Approximately three weeks ago, inspired by a vague Instagram reel and the recommendation of my older sister, I read Love, Theoretically, by Ali Hazelwood. It took me about an afternoon to read, and didn’t think about it much until a week or so later, when my friend started reading Love on the Brain. I figured it must be good— I finished this in an afternoon as well, and decided I might as well go three for three and read Hazelwood’s third (or first) in the trilogy, The Love Hypothesis. After a complicated affair with putting it on hold at the library and another cover-to-cover read (I cannot read at a normal pace, books either take five hours or five months), I have a review.
First and foremost, yay science! Love, Theoretically follows Elsie, a theoretical physicist, Love on the Brain follows Bee, a neuroscientist, and The Love Hypothesis follows Olive, a biologist. The science aspect of these books was by far my favorite part, as each book has the occasional fun fact regarding each science. Two of the books (Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis) take place in academic settings while the third, and my personal favorite in the trilogy (though that’s not saying much), takes place at NASA.
However, my praise of these books ends there. It is the romance portion (aka basically the entire book) where I became displeased. To start, all three books are remarkably similar, so any issues I had with one, I had with all three. Each is told from the viewpoint of a sworn-off-love scientist who turns out to be not-so-sworn-off when she falls in love with another scientist. Each book possesses similar plot points (save for the end of Love on the Brain) and similar characters. Similar characters meaning for the love interest of each book, I believe Ali Hazelwood pressed copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste, but wait make that last guy blonde. They’re not exactly the same (Adam from The Love Hypothesis was more annoying than the other two) but each guy is attractive, built, a genius, and has hardly a drop of personality. Considering all of the work they do in the lab, I still don’t know when any of these guys have the time to build their repeatedly mentioned amazing bodies (“repeatedly mentioned” meaning every other sentence), but that’s not even the worst part. My real issue is their personalities, or lack thereof. These guys are just there. Each of them falls in love with the respective main character far before she falls in love with them, and then their entire life consists of pining after her. They give predictable answers, range from expressing mild opinions to no opinions, and conform their lives to be nondescript and uninteresting. They’re boring. Really, really, boring. Their entire existence in the books is to aid the main character in her journey of self-discovery or something. Though they fulfill that purpose, it makes for a pretty mediocre love story.
Mediocre based just on the guy; ridiculous, based on the girl. Unlike the guys, the girls are somewhat better, yet, like the guys, they are all equally disappointing in their own un-special ways. I’ll start with Elsie. Elsie, despite her scientific achievements, has no brain. She cannot make decisions for herself, and spends the entirety of the book letting people walk all over her. Until of course Mr.No-Personality comes and “saves her.” Gross. Next we have Bee. Bee is determined to believe her book’s Mr. No-Personality hates her, despite the numerous instances he has proven and thoroughly explained he doesn’t. She is continuously shocked and untrusting of his polite actions (even after it’s clearly apparent he means no harm) and then treats him terribly when she randomly falls in love with him. I didn’t need her to forgive him, he was rather unpleasant also, but I would have preferred if she used some logical thinking to determine that people can grow up and change how they act. For this, Bee also does not have a brain (though she does have a contradicting personality that was obviously created solely for the promotion of the plot). Lastly, and my personal least favorite, we have Olive. Olive wears expired contacts that burn her eyes to the point of temporary blindness because she’s poor. It is never explained why glasses are not an option. I spent several minutes trying to come up with reasons why she hasn’t bought glasses (this is how I like to spend my free time) and came to the conclusion that Olive, just like Elsie and Bee, is missing some critical reasoning skill despite being a renowned scientist. Olive has a leg up on Elsie and Bee though, because Olive is also a compulsive liar. Olive creates a ridiculous scheme with Mr. No-Personality 3 due to Olive’s friend’s inability to trust Olive. Just how complicated that sentence was is a good example of how complicated Olive made things when there was an obvious much simpler solution.
If the unrealistic, unintelligent composition of the characters isn’t enough to sell you on these books, there’s more. Elsie and Olive’s books each have a climactic point of them facing an evil white male scientist who they could not face priorly because they are weak underappreciated women. Olive initially refuses to issue a complaint about said evil scientist who physically and verbally assaulted her because her boyfriend, personalityless Adam “respect[ed] and admir[ed]” him (315). What sort of message is that? Don’t defend yourself against people your boyfriend likes no matter how they treat you? Olive eventually stands up for herself because the plot must be predictable, but her reasoning behind it is a horrid example of being overdependent and refusing to make choices without the approval of someone else and it annoyed me very much. Elsie’s book had a similar-ish situation in which, armed with the power given to her by her relationship with Mr. No-Personality, she defeated the evil scientist and returned home to live happily ever after. How empowering.
To sum up, I had a great time reading these books. They’re absolutely outrageous and maintain no semblance of realism, but as a result, they require no brainpower. I do love intelligent books that force me to reanalyze my own life, but life is about balance, and I also love books that don’t make me think about my life at all. These certainly do not fall in the “love” category, but they do fall in the “not thinking” one. I probably won’t ever feel the need to reread these, but ultimately, I don’t consider it time wasted that I did.