Reviews with content warning for Acephobia/Arophobia - Love, Theoretically

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Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

84 reviews

overflowingshelf's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

CW: Sexism; misogyny; chronic illness; toxic relationship; death of a parent; acephobia/arophobia; outing

Despite not liking The Love Hypothesis or Love on the Brain, I couldn’t help but be curious about Love, Theoretically. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about Ali Hazelwood’s books that makes me want to read them as I want to see what happens, and I hold out hope every single time that this book will be different, and I will end up loving it.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen this time around. But I did enjoy it slightly more than her first two books, so I’m calling that a win!

If you like Ali Hazelwood’s writing style and the plots of The Love Hypothesis or Love on the Brain, you will probably like this one as it features a very similar setup and characters as the other two. And if you don’t like either of those, probably best to stay away for the same reasons.

I had a lot of thoughts while reading (some good, but mostly not so good), so let’s get into it.

WRITING

Three books in, and I can 100% confirm that Ali Hazelwood’s writing style is not for me. I knew this going in, and yet I was still hoping that something I didn’t like in The Love Hypothesis or Love on the Brain would change, but nope.

The biggest thing I was hoping for was fewer randomly italicized words. However, Ali Hazelwood decided to ratchet the dial-up to nearly a thousand this time around. Seriously! This book came in around 970 randomly italicized words – 300+ more than in Love on the Brain – mainly for emphasis when speaking from every character. That is EXCESSIVE! It was the first thing I noticed when I read The Love Hypothesis, and it’s so in your face in every single one of her books that it’s hard for me to ignore. I seriously don’t know how that gets through the editing process.

Another thing that doesn’t work for me with Hazelwood’s writing style is it feels like forced quirkiness and cuteness. It annoys me to no end, as it undermines her characters as they come across as childish and way younger than they are.

The tone is also supposed to make this book feel humorous, but it misses the mark for me. I find it more cringe than anything else. I always said her tone would work better in YA than in adult romance, so I am curious if her new YA book Check & Mate would work better for me.

And for the love of god, can we never use the word “peerection” to describe a “pee erection” (WTF) ever again? Please. I am begging you. Three times was three times too many!

Now, she dialed back the use of the adjectives big and huge to describe her male main character, which I am appreciative of. Don’t get me wrong, Jack is still big and huge, and she uses them as some of his only descriptive adjectives, but it’s not a constant bombardment of those words like it was in her previous two books. I still would love to see her try to use other descriptions for her characters so we can get a picture of all of them in our heads.

BOSTON SPECIFIC STUFF

There was also some weirdly specific stuff wrong about Boston that took me out of the story (I happen to live in Boston and have been here for 10+ years).

First, how does Jack, a professor, manage to own a two-floor condo with wall-to-ceiling windows in downtown Boston? PLUS, HE HAS A CAR. IN DOWNTOWN BOSTON. I know his family has money, but he’s living in a multi-million-dollar condo on a professor’s salary, which makes no sense.

Also, why are you driving everywhere if you live in downtown Boston? Take the T! You have access to every single line right there. Even though the T is a hot mess, it’s usually more convenient than driving everywhere.

Second, they are forced to spend the night together for the first time because the buses have stopped running in a snowstorm. I’m sorry, but that’s just not what happens here. Unless there is a driving ban, you will see MBTA buses out on the road in a snowstorm. Trust me. I see them in blizzards going past my apartment. Also, see my point above about just taking the T. Also, we don’t call the T the subway, especially as half of it is above ground.

Third, I was so confused by the Boston area colleges and universities that Elsie was adjuncting at. Why is she an adjunct professor at Emerson College of all the schools in Boston? They don’t even have a science major and offer one physics course, as they’re known for the writing, arts, and theatre programs. Also, she randomly had student emails from someone at BC but never once said she was working there (only that she worked at UMass Boston, Emerson, and BU), so I was confused.

I wish she has put more effort into making Boston feel like Boston. It felt like lazy writing and took me out of the story.

CHARACTERS

When it comes to the characters in this book, I’m on two opposite sides with my emotions toward Jack and Elsie. On the one hand, I liked Jack; on the other, I did not like Elsie.

If I could base my rating on Jack, I’d give this book four stars. He’s my favorite male main character she’s written to date! I felt like he had emotional depth with an interesting and complicated backstory. His relationship with his brother was charming, and I loved seeing that. Plus, he always said what I was thinking about Elsie, and I liked that he called her out on BS and problematic behavior. That’s probably why I liked him so much, to be honest.

And while I may question his judgment about liking Elsie, he genuinely cared about her. Plus, he did a good grand gesture/grovel. I could have done with a little less of his careless attitude towards women as sexual objects in the past, but honestly, he was a breath of fresh air compared to Levi and Adam, as he never was outright rude to Elsie.

