Title: Love on the Brain

Author: Ali Hazelwood

Publication Date: August 23, 2022

Publisher: Berkley

Genre: Romance

Number of Pages: 354 Pages

From Goodreads: Like an avenging, purple-haired Jedi bringing balance to the mansplained universe, Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project–a literal dream come true after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia–Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. And sure, he caught her in his powerfully corded arms like a romance novel hero when she accidentally damseled in distress on her first day in the lab. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school–archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

Now, her equipment is missing, the staff is ignoring her, and Bee finds her floundering career in somewhat of a pickle. Perhaps it’s her occipital cortex playing tricks on her, but Bee could swear she can see Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas…devouring her with those eyes. And the possibilities have all her neurons firing. But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?

This was a buddy read with the very lovely Hannah, it was also a book club pick for one of the many book clubs that I’m in. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive picking this book up because I had heard a lot of mixed review about it, however, I’m glad I read it because it turned out to be a fun read.

Unsurprisingly, I liked the characters in this book. I did feel like Bee and Levi were a bit too much of a combination of a bunch of typical tropes, but I still enjoyed reading about them. I also liked most of the side characters in this book and I especially loved Rocio and how weird she was.

As far as tropes go, this book falls into the workplace romance category. It also has the “enemies-to-lovers” but only one person thinks they’re enemies thing going on. It’s a bit of a slow-burn in that it takes a while for anything steamy to happen. Levi also has the whole “I will protect her at all costs” thing going on, which is a trope that I quite enjoy. As far as the steam level in this book goes, I would give it two, maybe two and a half chilli peppers out of five.

I like that Ali Hazelwood writes books about women in STEM. I enjoy reading about these women who are excelling in their, male-dominated, fields. I also like that her books have a lot of commentary about how male-dominated a lot of the STEM fields are. I also liked that this book took place at NASA because I think NASA is cool in general and I thought it was a great setting for a book.

I also liked that this book had a healthy dose of cat puns in it. I am a cat lady and I think that all books can be improved with a feline or two thrown in.

As far as comparing this book to The Love Hypothesis goes, yes, the two books are similar, however, this didn’t bother me. I wouldn’t want to read The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain back-to-back because they are similar, but they’re both good books and I enjoyed them both enough that I’ll be picking up Ali Hazelwood’s next full-length novel when it comes out.

Rating: 3.5 Stars!

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