Like all of Ali Hazelwoods books, this focuses on a woman in STEM and a male superior who falls in love with her against his better judgement. The story follows the same plot points as her other two books almost identically. That being said this is probably my favourite of hers, I’m not sure why as they are basically the same but I definitely enjoyed this one more.

I love Ali Hazelwood wholeheartedly so please believe me when I say this is her best yet. Elsie was so relateable (also thank god for a chronic illness/disability rep finally!) There were passages in this which had me in stitches, and moments where my heart felt like it was being torn apart and then glued back together again. Jack was a fantastic love interest, arguably the most real yet, and I really loved his character arc as much as I enjoyed Elsie's. While Ali Hazelwood books certainly follow a pattern, if something isn't broke then why fix it? I flew through this and cannot wait to read it again!

Thank you Netgalley for the proof, the opinions above are entirely mine.

This was a simple, fun, easy and quick read. The perfect type of book for your holiday, beach, pool kind of read. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I hear a lot say that Hazelwood's books are repetitive, and idc. As far as I’m aware, there aren’t many stories that reflect the life of a struggling academic, and as a hating on life-“why do I do this to myself”-struggling academic, I need these stories to feel less alone.

Book Albums (for no apparent reason):
Endless Summer Vacation – Miley Cyrus
evermore (deluxe edition) – Taylor Swift

Love, Theoretically kept me company during my first solo, long-ish trip. Naturally, I now have made an association with the story. It is hard for me to articulate how I feel about this book, but I liked it overall. Elsie is a struggling academic, living with a chronic illness, severally anxious and stressed, lies and hides her true self and identity in fear of being abandoned/rejected by the people in her life, and at the very beginning of her people-pleasing healing journey. Safe to say, I felt seen. On the other hand, we have Jack, who saw Elsie and was like I can fix that.

Now, I didn’t love Jack, if a man acted like this in my vicinity, I’d be blocking him and running for my life. He was screaming red flags:
🚩 White man
🚩 Obsession
🚩 Love bombing
🚩 U-hauling (basically)
🚩 Love at first glance

Idk if I’m too gay for this, but I’m always suspicious of men, and extra suspicious when they act like this coz what do you want? I know you have a hidden agenda, and Jack may ask “what happened to you?” and to that, I answer MEN!

BUT, if Jack was a woman, my fear of intimacy would also likely make me run away, but deep down, I’d be like yes mummy, fix me.

Anyway, I know that academia is elitist trash. Job security is almost non-existent, and any type of employment relies on connections, supervisors' recommendations and/or how well academics in the field know your name. So naturally, people burn out chasin’ that fame. I appreciate reading about this in Hazelwood’s books. While it doesn’t change the reality of academia, seeing it represented makes me feel less crazy. I have no avenue to speak about this besides my therapist–whom I can barely afford, and as much as my people love and try to support me, I wouldn’t even know how to being explaining the hierarchies, the culture, and the frustration I have. And it’s one of those things that I would also feel pretensions complaining about.

There were more things that I loved in this story:
💖 queer representation (lesbians, bi, ace)
💖 open communication (mostly, Elsie tried ok!)
💖 a couple from a previous book making an appearance

Elsie had a lot going on, A LOT! And I wish we saw her friendships with the women in her life develop more and her learning to rely on them rather than just this random man she basically just met. I also wanted to see her healing journey. When it comes to romance, even when I suspend all my beliefs and think “wow he’s amazing, I wanna be baby and have someone take care of me”, I would’ve still liked to see Elsie and Jack take their time, fall in love slower, and get to know each other. Their relationship moved fast for my liking and based on the information we were presented with I can 98% claim with semi-certainty that they will not last and will break up.

I received an arc from NetGalley (thanks A. Hazelwood and the publisher) in exchange for an honest review.

Ali hazelwood did it again because of course she did, I’m convinced that I’m destined to love anything she writes!

🧪workplace rivals
🧪guy falls first
🧪grumpy x sunshine
🧪Adam and olive cameo
🧪women in STEM
🧪so much twilight
🧪spicy

I would have loved it to be dual pov so I could get inside jacks head but it didn’t change the fact I loved this book!

I will always pick up an Ali Hazelwood book, because I know what I'm getting, and it's absolutely delightful! Elsie and Jack were wonderful together, their relationship sweet and wonderful, with just the right amount of tension to keep us interested until the very last page!

Firstly I’d like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC 🥹❤️ Ali is my favourite!!

