Love on the Brain is proof that Ali Hazelwood isn’t just a one hit wonder. The feminist rom-com we all need, LOTB combines the world of STEM and romance. Hazelwood’s knack for details and exquisite imagery and laughs makes this one of the best reads this year. While somewhat predictable, the story is one that makes you laugh, sigh, and fall in love.

Ali Hazelwood’s sophomore novel knocked it out of the park. I really liked The Love Hypothesis- and LOVED Love on the Brain.

Bee and Levi are very heart-eye inducing and I loved everything about them. The scenes take up the steaminess five knotches. If you want a steamy enemies to lover you NEED to read this.

I read this in one sitting!!!!! ONE
And let me tell you…… ONE OF THE BEST ROMANCE BOOKS IVE EVER READ (no joke top 3)

THE HERO?!!!!! GET OUTTTTT PERFECT LIKE A MIX OF EVERY GOOD TYPE OF LOVE INTEREST

AND THE MC!!! SLAYED SO HARD

I KID YOU NOT I SLAMMED MY HEAD INTO MY PILLOW IN JOY MANYYYYY TIMES

I WANNA SAY MORE BUT SINCE NETGALLEY (TY TY) GAVE ME AN ARC IDK IF I CAN SO I WONT

Mark UR CALENDARS THO WHEN SHE COMES OUT I SILL BE FEREEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Ali Hazelwood has done it again, with an amazingly brainy romance that is fun and through provoking.

This novel has a lot of the big romance tropes — enemies to lovers, close proximity, unrequited love. Pair that with the brainy neuroscience and engineering talk, a fight for gender equality, academic politics and we have a very thought provoking novel… with some spice, of course. I love that the main character Bee is not what you would generally think of when you think of someone who spends a lot of time in a lab — she is edgy, fun, well travelled, and conscientious. She is a lovable character with some baggage, making her a more relatable and complicated character.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4540990079

Love on The Brain is a STEMinist rom-com that follows Bee, a neuroscientist who has been offered the career-changing opportunity at NASA to lead a neuro-engineering project called BLINK that will create helmets for astronauts. The only catch? She has to co-lead this project alongside her nemesis from grad school, Levi.

Although I liked The Love Hypothesis (a solid 4 star read for me), I personally enjoyed this book a lot more. It took me a bit of time to get into The Love Hypothesis, but with Love on the Brain, I was hooked from start to finish. I got approved for this arc less than 24 hours ago and I’ve already finished it. I could not put it down and I laughed out loud multiple times. Love on the Brain also felt more mature to me compared to The Love Hypothesis and I overall connected with Bee more as a character than I did with Olive.

Another aspect of this book that I really loved was the discussion on standardized testing and the role it plays in college admissions.

Thank you Berkley and Netgalley for the ARC of this book, I absolutely loved it.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Release Date: August 23, 2022.

I LOVED this book. I loved it even more than The Love Hypothesis (seriously!). Levi is just such a sweetheart and I really liked the character of Bee. I know I will be reading everything that Ali Hazelwood writes from now on. She has won me over for life.

THIS WAS A WORK OF ART. In all seriousness I did not think Ali Hazelwood could exceed my love for
"The Love Hypothesis" after that was released, however, she did with this book. Even though I know nothing about engineering and neuroscience, I felt super compelled into the plot aside from the romance plot that was occurring. I adored the aspect of how both characters were messaging through twitter for years and when they finally figured it out, it was such a good scene. It took me by surprise who was the one behind ruining the project as well. I found myself shedding a few tears when the epilogue ended. I cannot wait for this book to be published.

Ali Hazelwood is back with another "STEMinist rom-com" and I'm here for it! In this standalone, we have Bee and Levi. Bee is a smidge obsessed with Marie Curie, anonymously runs a successful Twitter account (@WhatWouldMarieDo), and just landed a dream project working with NASA. The downside? (There's always a downside!) Tall, dark, and handsome Levi, the project's team lead. These two worked alongside each other a bit in grad school where it seemed to be common knowlege that Levi generally loathed Bee. Sure, that was years ago, but there's still no love lost. When the project gets going, things start going wrong. Bee's equipment hasn't arrived, she's not receiving emails, and no one seems to be warming up to her, though there might be a glimmer of hope from Levi, a potential ally in the midst of this mess. All Bee can continually ask herself is, "What would Marie do?"

