A review by hannalizzy
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

challenging tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I love Ali Hazelwood, but this one was just…cringe. In my opinion, the characterization of the main character was much too heavy handed. It felt like Hazelwood had a madlibs-style formula to come up with Elsie’s personality traits, since her main personality traits outside of physics are Twilight and Cheese. Yes, I said cheese. The cheese jokes were so weird, I could not stop getting tripped up over them. How is cheese a personality trait? And I love Twilight, but saying “#Bellice4evah” within the first three pages was a serious crime. The word “Smexy” also made an unfortunate appearance later on.

Also all the student emails peppered in throughout the book were so whack and unbelievable (a student asking their physics professor to check a pimple for them? Come on.) I think she was really going for the “com” in romcom and the overwhelming amount of cringe quips made me lower the star rating bit by bit as I inched my way to the ending. 

Overall, the main character was wayyy too self aware to believably be so misguided about herself and the way she viewed the world. I also wish that Hazelwood wouldn’t lean so far into the misunderstanding trope for almost every conflict, it gets so exhausting and makes me want to dnf when the problem could be solved in a single sentence that everyone’s refusing to say for the weakest reasons. 

All that being said, Jack is hot asf. And if you have a size kink, know that Hazelwood’s got your back. Did appreciate the aro/ace rep and the main character being diabetic (plus him being all caring about her levels was adorable)
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