsome archenemy Levi.
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And she doesn’t have a computer. Equipment is going missing. The other team members are ignoring her…
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He has to be interfering! Except he’s rescuing her from a locked cemetery, making sure she eats, and is actually not that bad from time to time?
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Something isn’t adding up! Pun intended lol
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Love On The Brain was a bit cheesy, but it was also so cute! Bee and her assistant are a hilarious duo, Levi is dreamy, and the NASA project sounds like way too much fun to be work! Parts felt predictable absolutely, but we all read Beauty and the Beast retellings and know they are going to fall in love eventually!
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My six word review:
Handsome NASA guy, enemies to lovers

The writing wasn't too grabbing or entertaining; it tried for a conversational tone, but the cadence read choppily and didn't feel natural. I'm not sure how to describe this, but it felt as though the characters had too many idiosyncrasies/too many points of individuality to try and make them interesting and because of that they didn't seem believable. An okay book that I eventually ended up skimming.

Ali Hazelwood has a lock on shifting the Reylo fanfic power dynamic into tropey narratives, and I mean that as a compliment. I have a penchant for novels where the characters have misread the situation and chaos ensues, and this book delivers emotionally and thematically. Bee and Levi have great chemistry and sass as they seemingly battle to be enemies-to-lovers research scientists for a huge NASA project. Little do they know someone is sabotaging them behind the scenes.

I particularly enjoy how Ali Hazelwood situates her primary characters in their worlds and builds out their friends, family, and side characters by letting them show you who they are by their actions. This makes their fleeting appearances even more effective.

The sparks are there, the sex is good, and drama escalates in the last 50 pages. I was surprised by the turn things took so would have liked to see a little more buildup for an insidious interloper built out.

Fans of Christina Lauren's The Soulmate Equation or Talia Hibbert's Take A Hint, Dani Brown will likely enjoy this STEMinist book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced review copy.

After loving Ali Hazelwood’s first novel, The Love Hypothesis, I was super excited to read more from her. Having now finished Love on the Brain, I will say that I enjoyed it and thought it was a fun book, but it felt a bit lacking to me. I think it just felt too similar to The Love Hypothesis for me. The setting is obviously somewhat familiar given that they both are in STEM fields and deal with academia, but the characters also felt too similar for me. I also thought Levi’s excuses for why he seemed like such a jerk in the beginning were kind of annoying and didn’t really make sense. Also, the ending twist seemed a bit over the top based on how the rest of the book was. This just wasn’t really for me, but if you loved The Love Hypothesis and want more in that vein, then maybe give this a try.

4.25 stars

LIKES:
📝 quick, jaunty, fun writing
📑 features Twitter DM chats
👩‍🔬 Bee is a quirky, passionate, smart neuroscientist
🧔🏻‍♂️ Levi is a quiet & dedicated engineer
🐈 a cute cat!
🧑‍🚀 astronaut/NASA vibes
👩‍🏫 explores the female experience in academia
🧪 + all the STEM references
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 + family dynamics
🤫 + the impact of secrets
💼 workplace romance (4/5 steam level)
🤺 enemies-to-lovers
☀️ grumpy-sunshine
🧠 neuroscience vibes!
😳 a shocking twist!
😊 very cute & swoonworthy!
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DISCLAIMERS:
⚠️ dm me for TW!
🧀 very cheesy at times
👎 Bee’s negative self-talk can be a lot but makes sense as you learn about her past relationship
🧞‍♀️ that said, wanted more exploration of Bee’s past
⚖️ unbalanced plot - LOTS happens at the end!
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VERDICT: a swoonworthy, quirky, chaotic, quick, & fun workplace enemies-to-lovers grumpy-sunshine STEM romance with NASA & neuroscience vibes + a MAJOR twist! Could go deeper into characters pasts but gives enough depth to get their vibes! Read if you LOVE genre-bending and/or STEM romances!

Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CjBU2XQrLjL/?igshid=ZjA0NjI3M2I=

I really enjoyed this book - there’s a bit of a epistolary element, a pining hero, an independent woman, a feisty coworker, a true villain. That’s not to say there weren’t flaws, but in general a fun read

This is my third Ali Hazelwood book, and my favorite so far. This is about enemies from grad school now becoming co-leads on a huge project at NASA. As soon as Bee (FMC), lands in Houston and walks into the Space Center a series of “unfortunate” events unfolds. It has astronauts and sassy cats and laugh out loud moments. Can Bee and Levi bury the hatchet and work together to make the project happen? What would Marie Curie do? IYKYK. It was heart flutteringly cute, with a nice slice of spice. Read it!

Ali Hazelwood's sophomore novel is definitely a reiteration of the exact same tropes as her first, but I literally can't get enough of it. The only downsides to this one were how utterly oblivious and annoying Bee could be at times and a quick resolution, but whatever. Keep writing women in STEM, keep highlighting issues in academia, and do both of those things in the context of a cute and steamy romance.

Such a sweet read. I loved both of the main characters and I loved the chemistry between them. It jumped off the page right from the start. I am not usually a fan of miscommunication trope but it worked pretty well in this one. I loved the nerdiness of the book and I adored the side characters as well. Overall its a great read and I highly recommend this one.

I loved the concept of this book. But the ending really threw me for a loop. Though this one wasn't my favorite, I continue to love Ali's writing style and have loved her other books, including her novellas! So I will definitely be looking for future releases from her!

Ali Hazelwood has done it again! This romantic comedy features two of my favorite tropes, grumpy sunshine and enemies to lovers. This STEM-inist rom-com is full of swoon worthy moments and laugh out loud dialog. I read it in two sittings because I couldn't get enough. Bee thinks she's getting the job of her dreams at NASA, but her dreams come to a crashing halt when she realizes she is going to have to team up with her sworn enemy, Levi Ward. Will they be able to get along to get the job finished? I recommend for fans of her first book, feminist women in STEM, and lovers of situational comedy.

I found the main character of this one to be a little bit annoying at times. A bit whiny in my opinion.

I did enjoy this, but it wasn't on the same level as The Love Hypothesis to me

I thought the ending was a bit much and took a turn I wasn't expecting and honestly didn't love it

I really enjoyed this enemies to lovers romance. Hazelwood writes the best brilliant but clueless female leads! I loved how sure Bea was of her work and her worth when it came to her scientific knowledge. It contrasted well with the vulnerability she felt around her worth when it came to love. I enjoyed how relatable she was, with her confusing feelings, self-pep talks, and conversations with her sister.

Levi’s brusque personality was so endearing but it did bother me a bit that he always felt like he had to help/save Bea. Otherwise he was a lovable character.

I loved the mix of romance and science in this one, just like in The Love Hypothesis. I plan to pick up Hazelwood’s STEMinist novellas next!