A Smart, Unputdownable, Rivals to Lovers Romance!
Love, Theoretically
Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy
Berkely
June 13, 2023
ebook, paperback, audiobook
400
Rival physicists collide in a vortex of academic feuds and fake dating shenanigans in this delightfully STEMinist romcom from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain.
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 arrogant 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 he’s the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing 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?
“Professionally, my life sucks a bit. Psychologically, I’m not, as some would say, ‘healthy.’ Musically, I should hire a tuba to follow me around.”—Love, Theoretically
Ali Hazelwood has truly earned her place amongst the pantheon of Romance Authors who consistently deliver on fun, swoony, and smart romance. Love, Theoretically is her latest release and her most recent book to leave me utterly entranced and unable to function until every last word had been read.
I won’t lie to you: I begged for this latest release. After sprinting my way through Loathe to Love You earlier in the year, I realized that there wouldn’t be much of anything that I wouldn’t do for a chance to have an ARC copy featuring Jack Smith (whom we know from The Love Hypothesis) and his love interest, Elise Hannaway. Let me assure you—Love, Theoretically delivered on every wonderful premise.
“What is up with all these people calling me on my bulls*t lately? Am I suddenly giving off main character vibes?”—Love, Theoretically
Elsie Hannaway is a brilliant theoretical physicist. As a woman in STEM in a field that has been demoted to scoff-worthy by none other than Jonathan Turner-Smith, Elsie also lives with Type 1 Diabetes. And though she has a mentor whom she adores, she finds herself locked into a tiny corner of trudgery in academia life. When she should be researching, she’s teaching. When she should be writing and working on her theories, she’s grading half-assed papers and fielding the most accurate portrayal of student emails that I’ve ever seen. Elsie has even taken it upon herself to join her roommate in a date for hire side job. Posing as a fake girlfriend helps to pay the bills where her seemingly dead-end position under the leadership of her mentor does not. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that when an opportunity presents itself to work at a University and be given the resources (and pay) that she has only been ever to dream about—Elsie leaps in, ready to claim this new opening as her own.
It’s never as easy as it seems. The way that Jack and Elsie’s lives are entwined together is truly the word of mad-scientist level of plotting. Not only that, Ali Hazelwood writes heroes that are so completely gone for their ladies that I constantly grapple with favorites because with each new books comes a new favorite. Love, Theoretically brilliantly brings together an opposites attract romance within the world of Science Academia. Ali Hazelwood masterfully integrates scientific terminology and theories easily into this romance and manages to shed light on some of the more toxic aspects of what is actually behind the curtain in the science world.
“I’m Elsie. And I really like cheese, particle physics, and movies with sparkly vampires.”—Love, Theoretically
I absolutely couldn’t put Love, Theoretically down. Elsie is such a relatable heroine, and I find myself constantly admiring each of the leading ladies that Ali Hazelwood gives to us, but also I love the “stick together” mentality of could-be foes in Elsie and Jack’s friend, George. Love, Theoretically is beautifully written, masterfully woven, and utterly enchanting. If you love smart romance, stories with women in STEM being in the forefront, and romances that will have you hooked from the get-go then Love, Theoretically is the book for you.
Congrats on a wonderful new release, Ali Hazelwood!
Jes is a self-proclaimed bookworm, who recently moved from the PNW back to the Midwest. When her nose isn’t in a book, she’s spending time with her husband, two kids, and her three fur babies, or exploring the globe. She also firmly believes that you should start the day with coffee, and end the day in bed with a good book.
