Love on the Brain
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Love on the Brain 〰️
First off, this book has its flaws (I’ll get into a few issues I had), but I still had fun reading it. Even if a book has a lot of (sometimes irritating) issues, I’ll still probably rate it pretty high because of my enjoyment level. What can I say? I pretty much enjoy everything I read, even if sometimes the MC pisses me off.
This is the third Hazelwood book I’ve read in a row and the fourth book of hers I’ve read in total. I read in some reviews before that Hazelwood’s work is pretty formulaic, and you know what? They aren’t wrong. All her books include women in STEM (love this fact; pretty sure it’s a selling point for her books, to be honest), a super tiny, almost miscue female MC, a giant, no like GIANT of a man with a six-pack for days male love interest, usually some sort of miscommunication, lots of science talk, and various spicy scenes. (Even her YA debut, Check & Mate, has all of these components, except replace science talk with chess and an off-scene sex scene, but lots of talk of sex).
Don’t get me wrong, her work may be formulaic, but why fix what’s not broken? I love reading her stories despite them all being pretty similar. Plus, she usually has some LGBTQ+ others in the MC or some side characters, and it’s always treated as normal, so I’m here for that.
Now that all being said, here are a few things that irked me about this book. I’ll be going into spoilers of sorts here, so be warned.
-Bee, our MC has this super popular Twitter account that’s popular in the science world, and she befriends another science Twitter guy. It’s so apparent that Levi is SHMAC, the guy she’s been talking to and that he’s always been into Bee. (And that he’s talking about Bee to Bee without her realizing it).
But like all Hazelwood books, it seems like no one can be proper adults and have a conversation. Or, at the very least, stop interrupting each other so the truth can come out earlier.
-She has random fainting spells, but doctors don’t understand why. My guess? For plot convenience.
-Levi keeps saying he doesn’t hate Bee or despise her, yet she still thinks he hates her guts for most of the novel.
-Hell, despite their first kiss, she still thinks Levi used and no longer is. Then they have sex (multiple times), and she still thinks he’s not into her.
-Also, like, where did the NASA cat come from? How did it get inside NASA, and how did no one besides Bee and Levi see the cat???
As I’ve said before in other Hazelwood book reviews, all of the MC's problems could be solved in a five-minute talk if they acted like adults and had a conversation and also stopped interrupting each other so they could hear the full story. Then again, we wouldn’t have a story, but still. I have issues with the miscommunication trope.
Despite all these issues, I’m still rating it four stars and recommending it because I really did enjoy my read. I had fun and learned some cool brain (and definitely lots of Madam Curies) facts I wasn’t aware of. Was it my favourite Hazelwood book? No. Love, Theoretically, still takes the cake on that one. But I still had a good time.