What I Loved:
- I love how smart Hazelwood's romance novels are! In many ways, I'd consider this (and her previous, The Love Hypothesis) to be modern highbrow romance. I want more of this.
- I love seeing women represented in STEM AND kicking butt and taking names. The underlying feminist commentary is fantastic.
- I loved the quirkiness of all the characters and how easily likeable they are.
- I especially love that with each Hazelwood novel that comes out, I feel like I get to learn a little something new, or at least get a glimpse into a brilliant world that I'm not a part of myself. (Science wasn't "my thing" growing up, but I can certainly appreciate more as an adult!)
- I loved the mixed-media aspect that was included with Bee and another account communicating over Twitter regularly. It was fun to read tweets and their DMs back and forth.
- I'm a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers trope (present here!) and the fake dating trope (present in The Love Hypothesis), no matter how obvious things are and when we all know (as readers) exactly where things will be going after reading the first few chapters. I don't care. I love it.

What I Didn’t Love:
- There were moments when I thought, "Bee and Levi are brilliant, but they're brilliant idiots." What is screamingly obvious to absolutely everyone (on the reader end) is of course not at all obvious to them. That said, we all know that that's how it has to go; we know how the story will play out, we know the characters will be at odds until they're not, and we will continue to read and devour it all because we still love it! So while I dislike the predictability of it all, I can't hate it for being that way when I'm also the type that eagerly binge-reads it all knowing where it will go and what will happen and still enjoys every minute of it.

Overall:
I really loved this one and found myself enjoying it even more than The Love Hypothesis. If you enjoyed that one, you'll certainly enjoy this one! We were given quirky characters to really like, an interesting backdrop at NASA dealing with neuroscience (all very fascinating!), and a couple more chili pepper scenes/moments sprinkled in this time around. As far as fun, intelligent, don't-have-to-think-too-much-to-really-enjoy romances go, this one is a winner.

I didn't think Ali Hazelwood could top The Love Hypothesis for me. Starting this book, it felt too oddly similar which made me worried that it was going to be a carbon copy. That was obviously because it has main characters in STEM with an enemies to lover trope but over time it grew into something even better. I loved every second of it... crushed it in just a few hours. I loved how it showed different types of mental illness trauma. Showcases how it effects our love lives, how we communicate and interact with people. How we can overcome that trauma over time but it doesn't mean it happens over night. It takes weeks, months and years to come to terms with it. That does mean though that there is some miscommunication that comes into play.

Bee is neuroengineer that has been given the opportunity to work with NASA on a top secret project but the only kicker is that she has to co-lead the project with her grad school nemesis; Levi Ward. Over the years in school, Levi showed signed of hating Bee. Never being near her, not acknowledging her existence, being short with her and not wanting to work with her. I think you can tell where this is going.... a lovely enemies to lovers story. Who doesn't love that?

I enjoyed being in Bee's mind. She is funny, smart and speaks her mind. She isn't afraid to tell people how it is and if something is wrong. She would often bring up if someone didn't include enough diversity in their lives, which I loved. Bee's issue though is trust and abandonment. She lost her parents when she was four, she moved around all of the world most of her life till she was able to settle down in her late teens and her sister is never around. She is afraid that everyone is going to leave her so she makes sure that never happens first.

I didn't like Levi at first, obviously. We saw him from Bee's prospective where he treated her like a bug on the bottom of his shoe. Over time, you really get to see how sweet he is and how much he has been pining for Bee the past seven years. About 3/4 into the book, the way he talked about Bee made my heart skip a beat. You could feel the passion from his words and how much he meant them. He was desperate to keep her and make her his.

Overall, this book was chef's kiss to me. Ali Hazelwood has become one of my favorite romance authors. If any of this sounded interesting, pick it up and give it a shot. I want to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A fun batch of romance tropes mixed with brain science and NASA! My sole critique is that one of the subplots fizzles a bit in the denouement. Recommended for all romance collections, and for college and university collections supporting a STEM program.

