ali hazelwood – Page 2

Rating: ★★★☆ (3.5)
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: August 23rd, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From the New York Times bestselling 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.

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 – 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. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas… devouring her with those eyes. 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?

DISAPPOINTED.

Yeah, probably my biggest let down of 2022 in regards to contemporary romances I was excited for.

Why the super heavy agenda dumping? I could write an entire list of everything that was shoved in my face over and over again. It’s cool to have opinions and to incorporate those, but I don’t want to feel like it’s overtaking the fact that I picked up a romance to read. Not the news.

When Levi and Bee were talking and hanging out in those very few rare moments, I LOVED IT. Give me more of that please. I liked them as a couple when I actually got to see the development of their relationship. There was a substantial focus on the physicality of their relationship over everything else and those scenes were plain awkward.

Bee’s friend Rocio was fun. I did like her Wednesday Addams vibes. She added the right kind of touch to the story over everything else that was happening.

The MISCOMMUNICATION. It made me think about putting it down during the first half. Some is fine, it happens. But flagrant use of eh, I’ll tell him later, when you have a chance to clear the air annoy me beyond belief.

And the end???? Did I miss what genre I was reading and we jumped into romantic suspense? That was wildly left field and clearly out of place. I had to flip the last page back and forth a few times because of the abrupt ending too.

Clearly I have (and can continue) a lot of thoughts of this one. TLH is still my golden child favorite and I’ll continue to reread that one. LOTB on the other hand convinced me to no longer pre-order Hazelwood’s books.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: some strong
Romance: three open door; med-high explicit
Violence: moderate
Trigger/Content Warnings: sexism, workplace sexual harassment mentioned, death of a parent recounted, attempted murder, gun violence

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Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 384 pages
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: September 14th, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor–and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive’s career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding…six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

ABSOLUTELY ADORED.

You might have seen that this book has A LOT OF HYPE.

THE HYPE IS WORTH IT.

I feel like I should just end my review there.

But, I’ll dive in a little bit deeper. The grump and sunshine trope was perfect. Adam and Olive were off the charts in banter and forced proximity moments where you know they’re both feeling it. I couldn’t get enough of each interaction they had. Those coffee dates were EVERYTHING. Not to mention I love a good, who did this to you, moment and TLH definitely had one for the books. Adam is the grumpy cinnamon roll of my bookish romance dreams and wow would I have loved getting chapters from his POV too.

I did notice some repetitive phrasing (like how many times Adam called Olive a smart-a**), and the spice was eh for me. But those were minor complaints in comparison to the whole. This had everything I love about romance books. Combining an engaging plot that supports the romance + plenty of times where swooning was the only applicable emotion. All of my heartstrings were tugged by the last page (because who doesn’t love a good confession moment?!).

The setting in STEM was amazing and the side characters greatly supported the plot. Every single thing just worked for this book. I consumed it because it’s nothing short of one of my top romance reads for 2021.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary romance
Language: some strong
Romance: kisses to very open door
Trigger/Content Warnings: sexual harassment, sexism, death of a parent recounted