Some days Elsie Hannaway is a professor of thermodynamics trying to get tenure by and some other days Elsie makes up her wages by becoming your perfect, whatever-personality-you-want-for-the-date fake girlfriend. It’s pretty perfect, she gets paid to go out, there’s no touching and she usually gets good!! That is until Jack Smith, the irritatingly hot brother of her favourite client, turns out to be the experimental physicist who left her mentor's career in tatters and completely ruined the reputation of theorists forever. And now he’s on the hiring committee at MIT Between her and her dream job?! And what’s with all the weird looks!! Can Elise learn to just be herself and will being in an experimentalist's orbit finally tempt her to put her theories on love into practice?

As always Ali has made me love everyone and everything in this book. Elise is flawed of course but that just makes me love her more. Her relationship with Jack is completely adorable. Jacks so wonderful and totally made me swoon right away 😏❤️ Oh and the cameo? I LOVED IT!! 😍😍

This book made me smile the whole way through, I’m so enthusiastic about it I’m pretty sure I’m annoying all of my friends and family!! It’s gorgeous, fantastic and I’m in love with it like I am with everything Ali does!! If I could give it 10000✨ I would. It’s beyond beautiful ❤️❤️

Love, love, LOVE this book! Ali Hazelwood is yet to disappoint. She offers a mesmerising mix of romance, friendship, complex characters and depth that is impossible to put down. I can’t get enough.

Elsie has many layers to her and it’s difficult to know who the real Elsie is when she spends so much time changing herself to match her surroundings like a human chameleon. That is, until she meets the infuriating Jack - the one person she can’t get a read on but who seems able to see her and her flaws. This pair make great rivals and I loved to see how Jack challenged Elsie and made space for her to be herself, to make her own decisions and craft a more honest life. He didn’t judge her for her behaviour and only wanted the best for her. On the flip side, Elsie wasn’t afraid to call Jack out for his actions when needed. They’re both imperfect which adds realism to the story, and allows for these characters to grow together. The drama in the story isn’t contrived and it wasn’t a result of miscommunication. The book also offers a stark view of the pitfalls of academia and it’s incredibly harrowing to view that world from the perspective of someone near the bottom of the totem pole. There’s plenty going on outside of this couple that drives the story forward and keeps you hooked.

There are plenty of other charming characters to be found (as well as the less charming ones) and I particularly enjoyed Millicent’s fiery attitude and her relationship with Jack, as well as the unusual Cece - Elsie’s long term friend and roommate. Those two had a solid bond and it was warming to see their closeness.

One last thing to say - the chronic illness rep in this was amazing to see. I’ve never read a character with Type 1 diabetes before and as someone with this condition, it made me very happy and it’s not something I ever thought I’d see so a huge shoutout to Ali Hazelwood for giving us Elsie.

You’re all going to have to go and read this book immediately!

I received a free copy of this book. All views are my own.

After reading a couple of earlier books of this genre written by Ali Hazelwood, I was pretty sure what I would get. A romance set in an academic science environment, where a young woman scientist meets a good looking senior scientist and they fall in love with each other despite there being an initial animosity.
This is exactly what “Love Theoretically” was about and for some reason I still enjoyed it. Who doesn’t like a good romance and a will they won’t they situation?
Elsie is a poor temporary university science teacher looking for a permanent position in a college physics départ so she can access health care which she desperately needs and also have time to pursue her research.
To make extra money she fake dates via an app and turns up to events with men who require a partner.
When she does this for Greg and meets his brother, Jack, sparks fly as there is an immediate attraction However when she meets Jack at a subsequent job interview it throws up all sorts of problems about who she really is and her relationship with his brother.
This was an enjoyable, light hearted romantic read with some academic content surrounding a feud between theoretical and experimental physicists. Some of it was a bit complicated but I persevered and gained an understanding of some of what goes on in the academic world.
I liked Elsie and Jack- both had their own insecurities but were basically likeable characters whom I was definitely rooting for.
I’m probably not the target audience for this type of novel bring of a more mature vintage and well past a time when I was in a university environment but I definitely enjoyed the story and would expect it to do well like the author’s previous books. There was even a cameo appearance of Olive and Adam from “The Love Hypothesis”!
Well worth a read if you like light hearted and entertaining romantic novels.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood is a delightful and enjoyable read that will leave you with warm and fuzzy feelings.

Despite the familiar tropes, Hazelwood's writing style is comforting and engaging, making this book a breeze to read. The protagonist, Elise, is a relatable character, and the representation of a diabetic main character is refreshing. The author's inclusion of characters from her previous book, The Love Hypothesis, was a fun read and I have enjoyed it overall.

However, some aspects of the book left me a bit confused and maybe it’s just me but they felt over the top. The description of Jack's height and intensity felt overemphasized and repetitive. We know that the author has a thing for big burly guys as all of her previous main male characters have more or less the same characteristics, I was hoping for a change but alas, here we are. Don’t get me wrong, I love it despite these minor things, it’s just a bit too obvious not to be noticed.
He’s a sweetheart and is instantly obsessed with Elise. Their interactions felt real and awkward in true Hazelwood style but enjoyable nevertheless.
Overall, Love Theoretical is a great rom-com that will leave you feeling satisfied. While some elements of the story might not work for everyone, Ali Hazelwood's writing style and engaging characters make this book worth reading.

Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

Will be posting this review on my blog pages closer to pub date

Thank you to the publishers, NetGalley & the author for this ARC, I greatly appreciated the opportunity to read this book!

I admit that I had high expectations, having previously thought that Love on the Brain was much better than Love Hypothesis. I had hoped that each book would be better than the last.

If I read this as a standalone, I think I would have enjoyed it more, but having read the last two books, it’s hard not to feel like you’re reading basically the same story only slightly tweaked.

I also struggled to enjoy HOW academic this book felt. I know that was Hazelwood’s aim but I felt like the majority of this book was just trying to put a point across & I think that impacted the plot & impacted how you connected/enjoyed the book.

Overall, I thought this book was a little bit boring. I think I could have skipped a lot of it and still been able to follow the story.

This said, I think Hazelwood is brilliant at creating amazing, unique & relatable female leads & Love, Theoretically is no exception, I loved the FMC!

in the authors note ali says that this is the most “academic” book she has written and i have to agree, and i think it’s one that will polarise readers… i have to say it has that classic ali hazelwood writing style that made me laugh, and characters seeped in sexual tension. there is an added layer to the STEM drama featured in the other ones, with animosity between science specialities, and the power that mentors have over their juniors (especially female mentees).
maybe it was just me, but i felt like this book focused less on the romance aspect and more on our main character more generally which i enjoyed!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. Like Ali Hazelwood’s other books this story heavily feature women in STEM as well as a great romance. As someone who studied an aspect of STEM at university and found myself in a male dominated area of academics, I can relate to the prejudices her characters have to face. Despite the similar characters in her books she somehow manages to make each book unique, it was lovely to see some of her former characters make a cameo appearance in the book too. Overall I really enjoyed the book evidenced by the fact that I read till the early hours of the morning.

Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
I give this book 4.25 stars

Elsie Hannaway,by day she's an adjunct professor, by other day she offers her services as a fake girlfriend.
But her Elsie-verse comes crashing down, when Jack Smith the older brother of her favourite client turns out to be the experimental physicist who ruined her mentor's career & who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing right between Elsie and her dream job.
Will falling into an experimentalist's orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

We delve into the Physics world in this book, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed the STEMinist representations and politics of working in this field that this author writes so well about.
We get to meet people pleaser Elsie who I adored and strong but caring Jack.The dynamics and chemistry between the two of them are perfect and the character building,dialogues,banter and situations make this a great enemies to lovers rom com.
A quirky,smart but fun read.
With thanks to Netgalley,Ali Hazelwood and Little, Brown Book Group UK, Sphere for my chance to read and review this book.

After finishing her PHD Elsie is working at three different universities, bending over backwards to ensure she never disappoints her mentor, her friends or her family. She becomes each person’s perfect version of Elsie, so much so that her true self is constantly hidden.

She is well practiced at self erasure and anticipating people’s needs, so to make ends meet she ends up having a side hustle working for a fake dating app named Faux. She is currently helping out Greg Smith, a guy who hired her as a fake date to get his difficult mother to stop worrying about his lack of dating life. Elsie has been Greg’s fake date to a couple of family functions, pretending to be a children’s librarian, but when she goes for a position at MIT her secrets catch up to her. Greg’s brother Jack - who not only sees through her uncanny ability to predict what people want from her but turns out to be her academic archenemy, Jonathan Turner-Smith - is on the panel, and for the first time Elsie is going to have to assess who she really is, what she wants and what she’ll do to get it.

My thoughts:

I didn’t think Adam Carlson could be beaten, but in strolls Jack Turner-Smith. I read this book in a day and even though I’m definitely a humanities girl I appreciated the backdrop of STEM academia and all of its problems. Adam and Olive do make a cute cameo, but this whole supporting cast of characters are wholesome and compelling on their own. Greg is lovely, Cece (and Hedgie) are sweet and funny and, as I’ve said, Hazelwood knocks it out of the park with experimental physics hotshot Jack. Oddly enough, he reminded me a little of the priest from Fleabag in the way that he is the only person to notice what Elsie does, wonder where her mind goes and see that she is anticipating everyone else’s desires but her own. In essence, to truly see her.

Ali Hazelwood fans, you’re going to love this one too. Massive thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK the e-arc of this book.

Thank you Little Brown for sending this book my way in exchange for an honest review!

