E-galley Review: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Published by Berkley on June 13, 2023
Genres: Adult Contemporary Romance, Adult Romantic Comedy, Adult STEM romance
Pages: 368
Source: the publisher
Format: E-galley
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Blurb:

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 broody 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 that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, 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?

My Review

Once again I adored the latest story by Hazelwood! She has a way of making it so I don’t hate the age gap that is normally a total turnoff for me in a romance. Not that it was a huge age gap, although one thing, the article Jack wrote, made it seem at first like it might be.

Also, as usual, the author hooked me from the first page! She has a way of making it so that I’m interested in the characters right away and can’t put it down. I of course loved that Elsie was a Twilight fan, even if her reasons and mine weren’t quite the same. I never thought of Alice and Bella together. I loved the story for the way it was, even if there were points when I myself was a little hot for Jacob, although that could have been more the movie than the book. And I also didn’t think New Moon was the best movie or book. Not to mention I also disagreed with her take on blond guys, as I’ve always been more attracted to them. Especially Draco Malfoy! However all the pop culture references made me love it along with the science.

One thing these books do make me think about though, is how I loved science, I mean I was a science teacher for 17 years, but I don’t feel like I was ever as smart as these characters. I kind of wish I was and had gone into academia like they did. Now, I got vibes of not liking her advisor from the start. He definitely was pretty bossy and didn’t treat her like he respected her. And it was interesting when we learned just who the person she was up against for the job, George, really was. I liked how that played out. And I liked how Elsie not only reacted in a way that was realistic, but she also realized how she reacted was so against her beliefs and made sure to make up for that.

I enjoyed the bit with characters from the first book too. I loved how she mentioned Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory when she was talking about physicists winning the Nobel prize, lol. I also liked the aspect of a main character having diabetes and how it affected her life. With my mom recently having to start taking insulin, not the same type of diabetes, but still, it kind of was something that was a familiar topic for me right now.

Another wonderful story from this author. And I don’t care if people say all her stories are too similar. I love them no matter what, and I love that I am pretty sure any book I pick up by her will suck me in and make me laugh, cry, smile, and just be happy.