Love on the Brain Review 💕🧠

After Love Hypothesis, this was an auto buy for me. I led 22 women as eager for this one and while it got better day to day, sadly I didn’t love it as much as expected! 🤷🏼‍♀️ Though, we had a BLAST so bringing people together counts extra in my book 😉 Thank you ladies!!

This STEMinist rom-com has a female scientist working on a special project at NASA with her male nemesis from grad school.

Now for Sam's "Scientific" Facts:

🧠Knowledge- Bee’s a smart Neuroscientist, but lacks common sense. So oblivious & kept ignoring things told to her…it hurt to observe!
🧠Organization- FMC's thoughts were all over the place! She rambled on and on and on…see what I did there?😜 Sometimes the dialogue was funny, but others not so much
🧠Explanation- A book celebrating women in STEM, but FMC needs MMC to be taken seriously by male colleagues...whyyyy!?!
🧠Predictions- Science involves hypothesizing outcomes & as a group we nailed it! Not what I want when reading a book though😬We foresaw it ALL except the final conflict which felt thrown out of nowhere & over the top🤨
🧠Evidence- Science is based on verification; however, the FMC has an illness that was poorly misrepresented😞
🧠Reasoning- lots of trademarked terms which I’m unsure purpose & found distracting
🧠Logic- great to have role models, but the FMC is portrayed obsessive over hers to the point it’s like “Live Your Own Life!”

What I Loved:

💗Levi the MMC! Initially made out to be moody. He had his flaws, but I genuinely enjoyed getting to know his backstory and learn his true personality
💗Twitter subplot which was entertaining and added some depth
💗Amusing, quirky side characters
💗Great message on standardized testing for college and graduate admissions
💗Positive mention of therapy for mental health

If you enjoy enemies to lovers, don’t mind failed communication that almost never ends, & can overlook facts I shared then you may like this one! I do believe not every book is for everyone 😊

Thanks Netgalley, Ali, & Berkley Publishing for the chance to share my honest review!

4.5 STARS

THE 411...

*•.¸♡ 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞, 𝐁𝐞𝐞. 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐬 - 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐢 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐝 ♡¸.•*

Bee Königswasser has been given the opportunity to work as the lead on a neuroengineering project with NASA to create a helmet for astronauts that would improve their focus. She’s excited up until she finds out Levi aka the guy who she believes hates her, will be the co-lead engineer on the project. She feels he made his feelings toward her known during grad school and the last thing she'd fathom is having to work in close proximity with someone who loathes her. She asks herself what would her idol the French Physicist Marie Curie do if she were in her shoes? readily acknowledging that Marie would accept this opportunity no questions asked, Bee decides to accept. Soon after she introduces herself to the team (all dude bros), all sorts of hijinks occur to prevent Bee from actually doing her job. We see Levi begin to back her up as she's presenting her ideas/suggestions and quickly turns into more of an ally than enemy. Bee is very aware of his presence and stolen glances so much so that she starts to enjoy their collaboration. All the while reminding herself that Levi still fundamentally hates her. 

WRITING & FINAL THOUGHTS...

I'll preface this part of my review by mentioning that I’ve seen many reviews since I finished my read and although I agree that there’s a specific formula to all of these “Steminist” books, I enjoyed this more than The Love Hypothesis. The biggest standout difference for me is that both leads/romantic love interests are thoroughly fleshed out making it easy to connect and root for this ship. I LOVED the insider look we get to the actual project and seeing Bee leave a lot of dude bros in awe as she strutted her knowledge in her area of expertise. I also loved seeing Levi go from silent bystander to someone in Bee's corner who can’t stand when his male colleagues make it difficult for her to work. I loved the fact that Bee hates that it takes Levi backing her in order for the team to give her the time of day. She draws parallels between her current situation and that of Marie Curie who had to fight for an ounce of respect/recognition as a female Physicist during the early 1900's. It’s not often that I end up LOVING the male lead but Levi has my whole heart simply because he's a feminist that genuinely wants to see change in their field of work. If you can get past the many mentions of Levi’s large manly frame 😂 and Bee being overly oblivious, there’s a lot to love:

