Book: Love, Theoretically
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Genre: Romance
Started: Sept 12, 2023
Finished: Sept 13, 2023
Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Rating:
🥱
Love, Theoretically follows theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway, a recent Ph.D. graduate stuck in the monotony of being an adjunct professor, grading hundreds of essays and responding to outlandish student emails, struggling to make ends meet, all while having big dreams of landing a tenured position at a reputable university to continue her research in the mathematical theory of liquid crystals.
Out of all the leading ladies in the series, Elsie was my favorite. While her flaws, (such as her obsession with Twilight) are present, I believe she is the most relatable character. Her situation is heartbreaking; she is stuck in a dead-end job barely making ends meet thus struggling to decide between buying her life-saving medication or using the money for food or rent. Additionally, she was forced to change who she was at a very young age to fit the needs of her family just to be seen rather than fade in the background as the forgotten youngest child, completely losing her sense of self in the process. She had more soul to her than the other characters that Hazelwood created, because she wasn't fully a damsel in distress. She just forgot that she was the most important person in her life.
Despite her kind of being forced in to several awkward situations, like being a fake date to weird entitled men for money, trying to appease her mentor who she idolized since she was a pre-teen, to interviewing at renowned university MIT, for a position that was never going to be hers. Elsie was already pretty strong-willed and we got a glimpse of what a headstrong woman she could be when she came face to face with Jonathan Smith-Turner, the man that single handedly ruined the reputation of her chosen career path and that of her mentor, by writing a bogus article that made theorists the laughing stock of academic science.
Hazelwood does a great job of building these characters with so much potential, only to water them down so heavily that you lose sight as to why you should like them. She ends up turns them into whiney, bland, forgettable skeletons of figures that become annoying words on a page. They become personified objects versus believable people. The more depth that Hazelwood has to bring to these characters, the more she loses what she's trying to achieve, which for Elsie, kinda works a bit. Elsie found out that if she morphs her personality based on what the people around her find to be more interesting, it becomes easier for Elsie to blend in, thus giving her a slight edge with most other people around her.
We already established that Elsie is struggling deeply to make ends meet. The current job position that she has, barely gives her enough to pay rent, let alone enough time for a chance at continuing her life's research. Her and her dear friend/roommate decided to jump on an app that is basically tinder for sugar-babies, but much more refined and less...creepy? There she meets a guy named Greg and while the terms of the app state only one date per customer, she finds herself more willing to help Greg outside of the app. After a couple dates she encounters Greg's older brother Jack Smith. Jack is a "tall, mountain of a man, with large biceps, and fills the room with how big he is" (this might be a direct quote, Hazelwood knows no other way of describing men). Jack Smith, we later find out, becomes instantly drawn to Elsie, watching her in a way that, (I could only imagine) would put Edward Cullen to shame.
Jack seems like he could have been the perfect non-brooding male love interest and handsome man. However, as the reoccurring themes with Hazelwood, leaves him to be so vague that your only way of picturing this guy is by the illustrated cover of the book. We get it. He's tall, big, large, mountain-like, fills small spaces with how big he is...Did Hazelwood lose her thesaurus? Heck, she couldn't even focus on anything other than blue triangle colour that pierced his otherwise brown eyes. All the focus was on the blue, because it felt like she had no other way of describing brown. (Rich chocolate or "high eyes turned a deep espresso causing the small bit of blue to sparkle, as desire enveloped him")
Come on Ali! It's not that freaking hard!
While I can spoil the whole story on who Jack Smith is vs Jonathan Smith-Turner (oops) and how Elsie falls madly in love with him. The lack of spice with the "graphic" content. I will say one thing, it was very nice to have a story this time around that didn't follow the full on attempted SA of the main character like Olive (Love, Hypothesis) or Bee (Love on the Brain) and it was simple sabotage from an individual that was supposed to have Elsie's best interest in mind. I will say that it was nice of Hazelwood to bring back our first two ladies into the mix. While I hate the way they were brought in, it was still nice to sort-of catch up on them and get a nice lil' glimpse of how they were.
Overall, what I've learned about academia, after reading all three of Ali Hazelwood's books is - I should have chosen a different career path. You mean to tell me that all it takes to find me a tall, handsome, mountain sized, tree bark, of man, was wading through the long rigorous hours of STEM research? Clearly, I have no idea what it truly entails to be a woman in STEM, but come on, how do these three (Olive, Bee, and Elsie) leading ladies have such luck finding young men that are almost identical in stature and build, while simultaneously being so highly regarded in the realm of science?
Was my time wasted reading these books? No, not really. While I found that the consistent repetition of plot by Ali Hazelwood truly infuriated me more than stepping on a lego block, it was still entertaining and over simulated my love of trashy, sappy, and too good to be true, love stories.
Will I ever read these again? Meh, probably only this one.