Review: I did not think anything could top “The Love Hypothesis” until I read “Love, Theoretically”! 

 

Theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway wants nothing more than to land her dream job at MIT so she can leave her adjunct teaching position and fake girlfriend gig behind her. The only problem? Jack Smith—the older brother of her favorite client and the experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career—sits on the hiring committee. 

 

I LOVED this book because I personally connected with Elsie like no other Ali Hazelwood heroine before her. One of Elsie’s main inner conflicts in the book is her struggle to show those closest to her who she really is. Instead, she embodies different versions of herself to please others so she doesn’t feel the sting of rejection if something goes wrong. As someone with people pleasing tendencies, I have never felt so understood! 

 

I also really loved Hazelwood’s incorporation of the fake relationship trope in this book. Having already written about a fake relationship between her FMC and MMC in “The Love Hypothesis,” I appreciated how Hazelwood shakes things up in this novel by having Elsie fake date her love interest’s brother! This was new and exciting for me to read about and also nicely contributed to the tension between Elsie and Jack in the book. 

 

Elsie and Jack’s romance is absolute perfection in this book! Their progression from rivals to lovers is very natural and I thought it was very clever of Hazelwood to set their rivalry “against the backdrop of academic politics” (as she puts in her author’s note). I was not aware of the feud between theoretical and experimental physicists, so I found “Love, Theoretically” informative as a result.