Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

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Title: Love, Theoretically
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Series: The Love Hypothesis #3
Published by: Berkley, Penguin Audio
Release Date: June 13, 2023
Format: Audiobook, ebook
Narrator: Therese Plummer
Pages: 400
Length: 12 hours and 33 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: Kobo Audio, Overdrive
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:

Blurb:

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 broody 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 that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, 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?

My Review:

4.5 stars — I started this one buddy listening with the hubby on a road trip, but he declined to keep listening with me after we got home.  However, he did want the high level ‘what happened’ when I finished…;)

I listened to just over half of this one, and I definitely enjoyed Ms. Plummer’s narration — she captured Elsie’s quirkiness quite well.  The only reason I didn’t listen to the whole thing is that I didn’t have as much listening time as reading time, and I really wanted to know what was going to happen.  Was having a hard time settling down and concentrating on an audiobook, you know?

There’s just something about Ms. Hazelwood’s heroines that is entirely over the top, often aggravating, frequently eye-rolling, and yet I still connect with them and root for them by the time the book finishes.  Seriously, Elsie was so ridiculous with her beliefs about what she was worth, and it’s not as though I didn’t get where that came from…but it was refreshing when she started growing and learning and settling down into someone I could love.  I felt for how she learned extreme lessons from her family overlooking her and giving her more conditional love when she was growing up.  And I think she just naturally had a personality that exacerbated those lessons into neuroses.  It didn’t help that she had some unfortunate moments that doubled down on what she believed, how she needed to mold herself and censor herself depending on who she was with, to avoid having people she loves leave her and reject her.  It was frustrating to watch at times, but also made you really cheer when she started (with the help of Jack) letting her true self shine.

Jack also had a lot in common with Ms. Hazelwood’s heroes, like they’re cookie cutter copies but decorated differently.  Though, honestly, that’s not quite fair either.  They’re similar, but they each have their own flavour, their own unique flaws, etc.  I was really glad that Jack’s issues didn’t get overlooked, and that Elsie called him on a few things as well.  He had so many great qualities, and he really helped Elsie, but it was awesome to see him have to do some growing of his own.

It took a bit to get the romance flowing, but once we got past halfway, things just got adorable, steamy, and rewarding.  I loved that we got to see all those wonderful happy moments, and that the conflict felt realistic, and needed, and true to the characters.  The resolution felt like it happened in the right amount of time as well.  I don’t know, I was just really happy with the flow of the ups and downs of them as a couple.

Lots of fun secondary characters, from family, to besties, to the academic world.  I actually really enjoyed the academic setting, and learning a bit more about that because honestly I had no idea all the little things (like teaching vs. not, adjunct stuff, etc).

All in all, this one started as a 4, but got a boost with the ending for me.  Now if Ms. Hazelwood could let go of her obsession with tall/big/huge men and give us some variety, I would be tickled.  But even if she doesn’t, I will still be there for her next book b/c I enjoy the nerdy goodness even if they have similarities.