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A review by 0701mango
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
I really liked the leads' dynamic in this book, and I appreciate the science of it as a student of science myself. However, I found it harder to like Bee, the heroine, compared to some of Ali Hazelwood's other heroines like Olive from The Love Hypothesis and Mara from the novella Under One Roof. That being said, I found Levi, the hero, very attractive and highly appealing as a romantic interest. He was strong and secure, and I find good leadership to be attractive. The order of events in the romantic plot was not for me. Nor were some of the plot points themselves of the romantic plot. For one, I really hate the misunderstandings/miscommunication trope, and that was pretty central for a lot of the book. I include Bee and Levi not knowing they're Twitter friends in the components of this trope. I don't mind that they had sex before getting together, but this back and forth of will Bee let herself be in love or not was not for me. I generally don't like when the romantic resolution happens on the very last page, but I thought it worked better in The Love Hypothesis than in this book. In the last third or quarter of the book, everything felt like too much of a rollercoaster for my taste.
Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing, Death of parent, Car accident, Death, and Misogyny
Minor: Gun violence and Murder
The main character, Bee, is an orphan whose parents passed away in a vehicle accident. She has attachment issues stemming largely from moving around a lot as a child and her ex-fiance cheating on her with her best friend. Bee's love interest, Levi, has a disinterested, rude, and unsupportive family. The sexual content in this book is explicitly written and somewhat frequent. There's a scene in which Bee is threatened with a gun.