I’m a neuroscience major so the chapter titles and all the little references made me smileeeeee. however there are a lot of similarities to the love hypothesis, from the smut (same lingo and semantics) to the miscommunication trope buttttt the main character is significantly less annoying than olive, and her friends are actually cool in this one♥️

also the last 10% of the book was so weird and out of place kind of????? she did a little too much with how the book ends (there’s a weird action scene that was supposed to be serious but i couldn’t stop myself from laughing).

i’ll leave it at that for now. if you loved the love hypothesis you’ll love this one. if you hated the love hypothesis i probably wouldn’t read it

To say that I devoured this could be an understatement. I started it at 11:30 PM and I stayed up until 5:30 AM — knowing I’d only get three hours of sleep — to read this book. My coworkers and I buddy read it together and couldn’t stop screaming and squealing all night about it. I won’t be able to communicate for 3-5 business days until I can figure out how to properly articulate how much I fucking loved this book. How cute it was. How much it made my heart soar and my cheeks ache from smiling so much.

Ali’s writing makes me so irrevocably happy. The chemistry. The laugh-out-loud banter. The most glorious of slow-burns. Brilliant women in STEM. Bee’s internal monologue had me cracking up the entire time! I related to her a lot.

I was immediately obsessed with Bee and Levi. I really appreciated Levi’s journey of growth from his family trauma.

I feel like I’ll continue to add to this in the coming days because I just loved this book so much! I also don’t want to include any spoilers pre-pub day.

I’m a huge fan of this author. Every since I read The Love Hypothesis I was left eager to read more of Ali’s book.

Going into this book I was super excited that we got another woman of science. Bee’s character is fun and relatable and I just adored her character. She hates being looked down to. Almost as much as she hates Levi.

Levi is a super attractive engineer that is co leading the project with Bee. Only she has a history with him that makes her despise him.

I loved Levi’s character and how much he secretly loved Bee. Their banter was amazing. The steamy scenes had me panting.

Just an incredible book. So excited to get my physical copy!

Yessss, yes, and yes! I actually think I liked this one MORE than Love Hypothesis, mostly because I love Marie Curie. But it's so, so good. I read this one so fast and had such a great time reading it!

Loved this. Super cute and easy to read. This writer just knows how to tell addictive stories! I loved her other book, The Love Hypothesis and I knew I would also like this one as well.

Love on the brain, Ali Hazelwood’s new novel, was a fun and entertaining read. Bee, a neuroscientist, is offered her dream job from NASA, she is very excited until she learns that the person co-leading the project is her nemesis from grad school. Both the romance and the storyline relating to Bee’s job kept me invested throughout the whole book.

This was a totally enjoyable rom-com that hits all the right beats. I loved the soapy-but-sciencey external plot.

One thing I didn't like, though, is some of the bioessentialist logic about the ~inherent traits of men and women.~ The story works hard to highlight and push back on sexism in STEM, but the casual transphobia persists. There are a few specific lines that I really hope change in the final version.

Ali Hazelwood does it again! She gives us a quirky relatable protagonist that's too adorable to function. Although the miscommunication trope somewhat gets under my skin a bit, Ali Hazelwood does a fantastic job of keeping the trope fresh and light.

I was excited to read this new book by Ali Hazelwood after reading and enjoying The Love Hypothesis last year. I actually liked this book more and can't to do a re-read in the near future. Bee is a scientist that gets offered a job working on a project at NASA. Unfortunately, it's with her archenemy from grad school, Levi. It's an enemies to lovers-esque book and I loved the chemistry between Levi and Bee. It's got a You've Got Mail vibe to it that I also really enjoyed. It's well-written with great characters and a steamy romance. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to more books by Ali Hazelwood in the future! 5/5

4.5 stars rounded up just because of how quickly I flew threw this one. I finished it in two sittings!

Ali Hazelwood is one of my new favorite rom-com authors. I love how she effortlessly mixes humor, love, STEM, and nerdy pop culture references. It was wonderful to see Bee and Levi’s story unfold. A true delight. My only gripe is that Levi was a bit too obsessed with Bee. He seemed to be throwing red flags up all over the place, like using her name as a phone password and talking about them having teenage daughters before their relationship really took off. Other than that, I loved this book! Can't wait for the next one!

Thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for the eARC!