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BOOKWORM REVIEW: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

 

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
SPICE: 🔥🔥🔥

It has been months since I read a fictional book, much less a romance read. I don't know why I picked up this book, but I was certainly glad I did. 

I am Dr. Elsie Hannaway. No, I can only wish my grasp of physics concepts and abstract math could be that prestigious, but her almost automatic need to please people -- even the ones who certainly do not deserve it -- touched my soul so fiercely. Ali Hazelwood also captured the art of severe overthinking to perfection. The organized chaos that is the conversation in Elsie's head as she navigates social situations.

Dr. Hannaway is one of the two final candidates for a coveted position at MIT's Physics Department AKA Elsie's dream job. This was her ticket away from the hell that is adjunct professorship, but in the way is one Dr. Jonathan Turner-Smith, the man responsible for demolishing her mentor's career and her field of study. The same man who happens to be the brother of one of Elsie's fake-dating clients. (A girl's gotta have her stack of cheese, and cheese is expensive.)

Jack does not trust his brother's girlfriend. After all, who pretends to be a librarian when one is a published expert on theoretical physics? Now that he's part of the committee to vet her for the MIT position, he certainly was not going to take it easy on Elsie. Brother's girlfriend be darned. Also, person he can't stop looking at be darned..

I love their dynamic. While Elsie was my fictional soul sister, I found Jack to be so cute. I am a sucker for the whole "he falls first," and Hazelwood weaved that trope nicely with Elsie's tendencies to get stuck in her own head. Jack is certainly no wallflower, but I enjoyed the considerate and gentle care he provides Elsie, even when they were adversaries. It sets a great comparison to all of the big personalities in her life that just seem to bulldoze what she wants. 

It has been a while since I found joy in turning the (digital) pages of a book. I am really glad that fate -- more like library recommendations -- led me to this read.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and arrogant older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And he’s the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?


MEET ALI HAZELWOOD

Ali Hazelwood is a multi-published author—alas, of peer-reviewed articles about brain science, in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy. Originally from Italy, she lived in Germany and Japan before moving to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. She recently became a professor, which absolutely terrifies her. When Ali is not at work, she can be found running, crocheting, eating cake pops, or watching sci-fi movies with her two feline overlords (and her slightly-less-feline husband).

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