🧪Empowered women in STEM
🧪Tropes: Hate to love (kinda)/Close proximity
🧪Twitter threads/wars for entertainment
🧪feisty invisible 🐈
🧪Vegan love
🧪🧠 talk as they race to perfect a helmet for NASA
🧪Male lead is a feminist
🧪The humor was 👌🏽if it can get me to laugh out loud, then and only then it gets placed on my rom-COM faves shelf 😉

I still enjoyed some of Hazlewood’s go-to tropes explored in this book but have grown a little tired of the same plot layout involving an adorable science girl being reintroduced to an academic rival, miscommunication and lots of presumptions, and a secondary character being totally two-faced. It’s not a bad concept but after exploring more of her work I feel like it’s all Hazlewood is going to write about, even though it feels like she could delve into so much more than that.

I do love her continued rep of women in STEM, her broody and grumpy dark-haired male leads (what can I say? It’s repetitive but I’m still a sucker for it), lgbtq+ rep, and the humor/banter throughout the book.

Bee was an OK main character. I enjoyed her sense of humor and love of Marie Curie but didn’t like her assumptive nature and her obliviousness in some situations. I feel similarly about Levi- he was OK but I wasn’t head over heels for him. He felt a little passive throughout the book and I feel like much of the “conflict” in the beginning of the book could have been avoided if he’d said a couple clear sentences to Bee.

The plot was generally predictable and I wasn’t thrown by the big twist at the end except for how serious the implications would have been if the antagonist had gotten their way. The book had cute parts throughout and I did like the pieces about standardized tests/academic admissions processes needing to change. I felt more interested I think in subplots like the design of the helmet and the Twitter drama than the romance itself.

I would recommend this book to folks who aren’t sick to death of miscommunication/lack of communication tropes in their romance reads. I for one am sick of them, and I’m a little tired of Hazlewood’s overused plots, so this wasn’t the book for me. On principle I like what it tries to do in regard to women in STEM and changing standardized testing but the romance wasn’t my fave. I might read more of Hazlewood’s work after I get a good long break from her but I don’t know, we’ll just have to see.

I love women in STEM! Predictable but fun. Sexy but sweet. Another great entry into Ali Hazelwood’s romantic world. Almost makes me wish I had become a scientist.

This was a cute but different Ali Hazelwood that gave us the same things we loved from the TLH but gave us more. I enjoyed the workplace setting, but ultimately felt that both main characters were a little too clueless for me. Also the third act conflict was a bit much.

Still a solid read and can't wait to see what AH does next!

3.5/5 Stars

I've read the love hypothesis as I got an arc through net galley and truly enjoyed it. Now reading this book I was slightly disappointed. This wasn't a bad book but in my opinion, it was just too similar to Ali's previous book. Don't get me wrong, the book was still enjoyable and had not read Ali's first book I may have had a slightly different opinion. I also did find that there were a lot of unnecessary bits that could have been taken out. For example, the conflict at the end felt very superficial and not realistic. There were also some things that I wish were explored more like the treatment of Bee by levi in grad school which I've seen other reviewers mention

I love Ali Hazelwood. She writes the best grumpy vs sunshine books! This one is very similar to The Love Hypothesis, so if you are looking for something different this is not the one for you. I really loved this book, the characters are quintessentially Ali Hazelwood characters. She writes quirky well! It is not that sometimes over the top annoying quirkiness, it is a realistic level.

The twist I did not see coming, like I was shocked which does not usually happen in a romance.

Cannot wait to read more!

If you like Steamy Rom-Coms, this one is for you!

This was a buddy read with Kaceey and she loved it! Sadly, I prefer romance novels where the lead characters kiss and the “romance” fades to black, thus, this one was not for me.

In Love on the Brain, we have cute, fun, and quirky Neuroscientist Bee, who will be working alongside Nasa engineers and her former nemesis, the brilliant, gorgeous, and intriguing, Levi Ward, on a Neuroengineering project. It would be her dream come true if Levi wasn’t involved.