Now, Elsie, I could not STAND. She says she’s a “people pleaser,” but I found her actions very manipulative, and she came across as a pushover. She lies to EVERYONE because it’s easier to make others happy and therefore feel good about herself. Instead of voicing her opinion and standing up for herself, she also just does what other people want her to do, no questions asked. For god’s sake, she let her mentor call her the wrong name FOR YEARS because she thought it would inconvenience him if she corrected him! It was frankly disturbing, and I found her worldview very warped. This line in particular really troubled me:

“I find that people like me better if they don’t have to expand emotional energy on me.”

In typical Ali Hazelwood female main character fashion, Elsie also projects her feelings on Jack. She thinks he hates her based on assumptions she makes about him, not on anything he’s said or done. Thank god Jack called her out on this, or I would have been flipping some tables.

Also, Elsie, you are 27 and expecting a tenured professor role right out of school? I don’t know, but that felt presumptuous, especially when you don’t even enjoy teaching that much! You just finished your Ph.D. program and have your whole career ahead of you! Yes, it sucks not to make good money or have stable health insurance, but as other characters point out, there are different career paths that she’d be better suited and enjoy more in academia that would give her a steady income and insurance.

And while I liked that Elsie had a chronic illness (she has diabetes), how it was handled was not great. She would rather pass out than tell someone she needs to take a second to check her blood sugar. And the fact she thought her having diabetes burdened her family really rubbed me the wrong way. It made it seem like diabetes was something to be ashamed of when type 1 diabetes is something you cannot control as it’s an autoimmune disease, further stigmatizing it. (For more on this, check out this great review on Goodreads).

I wish these books weren’t told from the female main character’s point of view, as in every Ali Hazelwood book, I end up hating the female main character. Being stuck in their head’s the whole time hampers my enjoyment of the story, and I wish we could get Jack’s POV.

ROMANCE

I still don’t know I feel about the romance in this book. It didn’t feel like much of a romance novel?

I didn’t see any chemistry between Jack and Elsie, and most of the emotions seemed way more one-sided coming from Jack. There was a swoon-worthy line or two from Jack here or there, but there weren’t a ton of emotions in general in the relationship between Jack and Elsie – at least not that I could see. It felt like it was more physical than anything deeper than that.

Their relationship also went from 0 to 100 incredibly fast. Like they started hooking up, and two days later, he’s talking about her moving in and then saying things about marriage. That’s FAST.

And for a book marketed as a romance, the main characters never say “I love you” to each other, so there is that. The “I love yous” are a hallmark, a defining moment of any romance novel. Yet, we don’t get them ever saying it or even thinking it (like in Love on the Brain)! That frustrated me as I want emotional payoff in my books.

Once again, I don’t find the sex scenes in this book all that sexy. I don’t know what it is about all of Ali Hazelwood’s sex scenes, but I find the writing to be so CRINGE (remember the “entire breast” moment from The Love Hypothesis?). There are a handful of sex scenes in this, but I was cringing through them the whole time as the words used to describe them felt so off. Like I don’t want to hear about anyone’s bodily fluids pooling in anyone’s belly button, please and thank you.

Also, let’s talk about the big conflict in their relationship. Elsie seriously tried to end things with him over a scientific paper he published in a journal when he was 17! That was OVER 15 YEARS AGO. She’s held on to this grudge against the author for over a decade because of the beef it started between theoretical and experimental physicists. She cannot let the resentment go even after she learns the circumstances that led Jack to write that article. It was a freaking article, and she’s acting like it killed people! I understand why she’s annoyed he hasn’t spoken out about the tension between theoretical and experimental physicists now that he’s older, but to sabotage a relationship over that and continue to hold the article over his head? Please.

At least Jack does make a nice grand gesture as part of the grovel process, but Elsie never really apologized to him for her actions. Instead, she called him a liar when she didn’t want to hear the truth. I felt she also needed to apologize, but we never got that from her.

PLOT

Part of why this didn’t feel like a romance to me is because of the plot. The book’s first half was basically Elsie interviewing for a job at MIT and focused very heavily on academia. Honestly, I found this half dull.

The second half of this book was all over the place in terms of the plot, with Jack and Elsie getting together, her getting upset with him over the scientific paper he wrote when he was 17, and her realizing her mentor is a dick.

The book’s ending started to annoy me with the whole fixation on the paper Jack wrote when he was younger and Elsie’s insistence on needing her mentor’s approval to accept a job.

First off, her mentor is a giant walking red flag. Second, the fact that she thought she needed someone else authorization to do something she wanted screams a toxic relationship to me. When Jack and others try to tell her that her mentor is manipulative and controlling, she refuses to believe it (and calls Jack a liar for not telling her even though she doesn’t believe him???) until it hits her upside the head.