Rating: 4/5⭐️

If you liked Ali Hazelwood’s previous books, you’ll definitely enjoy this one too! Love, Theoretically follows Elsie, someone that moods herself around everyone else to be liked, and Jack. I found Jack to be similar to both Adam and Levi, but Elsie is her own person and different from the other two main characters! I found this book quite an easy and enjoyable read but a little bit more of the same (which is totally fine!).

I liked particularly the plot on how Elsie applies for this vacancy that was created for someone else and since day 0, it was never going to be hers: It’s so sad that it’s so true. It doesn’t happen only in STEM but it’s a bit of a world where if you don’t have the right connections, you’re very likely to not get the position.

Will be posting this review on my bookstagram (@maria_bookshelf) closer to the release date so keep an eye out 🥰

This is the third Ali Hazelwood book I've read, and just like all the others, it was a hugely enjoyable experience. There's just something so comforting about Hazelwood's writing style, and even though the tropes are ones we've all read before, they're done really well. I raced through Love Theoretically at breakneck speed, it was incredibly readable and just all-around good fun. Elise was a great protagonist, and I don't think I'll ever get bored of reading books about women in STEM. There's always lots of fab representation, and I especially enjoyed the diabetes rep in this one; I'm not sure I've ever read a book with a diabetic main character before, so that was cool! I went a little bit feral for the Olive and Adam cameo, that was such a fun little moment!

The couple of things I didn't enjoy, and that seem to be a bit of an on-going theme in all the books I've read by this author, were how massively tall Jack was, and how weirdly intense he was. Like we get it, Elsie is teeny tiny and Jack is huge, but does it have to be rammed down our throats every couple of pages? I also noticed some real similarities between Elsie and Olive from The Love Hypothesis: both tiny brunettes, both fall for weirdly intense men who have had a thing for them for ages, neither have much sexual experience - a point that's brought up a couple of times and that I found kind of cringey. It's probably (definitely) personal preference, but I just didn't really love Jack as a love interest. It was just a little too 'love at first sight' and I think he got away with being slightly obsessed with Elsie because he was a conventionally attractive white man. Definitely just personal preference, but he wasn't my favourite love interest.

Overall though I did really enjoy this. It was funny, there weren't too many cringey moments, and it's the perfect rom-com to pull you out of a reading slump or to enjoy lying on a beach somewhere. Hazelwood has become pretty much an auto-buy author for me, because whilst her books are always slightly predictable, I love them anyway. I preferred this to her second book, but I'm not sure anything will be able to top my love of The Love Hypothesis. A solid read overall though, and I can't wait to see what Ali Hazelwood comes out with next!

Ali’s writing is always so addictive and enjoyable, and Love, Theoretically was absolutely no different.

Academic rivals to lovers is honestly a trope that needs to be explored more!

Jack was the hottest love interest and actually a mature adult ?! Elsie was a really engaging FMC and her and Jack had such amazing chemistry!

Ali is a really reliable writer when it comes to her adult romcoms (good romance and an average amount of spice) so you’re basically never disappointed!

I genuinely think a lot of people will love this book. The characters are good, and the story has a lot going for it, but it just wasn't for me.
I found my attention drifting so often, that it took me a few weeks, and several other books finished, between starting and finishing this book.
I can't put my finger on exactly why this was. Other than personally I didn't find the story that engaging.

Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood is described as a STEMinist romcom and it certainly lives up to that billing.It hits on several tropes that readers of the romance genre may enjoy, including enemies to lovers and grumpy/sunshine pairing, Readers already familiar with this author will know to expect a certain level of spice and they will not be disappointed.
Elsie Hannaway is a theoretical physicist currently working as an adjunct professor but searching for a more secure position that would allow her more time to spend on research and developing her theories. In a perfect world that would mean she would also be able to give up her side gig of working as a companion for hire, the perfect fake girlfriend for any occasion. When a position opens up at MIT and one of the recruiting panel throws her support behind Elsie, it looks like things may be beginning to look up. The one dark cloud on the horizon is Jack Smith, the experimental physicist on the panel who not only has a candidate of his own in the race, but was responsible for ruining Elsie's mentor's career and creating a rift between the theoretical and experimental branches of physics that still hasn't been mended. It looks like things could not get any worse but when Elsie meets Jack as part of the interview process, they are both shocked to discover they have already met, as part of Elsie's other job, and that is just the start of an awkward but sizzling love story..
This was such a fun read, I loved the setting of academia and the rivals to lovers progression as the story unfolded. Elsie and Jack were great characters to spend time with, and by the end I felt they were really good for each other , and each had helped the other to grow, Elsie has type 1 diabetes and I loved how this was integrated into the story, making it clear that while this is something that definitely impacts on her life negatively from time to time, by and large she is in control and it was something that Jack just accepted as a matter of fact, and went out of his way to accommodate without making a big deal of it. There is a lot of wit and humour in the book, and that really added to my enjoyment of it as a reader.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.