A review by samanthaardenlockheart
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-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

4.5

​​<i>There <b>are</b> spoilers in this review. Proceed with caution. ♥️</i> 

Firstly, oh my gosh. The name “Bee” is just so adorable!! I love it so much. So, so cute. 💖

When I began reading this on December 29th, and even when I was only a few pages into this book, I already knew I would love the main characters Bee Königswasser and Levi Ward (aka The Wardass, her archnemesis). Bee has her PhD in Neuroscience and Levi has his PhD in Engineering. She spent most of her young life and teenage years travelling around Europe and staying with relatives after her parents died when she was four. He went through a traumatic incident a few years prior with his best friend, Peter Sullivan, who passed away in a rock-climbing accident. Together, Bee and Levi collaborate to work on a Neuroengineering project called BLINK which is controlled by the NIH and NASA; they are to lead a team of engineers to design helmets for astronauts to improve their attentional abilities, thus their safety while in space. At least, this is how I understand it. She has a research assistant named Rocío and her twin sister named Reike (who travels the world whilst Bee loves stability). The only problem… is that Bee Königswasser is <i>convinced</i> that Levi Ward hates her with a burning passion. He spent all of his time during Graduate school ignoring her, never inviting her to meetings, and purposefully making her feel like a mediocre neuroscientist. No one deserves to be treated like that. So obviously, Levi hated her for all of that time? (...right?🥰). 

During the book, there is a little narrative of Bee running a secret Twitter account called @WhatWouldMarieDo that essentially helps uplift women in STEM and other underrepresented groups in academia. She messages @Shmacademics regularly, another academic account that supports her, and together she and he have over 2 million followers combined! I had my suspicions about hopeless romantic Shmac, but you may just have to read this story to find out what I’m implying. ;)

As it turns out, Levi has been smitten with her all of those years, and he was unable to come clean about it since Bee was in an awful relationship for six years with a man named Tim Carson. He ended up cheating on her with multiple women throughout her graduate years, and <i>even</i> with her best friend (at the time) Annie Johansson. So yeah, Bee had made the commitment to put up her Bee-fence, as she called it, and completely refuse to give any semblance of love to any man or even adopt a cat out of fear of having to lose yet another person or animal that she loved. But slowly, as <i>Love on the Brain</i> progresses, she starts opening up to him slowly. There are so many tells that she is falling in love with him, such as the fact that she can’t stop thinking about him and they constantly start having sex with one another!!!🥰The sex scenes are perfect, not too spicy, but just right… even though I’ve read much more intense sex scenes before—not to expose myself here. The sex scenes were actually very beautiful and erotic in their own right. Gosh, I would take myself a Levi any time!! There is a specific scene where Levi confesses his love to Bee, but she is too scared to accept that. This scene nearly sent me to tears with how visceral it felt, and the emotion I could hear in his voice. It is very clear that Bee Königswasser has a terrible fear of abandonment, but fortunately for her, she eventually overcomes that fear by ending up with Levi in the end. She grows to love and trust him in all of the ways she and he wants, and they even get married in a courthouse before having a ceremony on July 26th. They end up working together at NASA together, and they live in Levi’s home together with their two (adorable) cats, Schrödinger (Levi’s) and Félicette (Bee’s). 

All in all, this <i>Love on the Brain</i> was a huge rollercoaster of emotions, especially for me, since I personally have a fear of abandonment (just like Bee herself). In relationships, I just have not had the best of luck, and I feel like I am someone who is not worth staying for. Even though that is probably not true, my feelings are valid. Relationships are tricky, and you can’t force someone to love you, no matter how deeply you might be feeling. And it is such a reassuring notion to know that a character like Bee Königswasser now exists in my memory. I am worthy of love, and one day I will meet my special Levi Ward. He probably won’t be my archnemesis, but he will be someone that loves me and chooses me for everything I am. <i>Especially</i> on days when I feel like I don’t deserve it, on days I’m too emotional, and on days I feel completely unloveable. ✨🥰✨💖💖💖