Elsie is used to being the version of herself that other people want. She always agrees with her mentor, she mediates her family’s drama, and she even moonlights as a fake girlfriend. Her fake girlfriending almost messes up her real job though when the brother of a guy that hired her is on the search committee for her dream job. Jack is confused and angry, but the more time he and Elsie spend together, the more he starts to see through her personas. Ali Hazelwood has created another swoon worthy STEM romance. This one ties the themes of her previous novels together, but in a fresh way. There’s even a cameo from The Love Hypothesis’s Adam and Olive. This is a must read Ali Hazelwood novel.

Ali Hazelwood had done it again book friends! She is the queen of STEM Romance and I am here for it.

What I absolutely love about this one is how Hazelwood takes a scalpel to academia and brings to light the much needed attention to the treatment of women in academia. How adjunct professors are worked to the point of burnout. As well as the predominantly white cis men in academia think and prioritize what they feel is best for their department and silence those who think otherwise.

It’s no wonder our MC Elsie Hannaway is an excessive people pleaser, a vicious cycle of chronic stress and unhealthy behaviors, which Elsie displays through most of the novel until she’s up for a chance at her dream job at MIT. But finds out, Jack, the older brother of the guy she was fake dating is on the hiring committee *gasp.*

The romance (friend this is Hazelwood’s spiciest romance yet), Hannaway’s love interest (Jack is my new favorite book boyfriend), Hazelwood fills her novel with brilliant women, a male MC who supports our female MC to find her own voice, helping her to speak her mind, set needed boundaries, and encouraging her to say no. Plus, there’s an Olive and Adam cameo (I KNOW!!!).

With a grand gesture that will make any romance reader (and those in academia) swoon, Love, Theoretically is a summer read you won’t want to miss!

Happy Reading ~ Cece

I love this series and this was the icing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s hard to match a book that completely changed (or made) a new genre. I love the STEM series. I love that this author is not afraid to show women with brains and the quirky nerdiness that goes along with it.

But I can also imagine how much pressure this author was under to try to match the outrageous splash her first book made in the reading world. But I think with this one, she’s done it.

There’s so much to freaking love about this story. The author hit it on the head in so many levels. Adjunct teaching, mentors you trust and believe in, passion for your work, even dealing with the hilarious emails she gets from students on a daily basis. It’s all in there.

And then we meet Jack, and even our world will turn upside down! Sexy, smoldering, controlled, and a drop-your-panties smile. He’s awesome.

Elsie is a trip of a character! I just love her! She has a hilarious side gig and meets Jack on multiple occasions under somewhat false pretenses. The result is this wonderful creation of a story that encapsulates you into their world until you come up gasping for air at the end. This is not a book you want to put down!

Love, Theoretically – it’s funny and charming, real and intelligent, but it’s also endearing and wonderfully romantic. Do I think it’s better than book number one? It just might be. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

Just don’t miss it!

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
FIVE STARS

Another excellent book by @alihazelwood. Thank you @prhaudio and @berkley for the advanced review copies.

I have thoroughly enjoyed each science-y + academia book she’s written despite having very little interest in the topic. This story had relatable characters, well-loved tropes, and top tier comedic narration and dialogue.

I loved the entire premise and how the whole story played out. The heavy plot points were incredibly well balanced with MC interactions, character growth, and comedic output.

Oh how I love an MMC like this. He is quietly confident, knows what he wants, anticipates her every need, and challenges her to be the best she can be. Bonus points for being tall, muscled, and fair-haired. Justice for blond love interests!

THE OLIVE AND ADAM CAMEO. You all will LOVE seeing where they are now.

I started reading this one on audio and finished with the physical copy. I LOVED the audiobook performance and highly recommend this format if you are considering it! I often combine audio + physical formats for stories that I am LOVING and want to exclusively read. I flew through this one and am already sad it’s over.

Perfect for you if you like:
One sided hate to love
He fell first
Diabetes + no health insurance representation

Read it you like:
⚛️ STEMinists
😆 Rom-Coms
💋 Fake Dating
🔥 Instant Chemistry
😈 Nemesis to Lovers
💉 Type 1 Diabetes Rep

You guys! An Olive & Adam cameo!! 🫠 it was short but after posting about the Love hypothesis recently I loved that they had a cameo in this book!

This book starts out with us learning that to help make ends meet Elise fake dates men for money to help them navigate whatever situation they are in, and is using her skillsof molding herself to be what people want her to be quite well through this side gig… that is until her side gig comes face to face with her real life… so this story really starts out as a “What could go wrong when Elsie is getting paid to fake date men to help pay her bills plot.”

