LOVE, THEORETICALLY by Ali Hazelwood- BOOK REVIEW

Synopsis 



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 to test?

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BOOK REVIEW

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Some things you can expect from Love, Theoretically are:-

• Rivals to Lovers Romance

• Lovable MCs (plus, the sweetest, most caring

LI)

• Strong, badass Women in STEM

• Type I Diabetes rep

• Very sweet cameo from one of our favourite

Aliverse couple

• Twilight references

And a loooot more fun stuff!!

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I’ll start with saying I love, love, loooove The Love Hypothesis so much but from this book, I can actually see how much Ali Hazelwood has improved her writing. She was really good back then too (since I read TLH in just a couple of hours, I could not stop) but I felt that there were some things in it that were not actually possible, like they didn’t belong to real world but were there for the added humour. I loved those parts and I’m someone who associates Romance books more with the emotions that they’re making me feel instead of trying to associate everything with the real world and nit pick every single little thing that’s different.

But with Love, Theoretically, I felt like Ali Hazelwood had *listened* to those criticisms and created something so perfect that no one would be able to point fingers. I loved it so much. I was able to notice all those small changes since I’ve read every single one of her books.

It still screamed Ali Hazelwood book, I could most probably recognise that it was written by her without having prior knowledge but you could feel the shift in her writing style. The characters were more mature and well- developed, the story was even more engaging, the romance had a lot of substance (plus the tension!!), the third act break up was also nicely done. These are just some of the things that I’m able to point out but apart from these, there were also many small things scattered throughout the book that you’d be able to notice if you’ve read Ali’s previous books.

I’m honestly in awe of her talent. Ali has this type of MMCs that she writes and Jack also had similar qualities but he was also different. Like how did she manage to do it? Same with some of the recurring themes in her books (grumpy x sunshine, tall big guys, STEM background, she thinks he hates her but he’s always loved her, etc.) They still managed to suck me right in which led to me binge reading the entire book in two sittings!

Love, Theoretically is also probably the nerdiest of Ali’s books and that made me love it all the more. All the physics talk was so fun  and interesting (even though I’ve never liked Physics I studied in school 🫣). Again, kudos to the author for making this feat possible lol!

Coming to the characters: Jack Smith is now on my list of top book boyfriends because he was just so good! He’s nice, kind, caring, charming, intelligent, tall (yes I can mention that with other qualities) The way he treats Elsie with so much warmth and care made me MELT. Honestly, everyone deserves a Jack Smith in their lives.

Elsie is one of the most relatable characters I’ve read about. Reading about her struggles with people pleasing felt just like my own. I loved how Jack helped her with it.

Adam and Olive cameo was THE best! I never knew I needed it until now! Also, the brief mention of Bee also made me so very happy!

I know this review is all over the place but all in all, I absolutely ADORED this book! Five shiny stars for this wonderful book 🫶🏻

Thank you so much Hachette India for sending me a finished copy for reviewing!