Love on the Brain – Ali Hazelwood

Genre: Romance
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 354
Release Date: August 23, 2022

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?

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Based on a quick scroll through Goodreads, I’m certainly in the minority when it comes to Love on the Brain. I didn’t dislike Love on the Brain, but I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Love on the Brain follows Bee, a neuroscientist, as she collaborates on a project with her nemesis. Enter Levi. Levi has always given her the cold shoulder and Bee doesn’t know why, so she chalked it up to his dislike of her and moved on.

There’s a few things I disliked about the novel and one of them is how oblivious Bee is at times. It becomes painfully obvious that Levi does not dislike Bee, it’s the opposite. Bee refuses to see or even believe Levi when he tells her.

Love on the Brain is slow. Not much happens for the majority of the novel until the end where the mystery is solved. Mystery? Was there mention of a mystery and you missed it? No. Hazelwood tried to work in a slight mystery, but did nothing to develop it other than a few lines that were easily glanced over. The villainous reveal had a Scooby-Doo vibe that was just ridiculous. 

For those interested in the spice level, I would describe it as minimal. Though their eventual coupling is hot and hits the ground running, it did take the majority of the book to get there.

Bee is obsessed with Marie Curie. So much so, that there is A LOT of Marie Curie trivia throughout the book. I thought it would get old real fast, but I loved every mention of Marie Curie. It was fun, quirky, and relevant.

Overall, Love on the Brain was good, but not great. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. Its lack of anything actually happening and Bee’s obliviousness made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the story.

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Have you read Love on the Brain? What did you think?