Well, it goes really wrong when Elsie ends up meeting Jack, a nemesis of her educational mentor who is by default her nemesis and is then interviewing with him for a job that will get her out of her crappy financial situation she has been with her low paying jobs teaching a couple classes at a couple different schools…

Jack also happens to be the brother of her favorite client Greg to make things stickier since she has met Greg’s entire family playing his serious girlfriend.

Overall, this one was enjoyable but not my favorite from Ali. It’s a solid 4.5⭐️ read for me as I feel like it was a lot of side plot and not as much of the romance as I would have liked, even though I know Ali was intentionally wanting to add more of the other in this one from her authors note.

Thanks so much Berkley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I love a book, especially romances that focus on women in STEM. I’ve spent my entire career in the Technology arena, and I generally am the only female on my teams. I’ve been lucky to have always worked with a great group of engineers who treat me as an equal, but I know this isn’t the case for everyone. Because of this I love to see women in STEM represented in books. I love reading about smart women and think this really encourages women to get into these ‘men dominated’ fields. I get off my soap box now.

Elsie Hannaway is a people pleasers. She’s always found it easier to mold herself into what people expect her to be, rather than who she actually is. As a struggling postgraduate, her talent of molding herself into others makes her the perfect fit for her side gig at ‘Faux’, a fake dating site that pays her to pretend to be someone’s girlfriend. All is well until she gets an interview for a facility position at MIT and one of the members of the interview board, Jack Smith, happens to be the brother of her favorite Faux client. Jack also happens to be the reason her mentor was discredited and Elsie’s simmering anger over Jack’s actions might just overflow. As Elsie tries to navigate not just the interview but also her interactions with Jack, she can’t help but be drawn to him. Is it the anger manifesting or is the way Jack sees through Elsie’s people pleasing ways that has Elsie contemplating letting herself love again?

To start – the fake dating while apart of the original plot, is not the central theme/trope in this book. The main romance trope is a miscommunication and enemies to lovers. I saw a bunch of reviews and comments based on the synopsis (which I loathe anyone who posts ‘reviews’ based on a synopsis) highlighting the fake dating as an exact replicate of The Love Hypothesis, which is just not the case. Our Love Hypothesis main characters do make an appearance in this book, which Hazelwood uses to highlight how small the academic world is, but beside Elsie’s side gig through Faux, there isn’t any overlap in the plot.

Ali Hazelwood, as a certified neuroscientist, is all about writing women in STEM, and I AM HERE FOR IT. This was my third book from Hazelwood and I have yet to read a book from her I don’t enjoy. Does she use the same formula in her books? Yes. Do the characters have similar traits? Yes. Do I care? Absolutely not! I read her books because I know what I’m getting into. I read her books when I need a smart quirky leading lady in my life or when I want a steamy romance. So while Hazelwood gets quite a bit of negative feedback saying her books are too similar, why change the formula when it’s working. Also, while they might be similar – the science involved in each of her books is distinctly different, and it blows my mind that she is incredibly intelligent and knows so much about so many different areas of science. So now that that is out of the way, on to the actual story!

I didn’t immediately love Elsie. I’ve never been a people pleaser, so it’s hard for me to relate but I ended up adoring her! Once she stops doing what other people expect from her, she is a force to be reckoned with. She is brilliant, funny, and her banter with Jack and her roommate are hilarious! Speaking of her roommate, Cece is hysterical. Would love for her to get the next book but atlas she is in professor in humanities and not in science.

Our male lead Jack is great! I loved that he was sweeter than brooding. It was a nice change to have an easy going lead rather than such an intense love intense. It made the book lighter and more fun!

In terms of the chemistry, I didn’t immediately feel it between our leads, but once I did, it was palpable. As all Hazelwood books do this one brings the steam and isn’t for fans of closed door romances.

Something I wasn’t expecting and had very little insight too is the policies around academia, especially in the scientific community. It is crazy competitive and INSTENSE. I loved the way Hazelwood bought this into the book and especially highlighted the extra struggle women encounter in that sphere as well.

My only comment on this book is that it has A LOT of science. I felt extremely dumb occasionally. In my defense physics was where I hardcore struggled in school, and it goes completely over my head. Ali Hazelwood is 10000% smarter than me and I skimmed some of the physics parts but to me that’s okay. This is a romance, not a textbook and I love that Hazelwood includes all the science instead of dumbing it down. Flaunt those brain women! Hazelwood does have an author’s note highlighting why she chose to include it as well.

Originally, I thought that I still liked Love on the Brain the best, but the more I think on it, the more I think Elsie trumps Bee. The witty banter, the chemistry, the supporting characters, and Elsie’s not avoiding the hard questions really seals the deal for me. Yet another great STEM romance from Hazelwood you don’t want to miss.


Love, Theoretically comes out June 13, 2023. Huge thank you to Berkley Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof.books.