The banter between these two is spectacular and is what made this book readable for me. If only I understood Neuroscience. So much of the story went way over my head due to the detail and care the author included about Neuroscience, Neuroengineering, and STEM, that I lost interest quickly.

Seeing as I skimmed so much of the book to get through the chapters with Neuroengineering and the steamy sex, it was immediately clear that this book simply wasn’t for me. What is clear to me is that Ali Hazelwood is a great writer and is really good at writing rom-coms, sadly her writing style just isn’t for me.
2.75 Stars

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group for the alc via NetGalley.

Simply put, this book is fun. It made me full blown laugh on several different occasions (Rocio's character is absolute gold) and the banter is top-notch. As someone who usually wouldn't touch science with a ten-foot pole, the way this book handles STEM is compelling and accessible. The pace moved quickly, the romance was cute, and it had all the necessary parts of an incredible rom-com. However...
Do not read this book if you loved The Love Hypothesis and are excited to read something new by the same author. Yes, it is technically a new book, but it literally feels like she changed the names of the two main characters and copied and pasted all of their personality traits and physical descriptors (minus the newly added colorful hair) into this book. The grumpy x sunshine trope worked super well before, but it feels derivative here.
So while I definitely enjoyed my time reading this book, it comes with the giant caveat that it sorta felt like I was reading the exact same romance all over again.

I knew this book was going to give me some conflicted feelings. And I was 100% correct. Did I like this one better than her debut? Yes. But also why did this feel so familiar? Because like her novellas they all read the same. I liked it, but it still was just not what I wanted.

First things first, this book is one of the reasons why I don’t like people trying to convince you to read a book only by listing off the tropes. Because yes this is academic enemies to lovers, but all her books are also academic enemies to lovers and it makes them seem all the same. I really don’t think I would have minded it as much had all that attention had been called to it. Plus since I’m not an enemies to lovers fan, it just gets kind of exhausting that this seems to be the only thing she’s written. BUT I DO love the women in STEM angle, and I know that the things she’s going through (stereotypes and misogyny) are very much something she would run into. And then the whole plot of talking to someone but she didn’t know who it was…. That was in one of the novellas too. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me? Or maybe I’m not explaining it right? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s all starting to sound the same.

The actual plot of the story was really wild tho. But as someone that is not sciencey at all, it was definitely some interesting work. And even if they do all read the same, I DO like that they’re all about different types of sciences. And this one is about one that’s actually interesting to me because I know someone who is actually in this field of science. They’re not at NASA, but they work with people’s brains and things like that. It was really cool that I got to ask them questions and see was the info accurate. The ending that resulted from this plot was like 0 to 60 lol I was not expecting that. I did get the villain wrong, so that was another reason I thought it was ok. But it wasn’t exactly something that made me be like OMG because it was only the ending that had me glued to the pages. (To my headphones)

The romance was cute tho. I’m sure we all knew the twist at the end, but I really loved that part. *SPOILER IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I MEAN ABOUT THE TWIST THEY HAD* I am a SUCKER for social media in romances so the DMs were cuteeeee *END SPOILER* But other than that, it wasn’t something that I’d write home about. Does that make sense? Like it was average. But I guess if you didn’t guess the thing, you could have been surprised and loved it? I know I’m not making sense if you haven’t read this, so I’ll stop lol

Another reviewer (a Bestie of mine, Amber at Du Livre) pointed out the narrator was new to her and they are to me as well. But I thought she did a really great job in talking about books and not mixing up or sounding weird on the sciencey talk. (That would be a real issue for me that I would actively worry about lol) She did a great job at keeping me interested and in the way she switched up for the characters.

This wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t bad. I liked it more than I thought I would tho. It’s not something I would tell anyone to read, but it’s also not something I would tell them not to read it either. It’s not a favorite, unless you mean out of the books that she did. Basically, this was just ok for me.

