Romance
Love on the Brain
Repeat author
Ali Hazelwood is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include Check & Mate and Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.
Quick take
This swoonworthy romance will have you questioning the laws of physics as it sweeps you off your feet in zero gravity.
Good to know
Feminist
Light read
LOL
Enemies to Lovers
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?
Free sample
Get an early look from the first pages of Love on the Brain.
Love on the Brain
1
THE HABENULA: DISAPPOINTMENT
Here’s my favorite piece of trivia in the whole world: Dr. Marie Skłodowska-Curie showed up to her wedding ceremony wearing her lab gown.
It’s actually a pretty cool story: a scientist friend hooked her up with Pierre Curie. They awkwardly admitted to having read each other’s papers and flirted over beakers full of liquid uranium, and he proposed within the year. But Marie was only meant to be in France to get her degree, and reluctantly rejected him to return to Poland.
Womp womp.
Enter the University of Krakow, villain and unintentional cupid of this story, which denied Marie a faculty position because she was a woman (very classy, U of K). Dick move, I know, but it had the fortunate side effect of pushing Marie right back into Pierre’s loving, not-yet-radioactive arms. Those two beautiful nerds married in 1895, and Marie, who wasn’t exactly making bank at the time, bought herself a wedding dress that was comfortable enough to use in the lab every day. My girl was nothing if not pragmatic.
Of course, this story becomes significantly less cool if you fast forward ten years or so, to when Pierre got himself run over by a carriage and left Marie and their two daughters alone in the world. Zoom into 1906, and that’s where you’ll find the real moral of this tale: trusting people to stick around is a bad idea. One way or another they’ll end up gone. Maybe they’ll slip on the Rue Dauphine on a rainy morning and get their skull crushed by a horse-drawn cart. Maybe they’ll be kidnapped by aliens and vanish into the vastness of space. Or maybe they’ll have sex with your best friend six months before you’re due to get married, forcing you to call off the wedding and lose tons of cash in security deposits.
The sky’s the limit, really.
Why I love it
Hannah Simone
Actress, New Girl, Not Dead Yet, and host of the podcast Welcome to Our Show
“The real villain is love”. BAM. That line was written by Ali Hazelwood and is just two pages into one of the smartest love stories I have read in a long time. Ali is an unparalleled novelist who turns a sworn-off-love-scientist into the protagonist of an earth-shattering and utterly compelling romance. Cue Bee Königswasser, a scientist helming an exciting new project designing gear for astronauts, who trusts science way more than people. All she wants to do is get her own lab, and one day find her name next to Marie Curie’s in all the textbooks. But Levi Ward, her gorgeous grad school archenemy, has other plans for her. Her lab equipment starts to disappear, and then she is hit with a ton of communication mishaps. At first Bee assumes Levi is engaging in active sabotage, but slowly she learns that there is more to Levi...
I love Ali Hazelwood’s novels because her female leads stand on their own. Bee is an endearing powerhouse of a woman you wish existed in real life so you could be her best friend. But since we aren't lucky enough to have the real-life Bee, the next best thing to spending time with her is to pick up Love on the Brain.
Member ratings (28,866)
Lindsey M.
New Braunfels, TX
Another book hangover from the great AH. I’m sad I can’t read this for the first time ever again. Loved the issues discussed and the chemistry between the characters. Recommend to everyone!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Alexandria A.
Lakewood, OH
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I could not put this one down and read it in a day. This book was funny, witty and romantic. I saw a lot of myself in Bee and loved how she and the relationship evolved throughout the story
Kendall W.
Denver, CO
I love this book. At times I found myself laughing out loud at the friendly banter between Bee and Levi but ultimately fell in love with both of them as they learned to love each other ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Marisol C.
Philadelphia, PA
Nothing I say will do this novel justice. Smart! Funny! Sassy! But MOST of all, ROMANTIC! I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the pages just like Bee couldn’t keep her eyes off Levi! Make it a Rom-Com❣️
Jamie W.
Canton, MI
I was so excited to see this a a BOTM pick! I loved it as much as the Love Hypothesis and had it finished in two days. The main characters were funny, smart and great together. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️