The Habenula: Disappointment and Cosmic Rants

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a community of women trying to mind their own business must be in want of a random man’s opinion.” - Bee Königswasser

The Broken Hearts Gallery Poster — Love on the Brain (c/o GoodReads)

Love on the Brain

Ali Hazelwood

Amazon Kindle, Audible

August 22nd, 2022

386 Pages

Synopsis:

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?

cw + tw // sexual content, violence

Ria: I had high expectations for this book. With The Love Hypothesis being one of my favorite books and one of the books that got me back to reading, I had high hopes for Hazelwood’s next novel. I even thoroughly had fun reading her STEMinist novellas, so I had no doubt I would love her second book, also. I was wrong.

I don’t particularly hate this book. It’s just a very mediocre, okay book, and I’m just, essentially disappointed with it.

Jhanya: I’m gonna say it right here at the beginning of this review that I don’t like this book.

I want to like it. I DO. I liked Love Hypothesis A LOT and enjoyed the STEM representation of the whole thing. But Love On The Brain? It just wasn’t it.

I honestly thought I found a new favorite author with Love Hypothesis, especially with all the STEM reps in her books, but all the succeeding books after fallen into the Big man, small woman trope over and over again.

Story + Pacing

Ria: The plot was nothing special. Right off the bat – meaning two chapters in – I had already predicted the course of the story. It was predictable that I had guessed the external conflict… just now who was going to cause it. So I guess, some things, I still missed out on. I say this later on, but the plot was not as complex as I would’ve hoped a full novel to be. Although The Love Hypothesis was also pretty straightforward, this had too much predictability for my taste. I did really like the incorporation of some other minor plots, but overall, it could have been a lot more. It was also slightly extra disappointing because there was so much potential.

The pacing was slightly slow for me at the start. I wasn’t sure if this is mainly because of the annoyance I had with our main character, but I was 100% bored in the first five chapters. Everything felt stagnant and like there were so many fillers. This is also due to the fact that I had predicted the storyline, so not much build-up was needed for me.

Jhanya: Like Ria, I predicted the whole plot of the book from the get-go. And by the 2nd chapter, I also knew who the big villain will be at the climax. I even noted “If Ali Hazelwood has a pattern in writing, then I'm guessing — isn't the best.” and low and behold, they really were the bad guy. The plot was nothing really unique outside the STEM aspects which were pretty fun. As Ria said, the potential was there. Even more so than Love Hypothesis, but again, it wasn’t utilized by Hazelwood. The same goes for the pacing which I got really annoyed with. The beginning was so slow, but the ending was as rushed as an ending can get. By the epilogue, everything was told rather than done and that is not good, at all.

Also, I noticed that LOTB is basically LH but more, in terms of the side plots, the drama, the character background, etc. But it’s not really a good thing because it shows that they’re basically the same and that is a big no-no in my book. Hazelwood refuses to get out of her mold and that isn’t a good sign for the long run. Also, there’s even more wasted potential in this book which is so sad. Oh, what could’ve been.

Writing Style

Ria: One of the favorite things I loved about the writing style was the structure of each chapter. Usually, a chapter would have a hypothesis that relates the reader to the chapter. I loved the implementation of this kind of structure into the story because it made the story a lot more fun and the writing super engaging. Each hypothesis then later on concluded into a result that I absolutely loved. Aside from this, the writing was super easy to follow and read. All the more conceptual and scientific words were very much explained well and in layman's terms so I didn’t find myself just scratching my head and googling the term myself.

Jhanya: As I’ve mentioned in our review of Love Hypothesis, Hazelwood’s writing style isn’t the best. And it really shows how she’s a new author. Sure, it’s easily consumable for readers, but it doesn’t really have the impact of like, Emily Henry and Chloe Gong books that have me laughing, crying, throwing up. I did like, however, the scientific concepts and terms that were mentioned. They’re accurate and very nice to see. There were too many Mari Curie facts for my liking though haha.