At least Dr. L was set up as a villain-esque type character a bit early on, unlike in Love on the Brain, so his actions felt believable, but boy, was I so frustrated by the time we got to the end of the book.

CONCLUSION

I hope this review doesn’t come off too harsh, as I did go into this hoping for the best. I do, weirdly, want to like Ali Hazelwood’s books as I can SEE the potential in her stories! I just wish her writing and execution were better, as they really frustrate me and take me away from the story.

As much as there were a lot of things that annoyed me, I didn’t end up entirely hating this book somehow? I still got some enjoyment out of it, even if I had literal verbal outbursts towards the end. I think this is my favorite Ali Hazelwood book (the bar is low, though), and each one is slowly ticking up a little bit on the rating scale, so who knows, maybe one of them will work for me in the future!

I am curious about her next adult novel, Bride, as it’s a very different genre since she’s venturing into werewolves and vampires. That could be great as it’s something new and different or it could be terrible. But at least it will be something unexpected and fresh from her, which I appreciate. Despite not vibing with her writing, I am curious enough about that book to pick it up when it releases.

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rickireadss's review against another edition

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4.5

wowza, this was a fun time!! i loved the plot. i liked all the science-y stuff (even though i understood none of it lol). JACK IS THAT MAN!!! i loved him and elsie so much. i related a little ~too~ much to elsie but 🤷🏽‍♀️ also the adam&olive cameo was amazing :)

disability rep: type-1 diabetes (fmc)

⚠️: chronic illness, sexism, death of parent, misogyny, emotional abuse, acephobia/arophobia, outing

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antidietleah's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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backitupmoony's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective relaxing tense fast-paced

4.5

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gretchenplz's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

EDIT: I say this with all seriousness. Read this book before seeing Oppenheimer. I swear I *got* the science politics so much more because I read this book. Romcoms FTW!

God, I love Ali Hazelwood.

This book and these characters had me hooked from the first page, and it didn't matter to me at all that Ali's romcoms basically all follow the same formula. I love my lil insecure, pathological people-pleasing women who misread every signal and the golden retriever men-in-disguise who have been in love with them since the first time they saw them.

As a non-STEM gal myself, I so appreciated Cece and her humanities angle. The last novel was a bit STEM-preachy for me, but this one was right on the mark.

If I had any complaints, it would be that 1) she really needs to ditch the “girl with a teeny tiny vagina and guy with a monstrously large cock” trope and 2) maybe add more detail on the situation that caused the third act breakdown, since it seemed to come up very quickly.

Definitely my favorite so far, and Ali is now one of my insta-preorder authors!

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. Thus, no stars doesn’t indicate that the book wasn’t worthy of any starred system. It just means I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Happy reading! Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

premise:

contemporary romance set in Boston
first-person POV of Elsie
Elsie is an adjunct professor who hates teaching but her mentor (old white straight dude) insists on it
Elsie moonlights as a professional fake girlfriend for hire
When she interviews for a tenure-track position in the physics department at MIT, she runs into Jack, (otherwise known as Dr. Jonathan Smith-Taylor or the other way around hahaha) the older brother of her most recent client, Greg, and immediately panics because she had an entirely different persona on when she met Greg's family just LAST NIGHT
Elsie's ability to mask often and to perpetually people-please is what makes her fake girlfriend job perfect for her, but this is where her arc comes in
As Elsie and Jack get to know each other, they begin to become less of academic rivals (he wrote an article years ago that roasted the fuck out of her specialty: she is a theorist, he is an experimentalist (I am a romancereader-ist so I have no idea what the fuck they were talking about BUT I found a way to relate this back to my romance reader honeys. This debate reads very adjacent to what booktokers debate over when Bad Take Beckys say "romance isn't real reading!" or "romance shouldn't count towards your reading goals!" or "audiobooks aren't real reading!" lmao)
steam: 2/5 -- I appreciate the way Ali writes intimacy (especially for the demisexual bbs) because she hones in on the importance of consent step-by-step, and has the characters talk to each other to confirm that it feels okay and/or whether or not they want to continue.

thoughts:
Not too many coherent or eloquent thoughts, just vibes so thanks for reading this absolute fever-dream mess hahaha.

First of all, I do not have diabetes so I cannot speak to the diabetes representation in here. I'll leave that to people who have that lived experience, and I believe *them*! I'd love to hear from booktokers or bookstagrammers who do have diabetes to confirm this was done with care and was represented respectfully.

Standouts for me character wise besides the leads: I think Greg & Jack's grandma (I'm forgetting her name, forgive me!) was the shining MVP of this entire book; she was hilarious and had zero time nor energy for bullshit. This meant she could see right through Elsie's fake girlfriend act immediately, and I lived for that moment. The Olive & Adam cameo gave everything it needed to give. I was delighted and so happy to see our OG babies.

