Introduction
Love, Theoretically was written by Ali Hazelwood and published by Penguin Publishing Group on June 8th, 2023. I have mentioned in previous reviews that when I decide I like an author, I will read every one of their books, and Ali Hazelwood is one of those authors. I love that she creates strong female characters and places them within various circles of the STEM field to address misogyny in society, but especially within workplaces traditionally dominated by men. It’s a bonus for me that these books are also romances, and well-done ones at that. I highly recommend these books to fans of the genre, and I suggest that you read the book before continuing with this review as the Thoughts section does contain spoilers.
If you’d like to keep up with Ali Hazelwood and stay updated on her new and upcoming projects, you can visit her website, https://alihazelwood.com/, or follow her on social media @alihazelwood.
Plot
Elsie Hannaway finally has the opportunity to begin her career as a theoretical physicist when she gets offered a job interview for MIT. Unfortunately, her fate is in the hands of Jonathan Smith-Turner, the very man who both ruined her mentor’s career and made a joke out of theoretical physics as a study.
Thoughts
Something that always strikes me about Hazelwood’s characters are the defining qualities of each of her leading ladies. In the case of Love, Theoretically, Elsie struggles to be herself because she wants those around her to be happy and comfortable. She is truly a chameleon, finding it difficult to figure out who exactly she is because she’s too busy being what she thinks everyone else wants. It works on most people, and she was able to put it to good use by having a side job as a fake girlfriend for hire, where she met Greg, a young man trying to hide his aromantic feelings from his family. Through Greg, she meets Jack, his brother. She can never get a read on Jack, and it’s when she’s with him that she begins to show slivers of who she truly is. It’s an interesting character trait to see because it gives her so many different faces, and for much of the book, only her internal dialogue gives a glimpse into the real her.
Her relationship with Jack is interesting to follow because when he finds out the relationship is fake on her end, he makes the assumptions any protective brother would and makes it clear that he both dislikes and distrusts her. It isn’t until later, when he discovers that Greg hired her, that he confesses his attraction to her, and he is very open and honest about his feelings from then on out. It’s a complicated well of emotion that’s well-conveyed through Elsie’s perspective. As for Elsie, she discovers that not only is he the experimental physicist responsible for ruining her mentor’s career, but he is directly involved in her interview process for a position at MIT, which of course makes them enemies. Later on, she doesn’t know what to make of not only his honesty, but his demand of honesty from her not just in what she says and does but in who she is. He is the only one in her life who can see straight through her. I really enjoy watching their relationship develop over the course of the book, though I will say that I was not expecting the book to get as steamy as it did, especially considering that Hazelwood’s previous work had been relatively toned-down.
Though she was repeatedly warned by Jack that she wouldn’t get the job because the decision had been made before the interview process began, Elsie had high hopes for herself. Unfortunately, the job was given to George, who Elsie assumed to be a man for the majority of the book before discovering that George is just a nickname, and the job had ended up going to a woman in STEM. Elsie’s reaction to this news - literally running away - was a bit over dramatic, but I understand her frustration and devastation. Luckily, George generously offers her a theoretical research position in the end - inadvertently allowing Elsie and Jack to both work at MIT without working together, avoiding any difficulties at work - which Elsie gratefully accepts despite her mentor discouraging her not to.
Dr. Laurendeau’s career was ruined by Jack years before he became Elsie’s mentor, and a major question for Elsie throughout the book is why Jack did that. It’s discovered at the end that Dr. Laurendeau had Jack’s mother ousted from the physics world, and Jack’s misguided intentions in publishing the article that ultimately ruined Laurendeau’s career was revenge. While Laurendeau may not have had the intention to ruin Elsie’s career before it truly got started, his misogyny was leading her down the same path as Jack’s mother. He was often condescending to her, trying to tell her what she really wanted, and he never called her by the correct name, always referring to her as “Elise.” It seemed innocent at first, an older man making a mistake and Elsie not bothering to correct him after a while because she is a people-pleaser, but later on it’s clear that he never bothered to correct himself because he didn’t think she was worth the effort. He didn’t respect her as a person, let alone as a scientist. It’s a well-written switch up, and while I did think it was relatively predictable, it all unraveled nicely, and was much less melodramatic than the ending of Love on the Brain.
I really enjoyed the crossovers between the Hazelwood works. Catching up with Olive and Adam and discovering that they are not only going strong, but that Olive is about to propose to Adam was a wonderful continuation of The Love Hypothesis. While Elsie didn’t get to meet Bee and Levi, they were mentioned by name as friends of Jack’s and Adam’s, and Bee’s twitter account “What Would Marie Curie Do?” was referenced in Elsie’s internal dialogue, as she was one of the women who felt empowered by the account promoting women in STEM.
Once again, Hazelwood pulls off the “slow burn” and “she fell first, but he fell harder” tropes, this time with the inclusion of “fake dating” with a twist. I did really enjoy her twist on the latter trope, small as it was, because of how it creatively introduced the characters. I also loved the themes of being yourself and having someone seeing you and loving you for who you are, it feels like another take on the “enemies to lovers” storyline, which is actually my favorite trope. The plot is well-paced, and the conflict is enough to be interesting without being annoyingly over dramatic. For these reasons, I’m rating Love, Theoretically a 9/10.
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