5/5

For fans of: enemies-to-lovers, science, academia, pining, STEM, romance

The Big Questions:

• What genre is this in? Romance, rom-com

• Are there any swoon-worthy characters? So Jack is blonde, which isn’t my jam, but he’s built like a fridge so there’s that.

• Is it spicy? Hot damn yes.

• Is it violent or gory? Nope.

• Should I buy, borrow, or pass on this book? If you are a fan of Ali Hazelwood, of course buy it!

Synopsis: 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?

Review: As a fellow people pleaser who feels like the real you is never going to be enough or will always be too much, I understood Elsie 100%. Fellow people pleasers, this is for us. We just want to find that one person who sees us, supports us, and calls us out when we need it. Enter Jack, also known as Dr. Jonathan Turner-Smith, the bane of her (and her mentor’s) existence. Baby girl has a vendetta against this man and I don’t blame her. He doesn’t help himself in any department to prove he isn’t the academic career destroying, scientific field disrupting, all around cold-hearted heartthrob everyone thinks he is. But Elsie has to eat, have a roof on her head, and afford insulin, so I get it. Get that bag.

The description of working in academia and trying to get into research was absolutely brutal. It reminds me that I made the right choice to not follow that path when I was thinking about grad school. I hate the interview process now in a non-academic field; I would not have made it through informal meet and greets, rounds of interviews, and lecturing demonstrations. Back to the romance: did I eat up the banter, yes. Did I squeal every time Jack called Elsie out on her trying to please everyone instead of standing up for herself, YES. Did I kick my feet every step of the way on their journey from academic rivals to lovers. Y.E.S. Ali hit it out of the ballpark again!