On another note. The sex scenes are terrible in this novel. I swear she copy-pasted some of the lines in LH in here.

Characters

Jhanya: I’m sorry but the characters in this story are overly prone to miscommunication to a point that the most accurate thing about this book is the STEM info and the social issues. I saw it in LH, but in LOTB, it doubled, tripled even and it gets to a point that it became so annoying and immature. This is also the main reason I didn’t like Bee as much. I mean, I like how she’s so passionate about her craft and values her projects and everything. But she kept on acting based on her assumptions that it got too much. Like, sure, Levi was a Ward-ass during grad, but now that she’s working with him, she could at least act professional and not treat everything he does as something against her. As a scientist, she should go to the root of her issues and actually talk with him in order to figure out what the problem is. And by talking, I mean both ways. Not Bee constantly cutting off Levi because she has so much to say.

Ria: I have a love-hate relationship with this woman. She was so annoying in the first few chapters of the book and I don’t even understand why?! The quirkiness that I think she was supposed to have or be was just overexaggerated making me dislike her. However, I think as the story goes on, her character gets better. Either I’ve become immune to it, but Bee's annoyingness becomes less and less as the story continues. I think she becomes more cute-quirky instead of annoying-quirky. I also think that there was a lack of depth to the character flaw that was given to her. It was all pointed out, but I don’t think the book did a good job of actually adding depth and resolving it.

Meanwhile, Levi is a pretty common male character. He’s tall and made seem like a bloody giant, but at least it’s only said once or twice. It wasn’t said in almost every other line or chapter, it can still be lessened, though. I also saw no reason for Levi to be described to be such an asshole when I don’t think he was like that when we actually met him. This made Bee a lot more immature, also. Anyways, I actually really like the conflict built into his character. It made sense, was given more depth, and wasn’t resolved just overly quickly. The best thing about him is his obviously in love with Bee.

Jhanya: I like tusnderes, but Levi was the most irritating kind of tsundere. It didn’t really make sense for an engineer who is smart enough to lead key NASA projects not to be able to physically stand to be in the same room as the girl he’s attracted to. I did like, however, that he has a backstory, unlike Adam. But the fact that it was used simply as a justification for his “weirdness” was meh. The fact that they also didn’t talk about the issues again in the end because it was so rushed was just sad.

Ria: As for the supporting characters, Guy’s overarching character was abrupt. He was someone I didn’t expect because I was both blind and absent-minded when he was introduced. But anyways, I think he was a nice addition to the story. His story could’ve been expounded more on, though.

Roccio and Kaylee. Ugh!! We love women in STEM, but I think they were too underused. Along with Sam, Reike, and almost every other character. As Bee’s sister, I understand that she’s far away, so fine. But the two assistants were right there! There was so much more potential aside from what had already been written. Although, I think this is really more of a plot problem than a character problem.

Final Thoughts

Ria: Overall, this was a pretty okay story. There was nothing new or spectacular about it (except maybe the women and STEM theme). I think that if you’re looking for just a read to pass time with a pretty cute and easy plot, this would be a good book to read.

Jhanya: The book isn’t bad. But at the same time, it’s not good either. It is very similar to Love, Hypothesis but the fact that it was so much alike did not do it any favors. There was too much this time yet they were all still under-utilized. I’m not too keen now on Ali Hazelwood’s future books as it’s been the same with her latest novellas as well.

As Ria said, it’s a chill read for people who want to pass time. I wouldn’t really recommend it if asked. I’ll just recommend Love, Hypothesis again.

Rating

Criteria	Jhanya	Ria
Story / Plot (2)	1	1.25
Characters (2)	1.25	1.25
Writing (2)	1.25	1.25
Morale (1)	0.75	1
Originality (1)	0.5	0.5
Relevance (1)	0.75	1
Reread Value (1)	0.5	0.5
TOTAL	6	6.75
Final Score	63.75