This book is such perfection. Hilarious as a romantic comedy and deliciously spicy. I give it all the stars.

Elsie is a theoretical physicist working as an adjunct professor. It’s not a lucrative position. By night she is a fake girlfriend. Jack is the older brother of her favourite fake girlfriend client. He’s also an experimental physicist (think Sheldon vs Leonard from Big Bang), and he also happens to be a member of the hiring board for her dream job. So…awkward.

The chemistry between Elsie and Jack is off the charts. It’s so so funny. Their banter is perfection. Ali Hazelwood’s attention to detail in crafting the chemistry between these two characters is unbelievable. I’ve highlighted half the book at this point. It’s that good.

These two are also surrounded by the best supporting ensemble a reader could ask for: a sarcastic grandma, quirky roommate, unintentionally funny brother -all adding to the rich storytelling of these two opposing MCs.

You definitely need to read this book. I will definitely be reading it again. Thank you to Netgally and Berkley for this ARC. My review and opinions are my own.

I think Ali Hazelwood objectively keeps getting better, and I've enjoyed each of her successive books more than the previous ones with this being my favorite to date. I particularly liked the parts about the realities of the job search in academia, which balanced out the ridiculousness of the heroine working for a fake girlfriend service where she's not expected to have sex with the clients--which, I get it, it's a mainstream romance novel, but why not just let her be a sex worker and help destigmatize the profession? Especially since it's not like Berkley hasn't published great titles which do this before (eg. Rosie Danan, Lana Ferguson). The hero's brother could still be the one guy who *isn't* paying her for sex because he's ace, a reveal that was handled sensitively although the hero's response to it was the kind of misplaced overly dramatic reaction I'd expect from an adolescent denizen of Tumblr as opposed to an adult man, albeit one consistent with his other issues. On the plus side, I appreciated that the hero did not look as much like an Adam Driver clone this time, and the descriptions of his ink were extremely hot (full disclosure: I have a thing for science tattoos). Thank you as always to the publisher for approving me for this ARC, because I am actually recommending these books to patrons now!

Releasing June 13th, this was a fantastic women in STEM/Academia enemies to lovers romance with EXCELLENT diabetes rep. I adored people-pleaser Elise and fell hard for grumpy Jack whose gruff exterior hides a man pining hard for his brother's fake girlfriend.

Jack also happens to be on the committee deciding whether Elise will get hired for a tenure track position with his University's Physics department and I loved all the insider insights into that side of academia. Jack tries to keep things professional but ultimately can't help giving in to his feelings for Elise while focusing on teaching her how to put herself first in life AND love.

Great on audio narrated by Therese Plummer and perfect for fans of authors like Suzannah Nix.
Many thanks also to NetGalley and Berkley Romance for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review! Love on the brain might still be my all-time Ali fav but this new one comes a very close second with an all new top notch book boyfriend you'll have a hard time resisting.

Ali gets a lot of shit but you know what. Fans like me will happily shovel it and shoot it back because they can write their ass off. I loved this one more than anything else she’s ever written.

Another Ali Hazelwood novel that I loved! It was a really fun read, and fans of her previous books will definitely enjoy taking another dip into this Steminist romance.

Loved the snappy snark in this book. There were moments of high frivolity. I do understand that there were messages in this book regarding being true to yourself and owning your thoughts/wants, but at times I was done with the protagonist's lack of esteem and pleaser attitude and wondered how Jack wasn't exhausted treading so carefully all the time to not damage/crush her psyche further.

I do recommend Ali Hazelwood and her books, but this one I did find I tired of reading about Elsie's insecurities.

This book was absolutely excellent! I really enjoyed how the plot was different than her previous novels. Hazelwood took the criticism from her readers and fans of her past books, and GAVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANTED: more witty banter, science puns, and a real life conflict that many young adults face today (finding a job, ofc). I loved that Hazelwood really dug into problems in this book that anyone can relate to, while also writing a great romance. She had me rooting for the main character before rooting for the romance, and I think that's what made this such a great book. This is not as much a book about love as it about love IN THEORY, finding a job IN THEORY. It's a book about expectations vs reality, something I too often struggle to balance. Anyways, now I am just rambling, so I'll just say that YES. I LOVED IT.

It’s hardly summertime if we don’t have a new Ali Hazelwood novel to look forward to, and this year brings us her third full-length novel Love, Theoretically. While still every bit as much a STEM-focused rom-com as her earlier works, Love, Theoretically is arguably the most serious of her works, immersing the reader in the politics of academia, and giving the heroine an interesting personal journey to accompany her romantic one.

