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Love on the Brain cover art

Love on the Brain

Written by: Ali Hazelwood
Narrated by: Brooke Bloomingdale
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Publisher's Summary

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

A #1 LibraryReads and Indie Next Pick!

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a new STEMinist rom-com in which a scientist is forced to work on a project with her nemesis—with explosive results.

Like an avenging, purple-haired Jedi bringing balance to the mansplained universe, 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 after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia—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. And sure, he caught her in his powerfully corded arms like a romance novel hero when she accidentally damseled in distress on her first day in the lab. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school—archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

Now, her equipment is missing, the staff is ignoring her, and Bee finds her floundering career in somewhat of a pickle. Perhaps it’s her occipital cortex playing tricks on her, but Bee could swear she can see Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas…devouring her with those eyes. And 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?

©2022 Ali Hazelwood (P)2022 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: Romance

What the critics say

“With her sophomore novel, Ali Hazelwood proves that she is the perfect writer to show that science is sexy as hell, and that love can ‘STEM’ from the most unlikely places. She’s my newest must-buy author.” (Jodi Picoult, number one New York Times best-selling author of Wish You Were Here)

“I cannot get enough of her brand of brainy romance!...Writing with an emotionally brilliant and witty pen, Hazelwood is an absolute romance powerhouse.” (Christina Lauren, New York Times best-selling authors of The Unhoneymooners)

“Gloriously nerdy and sexy, with on-point commentary about women in STEM.” (Helen Hoang, New York Times best-selling author of The Heart Principle)

“STEMinists, assemble. Your world is about to be rocked.” (Elena Armas, international best-selling author of The Spanish Love Deception)

What listeners say about Love on the Brain

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An easy Listen perfect for a road trip

Narrator did a great job. The ONLY thing that bothered me was that the “girl from Austria” couldn’t pronounce her last name authentically. But that’s full on knit picking.

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Waste of a credit

I have struggled beyond struggling to finish this , long long winded book. It would of been much better if the book was 3 hours long. Waste of one credit. Do not waste your money.

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fantastique!

je voulais l'acheter format papier depuis longtemps, finalement je l'ai écouté en seulement 3 jours! accro à cette histoire je ne pouvais plus m'arrêter! je l'adore!

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Cute but at times annoying

I thought the story was cute, but sometimes Bee would get on my nerves with how clueless she was. Are people really that clueless? lol 😆

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Laugh-out-loud hilarious!

Very enjoyable, smart, and funny; I highly recommend. The book was well-written and the narrator is now one of my favourites.

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LOVED IT

This single handedly brought me out of a reading slump! I loved every second of it. And the performance was amazing, I’ve never enjoyed listening to an audio book so much!

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A modern take on “you’ve got mail”

It’s a perfectly easy listen and a modern update on a classic movie. Love it for its simple plot, easy voice acting and happy ending. The book equivalent of a chic flick. Romantic comedy perfection.

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Cute, smart and easy…

Super enjoyable for an easy-read. I enjoyed that while it was a little predictable, it was smart and did not bore. It was exactly what I was looking for, something to listen to on a long drive that didn’t need a lot of thought, but was thoroughly entertaining. Narrator does a great job.

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Brilliant

Best book ever! Super fabulous humour. Loved it all. Recommend the read for sure. Narrator was so good

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Unlikeable heroine

The book had potential- but I don’t think I have ever read about a main character that was less likeable than Bee. It’s like the author tried to include every ‘woke’ idea in one person/book. She was completely whiny and obnoxious, and every time I thought I might be enjoying the story, she would say something stupid. Who complains about a gentleman opening a door for you?? Disappointing.

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  • Ole suzannah
  • 2022-08-29

Only read if you are a lib

I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t. The lead was so off putting it made me sick. Man hating, to the point of reverse discrimination, I don’t know how anyone could fall in love with such a self centered, chip on the shoulder, self righteous feminist. This book was a laundry list of everything the feminist movement stands for. I hated this book, although the narration was good. I listened to it only because I spend one of my credits on it.