I had a little trouble getting in to this book, but once I did I couldn’t wait to keep reading. However, it did feel very similar to The Love Hypothesis. I also felt at times that the writing was so descriptive that it was hard to follow/understand and it made the book longer than it needed to be. I loved the quirkiness of the characters and overall enjoyed this story!

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

Bee and Levi met each other in grad school. Bee knew that he hated her so she was relieved when he graduated and she never had to see him again. Now, several years later, Bee is about to start a job at NASA as the leader of a neuroengineering project. When she has everything prepared to leave, she learns that the project will be co-lead by none other than her nemesis, Levi Ward. So Bee does what she always does, she asks herself: What would Marie Curie do? The answer is simple, she packs her things and moves to Texas.

Bee tries to keep a professional work environment but as they work together and get to know and understand each other, their relationship transforms from enemies to allies to very much more than friends.

I adored Bee’s character and her love for neuroscience, cats, Marie Curie and her sister. I really liked how passionate they are about their job and that they both want to make the world a better place. It does share some elements with The Love Hypothesis but I enjoyed both of them very much.

Love in the Brain is a modern “You’ve Got Mail” story about two Star Wars-loving scientists who also love cats and are secretly in love with each other!

Thank you Berkley Publishing Group for the review copy of this book.

If you enjoyed The Love Hypothesis then you'll enjoy this book...or you may feel like you're reading it again. The main characters felt the same to me just with different names. It was fun but didn't keep my attention very well.

Love on the Brain is undoubtedly an Ali Hazelwood novel. We’ve got:

✨A female MC who works in STEM (this time it’s NASA which is incredibly fun!)

✨A majorly repressed male MC who makes pining look like an art form.

✨Lots of laugh-out-loud banter.

✨Cats!

✨An adorable, swoon-worthy love story full of humor and heart.

In short, this is an Ali Hazelwood book, and we love Ali Hazelwood books! Thank you so much to @berkleypub for an early copy.

Oh my gosh I'm so late with all my reviews!

Ok.. but THIS BOOK YALL!!!!
ALI is the boss of romance novels. I absolutely loved this one just as much as her first one. Love on the Brain is an exquisite lovers to romance novel with a. dose of lightheartedness and humor.

Bee and Levi are ENEMIES hahha my goodness. But DAMN I am floored that Hazelwood matched her perfection on the STEM set up and it's PURE and fresh.,

I thought we'd never get something as good as The love Hypothesis but it was science of our hearts and was SOOO good.

Perfect balance of fire, banter, chemistry, and humor.

If I haven't convinced you yet to read this, get this masterpeice on your list!

Thank you to Berkley and net galley for my arc in exchange for my copy.

5/5 stars

I am a sucker for neuroscience, so this book was very interesting for me. The drama/conflict between the main characters felt a little overdone and drawn out unnecessarily. It felt like the more typical adult thing to do would be fully explain and move on, but both characters keep lying and avoiding saying what they feel for much longer than what would be normal. It got a bit annoying to constantly be reading about how everything that was clear (to the reader) must be a lie of some sort. I also didn’t particularly love the “twist” at the end and the mini-mystery worked into the story. I did love the neuroscience aspect and the way the couple eventually came together, but it just felt like all the obstacles they faced were unrealistic and just existed to draw out the story.

It was nice but I can't say I was blown away because it was a lot like the other two books by Hazelwood I've read (The Love Hypothesis, Under One Roof). Basically, I don't expect the writer to have a totally different style in every book she writes but here the plot is way too similar to The Love the Hypothesis and while I had fun reading it, it felt like I was re-reading the same book. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it a lot, because it was a pleasant break from the "heavy" books I've read recently, I am just saying that it could be better if it was a bit different from the previous one (or if I hadn't read any other book of hers)!

I want to start this out by saying I was a huge, huge fan of the love hypothesis and I could not wait for her sophomore novel. I really do believe you can tell how an author is by her sophomore novel and I am sad to say that this was a huge and utter disappointment.

