To make ends meet, theoretical physicist Elsie works as a fake girlfriend, where she tailors her personality to fit the needs of her clients. Whilst interviewing for her dream position at MIT, Elsie’s two worlds collide when she discovers that Jack, her favourite fake boyfriend’s older brother, is a renowned experimental physicist and on MIT’s hiring committee. Elsie’s chances at landing the job are immediately threatened as Jack believes that Elsie’s a librarian who’s lying to her “boyfriend”. Jack also turns out to be Elsie’s archnemesis as he previously published a paper that ruined Elsie’s mentor’s career and slammed theoretical physicists everywhere. However, continuing to hate Jack becomes challenging when Elsie realises that she can finally be her true self whilst around him.
Love, Theoretically is an enemies to lovers, academic romance perfect for fans of Chloe Liese, Rachel Lynn Solomon, Tessa Bailey, Abby Jimenez, Mazey Eddings, or Elsie Silver. It deals with themes and topics like identity and sense of self, communication, truth and lies, family, friendships, feminism, love and heartbreak, revenge, working class struggles, STEM, diabetes, and the aro/ace spectrum. The moral of Elsie’s story is that you should be the person that you want to be, not the person that you think other people want you to be.
Firstly, I enjoyed all the references to popular culture, including Taylor Swift and Twilight, and also really appreciated that Adam and Olive (from The Love Hypothesis) made an appearance in Love, Theoretically as I absolutely love these characters. The plot was unique and it was refreshing to see uncommon topics like diabetes, aro/ace, and physics included in this novel, plus the story remained interesting, engaging, and kept me guessing throughout. Though not completely relevant, Elsie’s students’ emails, which are frequently present at the beginning of chapters, were a fun and comical addition to the novel. Jack Smith was totally swoonworthy and perfect “book boyfriend” material; even though it was a slow burn romance that took a while to get started, Elsie and Jack’s relationship was very sweet as well as steamy.
One thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of was the physics jargon as I felt like a lot of this went over my head and then how Elsie and Jack’s romance took so long to get started; the first portion of the book is mainly dedicated to Elsie’s “fake girlfriending” and her longwinded MIT interview. I was a little confused about the inclusion of Elsie’s roommate Cece’s budding relationship with one of her “fake” girlfriend clients, Kirk; it takes place during the same time as Elsie and Jack’s romance, but only vague details are given about Cece and Kirk…perhaps Cece’s story will be the subject of one of Hazelwood’s future novels? Lastly, without spoiling anything, even though I liked how the book ended, the epilogue was a tad underwhelming.
Overall, Love, Theoretically was an engaging and unique page-turner that I would highly recommend to fans of women in STEM and enemies to lovers romances. I can’t wait to read more of Hazelwood’s work in the future!
Love, Theoretically is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 13th.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.
Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
