WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Love Theoretically, the third full length novel from Ali Hazelwood, follows main character Elsie Hannaway, a struggling adjunct professor who moonlights as a fake girlfriend for hire. But Jack Smith, rival physicist and grumpy older brother of her favorite fake-dating client, not only stands in the way of her dream job, but also begins to crack away at her people-pleasing facade. DisclaimerIt’s time for the month of romance! February is one of my favorite months not only for the final burst of winter, but for the cozy love in the air that I take the effort to inject into my life at every opportunity throughout the month. Alright, I do that anyway. I’m intensely obsessed, fascinated, and made bubbly by fictional romance. So, it’s best that I come out now as a cheesy romance novel fanatic. I love them unironically, and Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis is a big reason why. Yes, I am well aware of the reylo fanfiction roots. But as a fellow fanfic writer myself, I have a bit of a soft spot for the subgenre (especially anything reylo related). I have read all of Ali Hazelwood’s previous works after being such a fan of her first novel. I will defend The Love Hypothesis until the day I die. Love on the Brain and the collection of novellas in Loathe to Love You were definitely more on the silly and cheesy side for me, but I still had loads of fun with them. This is an author who knows what she likes and has found an audience who will eat it up… and I guess it’s me. For that, I have loads of respect. Fluffy escapism is my comfort food. OverviewI was hearing a lot of good things about this when it first came out, which made me incredibly excited. People were saying it was even better than TLH, which really got me curious. And while I personally wouldn’t put it on the same level as TLH, I did enjoy this one quite a bit, and thought it was a big improvement from Love on the Brain. Yes, it is the same set up as any other story by this author, with a quirky (excuse the phrase, I’m so sorry) main character and her quirky best girl friend, the science jokes that we all pretend to understand, the duel man-hating/man-obsession, gratuitous descriptions of the large and tall romantic interest, and making STEM sound like the absolute most painful and soul-draining career field to go into in the history of ever. While some of these staples I like and some I don’t care for, it makes the novel feel familiar at this point, which isn’t a bad thing. I like familiarity every now and then, especially when it comes to contemporary romance, which I am usually reading as a way to unwind for a little while. And there were some things in this particular book that were a bit different than the ones before. First off, as someone who obviously did not read very far into the description (not even the one on the back of the book) I fully expected the introductory description of our love interest, Johnathon Smith-Turner, to be for the antagonist of the book. And came to find it is for the love interest! Maybe that makes me gullible, but I loved it. We hear how this infamous Johnathon Smith-Turner wrote an article that sent a crushing blow to Elsie’s field of Physics, and ruined the reputation of her mentor. The way they describe Jack at first makes him sound like a loud-mouthed man-child, which I suppose was the intention, and sent my brain in the direction of thinking this would be the Tom character from TLH. So I was very caught off guard when I realized this was going to be one of the main tension points for our enemies-to-lovers. I’m sorry, I know, I’m a literal child. But reading the back of the book would have robbed me of this revelation. After this inciting incident, I was super intrigued to see how all of this would get resolved and how a romance would blossom out of this rivalry. For me, it didn’t seem like the answers were obvious, like in Love on the Brain, except maybe towards the third act. And I very much enjoyed getting to know Jack’s character as time went on and discovering how the messes and misunderstandings occurred. Main CharacterI really did enjoy Elsie as a main character. She seems like a genuinely good and kind person, and I can definitely relate to her struggle with wanting to please everyone so much so that you outright lie about who you are. What comes with that are some nice messages about relying on the fact that the right people are going to stick around in your life no matter what, even if you aren’t the “perfect” version of you. Having this character have diabetes as well puts another layer of stress on the situation, because if she can’t get her dream position, then not only will her career and mental health suffer, but quite literally her physical health as well. It definitely made me a lot more engaged in what was going on in her life and made me all the more passionate about her getting the job as well (and made me pleasantly hate Jack whenever he appeared to get in the way). I felt this character was a big improvement over Bee from Love on the Brain. While that character definitely leaned towards grating at many times, Elsie seems very aware of herself and confident in her abilities without seeming like she thinks she’s the best thing to grace the Earth. Being classified as STEMinist novels, these books always bring up the topic of women in STEM. I know next to nothing about the issue (being allergic to anything math or science related), so I can’t say what’s accurate and what’s not, but the main characters of any Ali Haazelwood work are always bringing up certain points throughout the books about the unbalanced climate. And when it comes to Elsie, she is very aware of her own faults. There is a point when she realizes she has her own biases about women in STEM, despite being an avid feminist, in a scene towards the middle of the book when she finds out that the person who got her coveted job was another woman. A woman she admires. But her moment of anger and devastation causes her to accuse the woman of basically sleeping her way to the job. I really liked how not only was this something that happened, but Elsie had to realize what an awful accusation she just made and how she directly fed into the stereotypes about women in STEM that she so adamantly propagates against the rest of the book. It was a nice moment to show that, no matter how generous we might be, frustration and jealousy are often what lead to the sort of reactions that prejudices arise from. If Bee from LOTB made a comment like this, I feel like she would have just made up an excuse for why what she said technically wasn’t bad at all and why she is actually correct in her awful statement. Elsie isn’t perfect and doesn’t pretend to be. But she wishes she was. So she has to learn to be okay with who she is and recognize that she can mess up and say the wrong things, and the people who care about her will forgive her and stay with her. The RomanceNow, let's