Dr. Elsie Hannaway, like so many of us in this day and age, works two jobs. She is an adjunct professor - all of the work, none of the benefits - at three universities in Boston by day, and by night she works for the app Faux, posing as a fake girlfriend to anyone who might be in need of one. While Faux generally has a strict one-date policy, Elsie makes an exception for Greg Smith, a client-turned-friend, who also happens to have an extremely attractive, arrogant older brother, Jack.

Elsie doesn’t think much of Jack’s dislike of her. After all, she only has to see him when she pretends to be Greg’s girlfriend. That changes when she finds out she is up for a tenure-track position at MIT…and Jack is on the hiring committee. Jack is horrified to learn that his brother’s librarian girlfriend is apparently neither a librarian, nor actually his girlfriend, and the two get off to an even rockier start. Add in the existing professional tensions between experimental physicists (Jack) and theoretical physicists (Elsie), and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Throughout the novel, Elsie takes great pride in being able to shape herself to be exactly the kind of person whoever she is interacting with will want to see. It’s people-pleasing taken to such an extreme, that even as she and Jack begin to grow closer, he’s not 100% sure if he’s seeing the real her, or just the version of herself that Elsie wants him to see.

It’s that part, more than the academic politics - which are frustrating for how real I know them to be - that grounded the book for me. It’s one thing to act differently in front of different people - the me that my grandmother sees is not the same me my friends see. But Love, Theoretically really speaks to all of us who have felt, at one point or another, that in an effort to be the “right” sort of person, we’ve lost sight of the true person we are along the way. It also reinforces the very important message that anyone claiming to love you, will and should love you exactly as you are, not as you’ve tailored yourself to be.

Love, Theoretically is available June 13, 2023. Special thank you to Berkley for the advance copy for review purposes.

Ughhhhh so so good. I ravished this novel and still wanted more. I feel like I'm never able to put my feelings for book that I absolutely adored into words. This was incredible though.

"If you let me"

If you liked Ali Hazelwoods's first 2 books, than you'll like this one. It's very similar to her previous books - nerdy scientist girl and broody, handsome scientist man are enemies that eventually fall in love. Elsie and Jack have good chemistry and there's some steamy love scenes, but it basically follows the same exact formula as her other books. I did enjoy it, but I do wish the author would branch out and write something a little different.

Oh I loved Love Theoretically! Elsie is a people pleaser and extremely talented theoretical physicist going for her dream job—the only thing in her way is her faux-boyfriend’s brother and rival experimental physicist Jack. The writing in this is so honest, so witty, and so engaging. The steaminess was so good and sexy! And the characters were imperfectly perfect! I related to hard to Elsie with her people pleasing and fears and it broke my heart for her, but oh did I love Jack and hai gentleness in pushing her to speak her own mind and give her the space to grow into true self. The academic politics were super engaging and interesting too. There were some mildly predictable bits but that didn’t take away from the shine of this book at all. Elsie is brave and smart and vulnerable and I adored her journey to finding herself and Jack was so sexy and smart. I loved their banter and how they pushed each other. Plus there’s an Olive and Adam cameo I was just living for. Ali Hazelwood is just

Love, Theoretically is Ali Hazelwood's third full length novel and I can't decide if it's my favorite, or if 'The Love Hypothesis' has that honor. What I can say with full and total confidence is that Jack Smith is the absolute best character she's ever written. Sigh.

Elsie Hannaway is a theoretical physicist who is barely making ends meet by being an adjunct professor so she has a little side hustle if you will. That is how she meets Jack Smith. The first time. When she is interviewing for her dream job at MIT she meets him again.

This is what I like to call a one sided enemies to lovers. Because lets be honest. This amazing hero is completely gone for the heroine from the start. Whether he wants to be or not. Seriously, I just adored Jack. He was the best. I love how much he cared about Elsie and she became a better version of herself just by being with him.

This book had a lot of science. Ali Hazelwood is so much smarter than I am, and I'm not going to lie, some of the physics stuff went right over my head, but that's okay. I love reading books about smart women. I imagine it can be so challenging being a female in this field and I love that Ali gives a voice to that.

Love, Theoretically is a book I didn't want to put down. It gave me butterflies, all the happy feels, and had just enough angst to keep me on my toes.

Love, Theoretically is my least favorite of Ali Hazelwoods three full length novels. I didn’t vibe with Elsie at all. Jack was kinda meh as a hero. I will give her YA debut later this year a try but after that I think I’m probably done with her books.

Everything Miss. Ali Hazelwood writes automatically becomes a comfort for me.
Everything she writes is just cute and fun. They are escapism in its pure form as I instantly become truly invested in anything I read from her.

This book is no exception. It is laugh-out-loud funny with swoon-worthy romance quotes. Yeah it's a little cheesy and maybe some parts are similar to things she has written before but I do not care because It! Is! Fun!

Jack and Elsie and their nerdy romance captured my heart