The romance between Elsie & Jack was fun because I love academic rivals -- it's hilarious because both people think they are just way better & smarter than the other when in reality, they're probably both great and they just need to work on their competitive issues and stop projecting? HAHA. Idk I thought their banter was goofy and the romance was sweet.

As far as Elsie's arc -- whew, this was rough for me. I am also a recovering people pleaser (hi hello, I grew up first-generation Chinese Filipino & those dynamics could be *tough*, so I'm constantly unlearning to make myself palatable/smaller/more likeable so that people can be comfortable and/or like me more) so that's why this was so triggering for me. I don't want anyone to feel like Elsie did, like once she is fully open/vulnerable/wholly herself, that it won't be good enough for the people she loves, and that she is just not worthy of love. It's just not true and I hate that I felt this deep in my core !!! It felt so realistic (so much that it hurt lmao) and I think the scary part is that sometimes, people *will* leave you and say they don't like the real you. The bravery and self-love in us needs to stand strong in accepting that reality. It can hurt, and it's valid to miss people, but if they only want a certain version of you, is it worth it? I don't think so. I'd rather have much less people in my life who fully accept me, let me be my goofy self, but also lovingly and compassionately challenge me to be better when I inevitably fuck up. I don't want dozens of people who wanted me in my "yes man" era.

I wished there were less Twilight references because the way Stephanie Meyer wrote the werewolves felt so racist / problematic to me, but I appreciate the sapphic shipping of Alice and Bella that Elsie wanted lol.

Content Warnings

katetravelsinbooks's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.0

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deetabz's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I loved The Love Hypothesis – since then, every time Ali Hazelwood announces a new book, I instantly pre-order it and then just patiently wait.

This book follows Elsie Hannaway, she had many lives and personas. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, tolling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of one day landing tenure. At the weekend and evenings, 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. It is a sweet gig – until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favourite 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 at every step Jack is looking at her, it feels like he is looking into her soul and she doesn’t have to pretend around him. Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

I loved these characters. Elsie is so awkward and so scared of falling in love and I relate to her a tad . . . okay, a lot. Her obsession with cheese and Twilight is something I can also relate to. I love how she stood up for against her family and that she isn’t the peacekeeper, she has a lot going on and if she wants to see the family it’s probably for a break rather than the deal with petty shit that her mother has asked her to deal with. This book deals with important conversations such as healthcare in America (which is shocking), sex workers (no Elsie isn’t one, but everyone assumes that a fake girlfriend means you are entitled to sex because you paid for her), women in STEM (which we stan.) I love most of the men within Ali Hazelwood’s universe, but Jack nearly overtook Adam, it was very close. He fell first, and he was pushing for her to be her true self and wanting her to grow. This man shows that my standards are six feet under. I loved the communication he had with her during the spicy chapters, but then the communication fell off during the actual interviews and book – if he had been honest with her and said the job was never yours with some seriousness rather than acting like it was for banter – 100 pages could have been cut from this book.

As much as I love these books, they are all getting a bit the same – the guys are all “towering” over the FMC, the FMC isn’t respected so the MMC demands respect in whichever power he holds (in this book, it was by backtracking his 15-year-old article) and they all seemed to like the same sex positions or the dynamic - I want some change please. I want a strong female who wants to take control in the bedroom, or a small man and a taller woman. It just seems to be the same of tall, dark and handsome and whilst I enjoy it, I would love to see Ali write something different with different people and different dynamics.

I enjoy this book and the banter and the dad jokes and the cameo of Adam and Olive, but I just wanted something different.

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laurenvoice's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Ali Hazelwood's books are fast becoming my go-to comfort reads. They are always accessible and fun to read.

Whilst reading Love, Theoretically, I couldn't help but compare to The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain; I absolutely loved these two books; however, Love, Theoretically left me feeling disappointed.

It was quite hard to connect with Elsie and Jack; their relationship felt a tad too forced. Although saying that, I am glad the whole miscommunication trope was resolved early on; however, there was a bit more at the end, which was a little annoying.

Also, the whole Dr L situation was quite a letdown. It felt skipped over, and we didn't see any consequence for their toxic behaviour. This was the same with the issues surrounding Elsie and her mother; we never see it resolved, but in the epilogue, their issues were magically sorted. Considering both of these people were massive obstacles Elsie faced, it felt like, we should have seen the resolve for that.

Nevertheless, Love, Theoretically was a fun and lighthearted read. And the aro/ace representation was on point; I loved Greg and wished he had more scenes. Also, I loved Cece and Hedgie; quite curious to know more about the mysterious Kirk too!

Oh! And the Olive and Adam cameo was AMAZING!

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