After The Love Hypothesis, I’m sure we’ve all been waiting for Hazelwood’s next romance story. And I’ve gotta say, Love on the Brain was as charming and entertaining as I was expecting. It was swoony, but what I loved most was the exploration and examination of sexism in STEM. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
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 – 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. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.
But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas… devouring her with those eyes. 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?
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: sexism
Love on the Brain manages to deliver an entertaining romance story that I ended powering through in a few days. Not only does this feature a whole host of tropes like second chance romance, friends to lovers, workplace romance, and more, Love on the Brain has charming characters and depth. Bee is a main character I kind of instantly loved. Basically if you like Darcy Lewis from the Thor films, Love on the Brain gives me those vibes. In fact that’s my fan cast! There’s this signature snark and intelligent cleverness.
Suffice it to say, I fell in love with Bee and the ways in which she’s so terrified of love. Can you blame her? Love seems to have a way of hurting us when it’s good and bad. The ways in which we are surrounded by (mis)conceptions of the people around us. Swirling around and trying to allow ourselves to let people surprise us. But where I really enjoyed Love on the Brain is the way Bee tackles sexism. Whether it be her love of Marie Curie and Twitter account or the ways in which she clocks the sexism, I was on Bee’s side.
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Against sexism and the odds, Bee is constantly challenging the system. With a unique and charming narrative voice, Bee delivers the right amount of fight the system, sass, and the intelligence to back it up. While there were some twists and turns I could have predicted, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of this story. I still had a fun time to see how it would inevitably shake out. Love on the Brain is about sexism and romance, but it’s also about when we act out of fear and end up hurting the people we love, but also ourselves. When we let fear control us.
100% recommending for fans of The Love Hypothesis and just STEM heroines in general! Find Love on the Brain on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository.