3.75 extendable to 4 when i feel like it/5

Oh, this was a good one. Or I'm just experiencing the euphoria of reading something light and fun after The Atlas Paradox which has left me broken.

I read this after having read the review of a friend, so I thought I knew what I was getting into—a classic Hazelwood territory of large, big men and small, petite women having boobs of proportions that can completely fit into one's mouth. While I'm not one to judge bodily differences, a man being able to dislocate his jaw enough to fit a whole boob does throw me off.


That was so not the case with Love, Theoretically. Hazelwood's take on institutional discrimination as well as sexism in academia was spelled out so well with this novel. Moreover, the characters actually had enough depth and felt far more realistic than Adam&Olive. That quickly dissipates towards the end, but I'll give credit where it's due nonetheless.

I loved how persistent Elsie was with her habitual identity reduction; how obvious it was to Jack what she was doing; how easy it was for him call her out on her bullshit; the quick evaluations she made to ascertain what her target wanted from her; her internal monologue dripping with venom while her actual words were smeared with honey —you can tell I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
The first half actually– surprisingly –impressed me. I even laughed at certain moments, which almost felt unreal because romcoms never manage to get more than a smile from me.

The smut however, was a little...off. it was hot, no doubt about it, but it felt jarring, especially given the circumstances in which it happened. The first time they sexually interacted was perfectly logical, because the context was there. It was only the "sexcation weekend" scenario that followed that felt off to me considering that Elsie was still learning how to demand something she wanted without feeling like demands had to be transactional. She was learning to be comfortable with her needs and being selfish for once—an achievement I was fully on board with because, firstly, it was long overdue and secondly, it made sense for her to act impulsively for once.
It was the consecutive sex scenes that threw me off, because it seemed as though her personality went through a switch almost overnight. A well-developed charcater arc needs to address relapse, needs to address how a personality changes with baby steps and not sudden, impulsive, singular act of freeing yourself from the constraints of your life.

I also think Elsie's life outside Jack and theoretical physics was left untouched and unexplored. It felt a little irrelevant reading about her family only for them to exist solely are one-dimensional characters with 3 traits in total (spread across 3 characters lol).

All in all, it was great. I enjoyed their lead up, the angst, the tension and the personality clashes. Absolutely loved whenever he did a psychological analysis of her. Loved the fact that he went throigh torment because he felt guilty for being attracted (a mild word) to his brother's gf—and how that guilt intensified with his wet dreams of her. Might just re-read it again one of these days.






~spoiler zone~

My favourite part about romcoms is always going to be angst.
Oh, and there was quite a bit in this one.
I absolutely adored the fact that Jack was struggling through those 6 months that he thought she was actually dating his brother. And how he felt jealous of his own brother, how he hated the fact that he felt jealous, how he hated the fact that he dreamt of her, hated how selfish he was to hope their fake relationship was on the rocks because that meant there was hope for them, hated how good that made him feel— everything about this is a solid 5/5.

The scene where she teaches Jack's class and molds her answer as per what the class wanted to hear? Impeccable. Her entire monologue during that time, her overanalyzing these grad students, and playing her cards right for the judges on the panel— it was truly giving Mastermind.

I think I eerily related to her overanalysis, which is why I understood her so well and found her likable to such a large extent. I'd actually melt if I had someone like Jack to catch my lie every single time. It was so fun to read him read her like a book, and him persistently reminding her to be honest—used both an a weapon and a request by Jack.

Most of all, I was thoroughly entertained by the different in Elsie's interpretation of events vs the actual BTS scenes in Jack's head for those same events. Man was busy pining for her and talking to his friends about how helpless and guilty he felt about his feelings, and she thought that his incessant questions about her to Greg were proof that he was suspicious and wary of her