6 people found this helpful

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  • Doug C
  • 2022-11-09

Wanted more after The Love Hypothesis

Ali Hazelwood’s debut novel, The Love Hypothesis was fantastic and earned a 10/10 review for me (Although that narrator struggled with male voices, but I don’t fault the story for that). I was excited for this sequel. I almost downloaded the novellas in the mean time to read while I waited for this to review, but now I’m glad I hesistated.

Things I liked: 
Its science was really neat to hear in a book. Some of it was really specific, even for me, and I find I am a really sciency person. I think Ali did an excellent job of capturing the feel, and conversations people in a STEM field might have.
            I thought the sex scenes were definitely steamy. I thought they were better than the Love Hypothesis’s sex scenes.
            

Biggest Personal Complaint:
I know I’m not the target audience, (I’m a hetero male) but this book was very anti-guy. Ali definitely insinuates and goes into depth that every guy in the science field is a disgusting misogynist who wants to sexually harass their co-workers and that every guy just wants to steal the credit of projects from women coworkers. Do those guys exist in STEM? Definitely, but Ali spends a great length of chapters 2 and 3 basically calling every guy in science a terrible person. It was so much, that I nearly checked out. It also made the main character’s interest in Levi seem out of nowhere since she spent most of the opening chapters of the book describing how much she hates all guys. I get it. These books aren’t written for guys. But as a guy who works in the STEM field, I found it horribly stereotyping.


What should be my biggest complaint: There is almost no conflict in this story until 80% into the book. I understand that the romance is plot A – but in that case that plot is solved about 65% of the way through. I kept expecting them to have their own conflict but it never happened. There was nothing to break them apart and bring them back together again. Even if that is your main focus of the book, there is nothing really keeping them separated that much. Enemies to lovers is what Ali intended but really it’s Bee hates all men and then decides that since her co worker is big she might as well sleep with them. As far as Plot B’s conflict, it only starts about 80% of the way through and for the crescendo of it, it’s out of nowhere. The explain some light hints throughout the book but they’re hardly enticing throughout and I wouldn’t have really called them building plot moments to the end. They were just hints.
 

Major Complaints: This book is HEAVILY reliant on pop culture. Twitter plays a large role in this book and already in today’s day and age as Twitter becomes a right wing haven for social media, this aspect of the book has already aged like milk. The entire book is littered with pop culture, from Tik Tok to Elon Musk to Mariah Carey. It’s a bit odd to rely on it so heavily.
            The main two characters have almost zero chemistry. The main character, Bee, spends the first half of the book discussing how much she hates guys in the work force. Levi, from Bee’s perspective, seems off put by her and disgusted by her. There’s no valid reason for Bee to be interested in him other than he’s big? That’s really it. I guess he came and gave her a ladder out of a cemetery so now they need to hook up? Even the fact that she called him in the first place seemed out of character for her.
The sex scene in this book seems to come out of nowhere. They have hardly spent time together to build up to that scene. Was it a good scene? Yeah sure, but there was no build up to it. There wasn’t really any crescendo. This book could have easily been about a hook up. Instead after the sex our characters are talking about getting married and spending their entire lives together.
 
Final Verdict: If you’re a guy, give this a pass. If you’re a woman in STEM, go read The Love Hypothesis. If you loved that book, then consider this one. If not, give this a miss.

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  • Anna
  • 2022-08-24

Not my favorite

I wanted to love this book, but I couldn’t get into it.
The narration was fairly good.

I love Ali’s writing style. She’s obviously on her element and is amazing at it, but this one was not my favorite and has much to do with the main characters.

With this book I was missing all the chemistry we get in her previous books. Communication was an issue too, Bee was inside her head ALL the time and it got frustrating after a while.
I think we can call this a slow-burn romance, but it was torturous and not in a good way.

