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 into practice?
Review:
If there’s one thing I can depend on in life it’s loving an Ali Hazelwood book. I was in probably the biggest reading slump I’ve ever experienced when I picked up Love Theoretically but I devoured this book. It took me less than 24 hours to read and I spent pretty much an entire Sunday with this book glued to my hands. I do think The Love Hypothesis is still my favourite, but this one is a close second.
We all know Ali Hazelwood writes men who are amazingly wonderful and pathetically in love with the female character, but Jack may take the prize for most pathetically in love. Some of my favourite lines from him include:
◆ “Have you considered that maybe you’re already the way I want you to be?”
◆ “You could be my entire world,” he whispers in my ear before moving to my collarbone. “If you let me.”
◆ “In my fantasies, you allow me to keep an eye on you.” I feel his lips at my temple. “And when I really let go, I imagine that you let me take care of you, too.”
◆ “Bold of you to assume that the real me is my best hand.”
“Foolish of you to think it isn’t.”
He also makes a huge declaration of love which is way too long to include in a review, but my god did I love Jack and Elsie. The constant mention of how huge he is (which is a common occurrence in Ali Hazelwood’s books) does become too much at times. At this point I go into these books assuming the man is a behemoth, so no need to tell me how big he is.
Elsie was also such an interesting character. She likes to present the version of herself that she thinks the other person needs or wants to see but Jack sees through that pretty much instantly. Her character growth is wonderful to witness and while she’s not perfect, she’s realistic and you can’t help but like her. Which is probably because she’s so accommodating to other people but also because even though she does this, she knows what she wants.
There’s one moment when you get a cameo from Olive and Adam from The Love Hypothesis and it’s just too good. Elsie talks to Olive about her relationship with Jack and thinks about bringing up the fake dating stuff but then says “I doubt Olive is familiar with the concept of fake dating” which is so meta it’s actually hilarious.
As with every book I give five stars, this review is pretty awful, all over the place and short. When I’m so absorbed in a book it doesn’t occur to me to stop and take notes. You’ll just have to trust me that Love Theoretically is a great read.
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