get to what really matters. I did really enjoy the romance in this. Jack makes for a pretty likable romantic lead, who also is not always perfect himself. I like that we see his attraction to Elsie is at odds with his protectiveness of his brother (who he thinks Elsie is for-real dating for a large part of the book) and there is this odd tension when he thinks she has been lying to his brother because he is angry about that, but also a bit relieved because he hopes they will break up and he can be with her. It was an interesting dynamic, again showing that we humans are not at all perfect and have some very not-ok thoughts sometimes. But of course, everything works out. There are many heavy Twilight references in here that I feel like point towards the kind of partner Jack is. When he and Elsie first get together, he can be a little overprotective. He knows Elsie has trouble expressing what she wants, so at times, he makes the decisions for her. Sometimes this helps her, and other times, it ventures into dad-like territory. The book (and Elsie) are thankfully not ok with this. Without being too preachy in my opinion, it is made clear that he has no business deciding things for her just because he thinks it’s best. While his intentions are good, again, it feels like he’s trying to be her father sometimes. So it was nice that those boundaries were set in place and he learns to take a step back and trust her to be honest with him. This can be something that stories either don’t address at all, or instantly vilify and label the guy as a psychopath, end of story. (By the way I am talking about fictional relationships here, not real ones). It’s nice to see a story that takes the in-between road, in addressing the unhealthy behavior and then working to move forward. It makes the relationship between Jack and Elsie seem a little more believable because things aren’t just instantly perfect. And this is in many different ways (yes, including the sex). They know they have things to work on, and that’s part of the excitement of the relationship. You don’t always just find your groove instantly. Another message brought in that I thought was nice comes when Elsie and Jack go through their third-act breakup separation, and Elsie considers how she used to want to rush and fix everything immediately when something was wrong. But this time, she is content with letting herself be angry for a bit and have some space. I can’t recall this aspect ever being specifically pointed out in a romance book I’ve ever read, but again, I thought it gave a really powerful message about not having to have everything always be perfect all the time, especially in relationships. You can get mad and take some time being mad by yourself before you are ready to talk and patch things up. Again, I’m certainly no expert on real life relationships, but this seems like a good piece of advice. I also want to say, similar to other books by this author, the two main characters actually spend the majority of the book together. Hello. Romance. I get we all like the slow burn and the pining, but good lord, it’s nice to actually see the main couple spend at least eighty percent of the story together, rather than just thinking about each other every now and then. They don’t just get together for the last page of the book or any horribleness like that. I mean, maybe one day I will be in the mood for a romance where the main characters are never actually romantic with each other, but that day is not today. That ending?So, one of the big plot points is how Elsie’s mentor, a guy who is pretty soon obviously going to be the surprise villain, has to do with something in Jack’s past that made him angry enough to try to destroy his career. Once we know that Jack is not in fact the main antagonist and we get a hint that he has a grudge against Elsie’s mentor, we can all guess where it is heading. Again, I don’t mind this that much. A little familiarity is good every now and then. But that does mean you spend a lot of the book ten steps ahead of Elsie on this revelation, which you have to be ok with. I didn’t mind it an awful lot, but I did find it odd how flabbergasted and disbelieving she was that her old, white, male mentor could be this cruel when she seems very untrusting of old white men in the STEM field. I guess this was just to show how blindsided she really was by him, and again, how she falls into these traps even though she is aware of them. It was a little odd though why it shocked her so much, especially when he pretty obviously never treated her great. What would have made that a bit more shocking so that we could feel betrayed with her, was if we had maybe a scene or two more with this mentor character showing him being incredibly benevolent and always checking in with her to see how she’s doing, which would seem like genuine care, but we would soon realize were just more ways of controlling her. Having him be dismissive and always getting her name wrong doesn’t exactly evoke much sympathy for their relationship, so I think having him seem more kind and attentive would have been a better path to then revealing that he is really just trying to manipulate her the whole time. Similar to the Tom reveal in TLH, which came as much more of a shock than this. Everything also seemed to wrap up pretty quickly and conveniently after Elsie learns the truth. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe something similar to the very bizarre but welcomed surprise of the climax of LOTB, which turned into a complete Lifetime movie. All Elsie does is confront her mentor, who confirms that he is a creep, and then she just leaves his office. And we find out immediately that he is going to receive his comeuppance off screen (or… off page?). I would have liked a bit more drama there, but again, maybe it’s the Lifetime fan in me. I just want to see a character pull a gun or jump out a window or something. Final thoughtsI really did enjoy myself with this book. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than exactly what it is: a comfort read at heart. And boy do I need plenty of those.
The characters I found all very likable and pleasant to follow (even the side characters, which I usually have an aversion to). The romance was very cute and developed nicely, and also handled some interesting and important topics, like being authentic with the people you care about and who care about you, and some issues that can come up in relationships that you may want to ignore but should take the time to feel and address. I think most people will know right away if this book is for them or not, and it won’t break the mold for you if you’re not into this kind of contemporary romance. But I love it, and I will definitely continue looking forward to more books from this author in the future. Sometimes, all I ask for is an easy enemies-to-lovers to snuggle up with whilst I eat my snacks after a long day.
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