Love On The Brain - Science and Romance (Who Can Beat That?)

Hey all! And welcome back for another book review by yours truly! This time I'm doing a review on a book that is all science and love (without the misogyny and mansplaining). I know that sounds impossible, right? To be honest, this book does have a bit of that, but only really to critique it.

That being said, here's a synopsis of Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood:

"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." - Synopsis via Goodreads

This book is a perfect mix of tall dark and handsome, feminism, neuroscience, and witty dialogue on the state of our world at the moment. I especially loved the commentary on standardized testing, a practice that really is too outdated for use at this point. And yet, here we are.

I loved our main character, Bee, who was, as I learned by reading the back cover, a spitting image of the author of this book, who also happens to be in science, and has lived in many different places across country lines. Bee is an Aries, a brilliant neuroscientist, and a stark feminist. She embodies the millennial spirit, and all that we need with women in the science field today.

As someone who loves to learn about the brain, I understood where she was coming from, fighting for men to take her seriously in the field made for male figures. I felt that this book said just the right things, in a comedic tone of course, and I loved every second of it.

The love interest in this book, Levi Ward, is really all a woman could wish for, as Bee says it: a perfect mix of cute, handsome, and sexy. He is understanding of the feminist cause, and is in tune with his emotions, to a fault. And of course, he has eyes for only her. While it's not realistic, he is the perfect man as told by many romance books.

While Levi might not be completely realistic, he is a very good character, and he has his own struggles and past to deal with, very much like Bee.

One thing I love about this new generation of books is the multimodal references. I mean the text messages, the emails, the little snippets of real-world occurrences copied and pasted into books. Some of my recent favorites have had news stories within them, alluding to a second perspective on our main character.

While I know this isn't everyone's style, it is definitely the most entertaining to me as a new-age reader. What say you, people of Vocal?

Whether or not you are a big romance reader, I think this one is worth checking out. Especially because this is one of six sciencey romance books by Ali Hazelwood, and I can't wait to read each of the next ones!

Stay tuned for my next book review: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. I am looking forward to starting a discussion on just what makes a good mother....

See you then!