Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Love, Theoretically

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

10 reviews

noellegrace8's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a great, fun romance read that says a ton about character and careers. I love when romances are also plot-driven, and with the excess (in a good way!) amount of physics concepts, university politics, and familial issues, this absolutely fits the bill. The main characters have electric chemistry, and the side characters are also all fully fleshed out and interesting. I actually teared up two or three times while reading this, even though it's not that dramatic of a plot, because I could just feel the emotion of the characters/ where they were coming from so much. I feel like I could relate to and learn a lot from Elsie.

A few low points for me personally were some of the wording that won't age well, some cheesy moments that seemed to lean a bit too much into the classic tropes of the genre instead of modern takes, and the epilogue. I'm not really into the trope of adding prologues and epilogues to romance novels, I'm not really sure where that came from and why it's so popular. But this prologue didn't add anything to the plot, and the epilogue was mildly confusing. I felt like maybe it was a callback to something within the book, but if it was, I had completely forgotten about the reference by the time I reached the epilogue. Also, what happened to Kyle?? And, I got annoyed by the idea that Elsie's brothers were fully grown adults acting like children, and the mother is okay with that, AND Elsie entertains it? Moments talking about her brothers fighting over some chick were just not convincing to me at all.

I don't factor audiobook performance into my overall review of a book, but I would give Thérèse Plummer 4/5⭐️. She did a fine performance, although her male voices came across as a bit odd, unlike some other female narrators I've heard.

Content Warnings

wilybooklover's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

3.0

This is my first Ali Hazelwood book, and I have very mixed feelings.

First of all, if I had to hear ONE MORE TIME about how gigantic Jack was, I might have screamed. It was so repetitive and unnecessary — I promise that I won’t forget between page 35 and page 40 that he’s built like a refrigerator. Combined with how naïve and oblivious Elsie was, and how overbearing Jack was, I didn’t really enjoy the actual romance much. I found Jack quite creepy to be honest

(he keeps a photo of her in his bedside table when they genuinely barely know each other? He wants her to move in when they've barely been together for one weekend?? He wants to lock her in his room for two weeks??? WHAT).

He also came across as condescending most of the time to me, and like he infantilised the heroine. The sex scenes were so awkward and not in a cute way (although I liked the emphasis on consent). And what kind of Swedish surname is Turner? Then the villain seemed so flat and cartoonish, rather than a fully-fleshed out character, especially during the conflict. Also, this is very petty but I hate cheese and had to suffer through so much talk about cheese in this book. Enough about cheese already!!

On the other hand, there were some things I really liked. I loved Elsie’s character arc about learning how not to be such a people pleaser all the time, and how she ended up going to therapy at the end. I liked the setup for how the MCs meet (she’s fake dating his brother, and he begins to suspect something is off). I enjoyed the very realistic depiction of being a woman in STEM and how very science-y the whole book was. I really liked how much Jack just wanted to take care of Elsie, gave her space when she asked for it, and how he didn’t mess with her career even when he was suspicious of her (look, it's a low bar, but it’s disappointing how often that happens in romance). It was great how he completely respected her academic intellect and was so emotionally open with her as well... even if that openness is completely lost on her lol. I also liked how Elsie actually calls Jack out on how patronising he’s being by acting like she can’t make her own decisions. Plus, all of the major side characters besides the villain were well-drawn and enjoyable to read; I particularly liked Cece and Millicent.

One final thought: the STEMinist appellation promptly needs to die in a fire, thank you.

Content Warnings

ghostly_girlfriend's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Going into this book I did not think I was going to like it because I did not enjoy her first book "Love hypothesis". This was a nice suprise, I found this book a nice change from Ali Hazlewoods usual writing. I like that the fake dating was not the main trope in the book. Also the plot was also very interesting, I'm happy if wasnnot just focused on the characters but had real world development.

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carterk98's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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cantstopwontstopreading's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is not a light hearted or fun romance as many reviews promise. This is the story of a woman who cannot get out of her own way to manage getting any happiness for herself. Yes the big idea is she’s doing it for feminist reasons but the number of times this obviously brilliant woman makes stupid decisions instead of playing the game smartly is too damn high.

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sneezy_5000's review against another edition

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emotional funny

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Honestly really loved this. I've enjoyed all of Hazelwood's books so far, but I feel like this one went a bit deeper than the first two, which I liked.

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amandaboyer's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

lujisa's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

frenchvanillapowdercreamer's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

sbbs245's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I enjoyed this book a lot and was happy to see a female character in a romance book undergo character development. I was waiting the whole time for her to yell at her mom. My only complaint was Hazelwood's continuing obsession with making every female character tiny and dainty and so so so small compared to a massive bear-like-tree-sized-giant-man-giant-hands-giant-you-know-what guy. I don't care all that much if the guy is taller or broad-er but her insistance on mentioning the size difference every third page shines light on her own proclivities

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