5 people found this helpful

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  • Atlas
  • 2022-09-29

Not the Love Hypothesis

If you loved the Love Hypothesis because it was smart and fun, you probably will be disappointed by Love on the Brain. It is slow and predictable. Annoying and not fun. And, I have to say it, for a book supposedly about smart women in STEM, it's dumb.

4 people found this helpful

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  • Anonymous buyer 10.1
  • 2022-09-06

Waiting for Ali's magic to come back

To begin with, I dot on what Ali has written so far. I subscribe to the community of STEM folks she writes about, and have played all her novels on a loop on their release, except for this. Her characters, prior to this novel, have been real, relatable, and believable. This novel, however, has been overdone and has overgrown all of these aspects.
To have an exact apples-to-apples comparison, I have known three women who grew up in European countries, came to US for different STEM PhDs, and have an identical twin sister, who hasn't studied STEM. My curious brain has also done a study of a STEM Ph.D.'s relations with immediate family members. My data says that the conversations of the PhD student with an artsy sibling who sounds like a spoiled high school teen all the time do not last or stay healthy for more than their first 3 years in a STEM Ph.D. program.

This brings me to the next topic: the twitter saga. Gorsh, it was already too predictably unbelievable, and now, adding the choice of being regularly on Twitter for the only 30 mins of peace that a post-graduate scientist gets and a Ph.D. student never gets, it's just too much. I'd have also loved seeing some coping skills to deal with never-apologizing, ever-blaming, and victim-finding academicians instead of a Twitter blast.

In addition, me being someone who is not American but lives in the US, having English as a 2nd language, and coming from an under-represented minority in every way, the propaganda of opposing a test to do justice to an under-represented minority instead of empowering this community with the coaching to compete by the standards makes no sense. I'd have loved to see the efforts go into "here is how you take a test and beat it black and blue" instead of starting a no-GRE movement.

This was the first novel I couldn't even finish in the entirety, skipping over 50% of it, forget about playing it on the loop. I am not a fan of this one. At all. Can we please stick to the STEM parts of it, instead?

3 people found this helpful

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  • Amanda
  • 2022-09-01

Ugh I wanted this to be so much better

I was really wanting this to be better. The first book wasn't super great either but I hoped for the best. The over all story was good but all the author's beliefs and views should have been left out. Also there is no way in holy heck anyone would not pick up a gun to keep a potential killer from getting it!!!!!! I don't like guns a whole lot but you can bet your butt I'll kick, move, or pick one up to save my life!
Leave out all the crap and horrible, way too long, sex scenes and it would be 5 stars!

3 people found this helpful

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  • Steph
  • 2022-08-29

it was okay

Ali Hazelwood's Love Hypothesis was so great that I had really high hopes when this new book came out. Love on the brain wasn't as good but it was okay. I just didn't find the characters as compelling.

3 people found this helpful

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2023-02-06

Disappointed

I absolutely loved The Love Hypothesis, so I had my hopes up for this book. It's just not that great of a story, and I often found myself looking to see how much of the book was left. There's not that much of a build up of anything romantically, and most of the book was very predictable.

2 people found this helpful

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  • Vi✨
  • 2022-10-19

Finally! 🔥I’ve been waiting for books like these!

This is such a funny, smart, refreshing and uplifting read. Ali Hazelwood’s books are full of heart and substance. I love geeking out with the women in STEM representation, while simultaneously swooning at the character and relationship development. Her books require devouring and savoring, they’re hard to put down but you want to enjoy every word. Looking forward to Ali Hazelwood’s future books to come. ❤️

2 people found this helpful

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  • Shanell
  • 2022-09-21

Yeeeesh

I couldn’t even finish this book. The author was reachhhhing for woke brownie points at every turn of the page. Loved her other book, this one seemed like the same book- destroyed by annoying woke comments, boring romance and predictable page after page incessant whining. I want my money back.

2 people found this helpful