ARC Review: Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

*I was sent a copy of Love on the Brain in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Ali Hazelwood*

Synopsis:

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project – a literal dream come true – Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas… devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?

Review:

Love on the Brain was my first book from Ali Hazelwood and it definitely will not be my last. I absolutely loved this. I quite literally devoured Love on the Brain. It took me just under 24 hours to finish, which at the moment is incredible for me. I stayed up to around 3 am on the day I started it because I didn’t want to put it down. Although I wasn’t quite getting on with it at first. Well, it was Bee I wasn’t liking, please excuse the next two rant-filled paragraphs.

Bee is very judgemental of other people doing things that aren’t “planet friendly” but when it comes to wanting to taunt Levi she thinks about doing laundry every day (not great for the environment) just so she can wear a dress he supposedly despises. Doesn’t sound very green to me, it sounds hypocritical.

Also, there’s a moment where Bee and Levi are talking outside the Discovery Institute about a quarter of the way through and Levi calls her by her name. Bee then has this inner monologue about how it’s the first time he’s used her name. Well, that isn’t true, he said it about 15 pages ago. This might be an error that’s changed from the arc before publication, but if not it’s a slight plot hole. Insubstantial really and it annoyed me a lot more than it should have. I have gotten over this now you will be happy to know.

The last point that I found a little tiring was how often Levi was referred to as ‘huge’ or ‘big. The man is a unit we get it. Also, what is it with romance books and the male main character having to be an actual giant? I’m not complaining just curious.

He was a great character though with a surprising amount of depth for being the love interest. Big love for the big guy.

Now you’re probably wondering why I’m giving this five stars if I have negatives to say, well nothing is perfect, but this ended up ticking a lot of boxes for me. One being that the plot was fairly obvious, which sounds like a negative, but when it comes to romance I like this. I liked that I knew where the story was going and guessing shocking plot twists makes me feel smart. I will say there is one twist that I never would have guessed though.

The romance was pretty cute and I appreciate that the first steamy scene makes an appearance at 69%. Don’t know if that was intentional but it’s very funny, I literally laughed out loud. These scenes were written well and nothing about them was distasteful. They didn’t feel out of place or just chucked in for the sake of adding a bit of smut.

The narration was done very well, especially the parts about Marie Curie. I found them so interesting and it was endearing just how much Bee loves her. The chatty/rambling style of narration suits me very well as if you hadn’t noticed already it’s how I write. I like that you really feel like you know the character and this was done well in Love on the Brain. I think this is what made me really like Bee in the end. Her character came a long way and she started to get less self-absorbed and judgy and instead became the cute neuroscientist you were promised.

Love on the Brain was such a fun and easy read that I just had to rate it five stars. A book hasn’t captured my attention like this in quite a while and it was refreshing to have the want to pick up a book constantly. Right, I’m now off to read The Love Hypothesis as I can’t get enough of Ali Hazelwood. Who’s with me?