I’m going to review this on TT (maybe idk booktok is scary rn) but let me get into why this didn’t work for me:
-the writing is incredibly jumbled. It’s all over the place. I actually felt rather sick trying to keep up.
- it’s too descriptive, quite literally it felt as if I was reading another language because it was that hard to understand and that descriptive.
-Characters were introduced and almost immediately they just seemed to be an after thought and you are expected to keep up when it's impossible.
-This was an almost slap in the face with a direct copy of The Love Hypothesis. The characters are almost the exact same. the premise is weirdly similar, they find themselves in the same situations-- the only missing thing is the fake dating trope.

It’s almost felt like a complete insult that this was an almost direct copy and paste of the love hypothesis- granted a very bad one. And I mean bad to the point it took me 2 months to get past 10%.

I genuinely consider myself a smart person, a critical reader but this was just too hard to get into. I also felt like the characters lacked depth, Levi and Bee had so much potential but they were sadly over shadowed by the poor choices in wording, descriptions and dialogue. I want to emphasize how all over the place this was. When I tell you this was TOO descriptive, I mean at one point I thought I would have to enroll myself into a freaking STEM program to understand what this book was and I also had to put down multiple times because the tricky part with first person POV is not making a character TOO in her head, and sadly the author failed at this, because the first person POV of this made me feel like I was in the head of someone who forgot to take her ADHD medication (please do not take this as an insult, I quite literally mean this was just too much and thoughts were racing EVERYWHERE and at ONCE and you are expected to just keep up.) The few times I did like this book were when we did get dialogue but it felt like a repetition of her debut novel- they find themselves in the same situation. Levi is a carbon copy of Adam: Broody, tall, silent etc. I understand this is another Reylo fanfiction but sadly it's almost insulting that the author would copy herself.

Authors are allowed to have a formula: Mariana Zapata has it with her slow burn, Devney perry has it with her small town, Colleen Hoover has it with her contemporary romances but their formals work for them. This formula for Ali Hazelwood, in which she’s trying to cement herself in did not work for her. I think that she tried TOO hard, and that's understandable after the success of TLH and I am not comparing the two, but it's hard not to as the are INCREDIBLY similar. Ali had the opportunity to make a refreshing contemporary romance but what I got out of this was a true waste of time.

I felt like I wasted my time reading this, I felt like I was too dumb to comprehend, I genuinely have a headache trying to keep up. The first couple chapters felt like a poorly, very poorly written fanfiction without any editing and then I realized that this would be how the rest of the book is. I’m not someone who likes reviewing something that will be highly anticipated- and highly recommended negatively but I have to be honest: this was one of the worst books I read this year. I actually am so sad, and I know people are going to look at this review and say: no way. woah. ugh there she goes again. But I am serious, I had to tell my friend (hi jess ily) who absolutely loved this book that she should not read this review or look at my tiktok when I review this because she will not like what I have to say. But the beauty of books is the subjectivity. And subjectively: this was a major miss for me and just felt messy.

I would have dnf’d this if it wasn’t so highly anticipated. At one point, I was skimming just to get through this book and that's the worst feeling. This needed loads of editing and possibly beta readers who will be honest with the author because truly, I cannot comprehend this.

I would say the author tried too hard, too hard to emulate her debut book, its success, it's charm and severely missed-- the author also seems like a truly SWEET sweet person, and I have nothing against her if anything I'm sad this didn't work out for ME but alas.

Get an e-arc from Netgalley— would be surprised if I ever get another from this author again. Hopefully this isn’t too critical.

(If you see me review this / promote this with a smile on my face it’s because I am getting $$ and you should support your girl) (maybe I might reread and give it another chance who knows)

This book was written for trope lovers, and I do love tropes! I did think the book got a little bananas by the end, but it was an entertaining ride. Can we cool it on drooling over super small heroines with super large men? I know some readers love it but I got sick of the constant reminders of size.

I really enjoyed this book, although there is a lot that is very similar to her first book, The Love Hypothesis. There was a little too much stress on how massive, gigantic, enormous Levi is, and how teeny, tiny, super small Bee is. Two people of opposite sexes can actually be close in size to each other. Other than that I don't have really any other complaints, it was a sweet book with plenty of spice.