A review by keytheelibrarian
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

adventurous funny inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

let's just go ahead and address the NASA rocket in the room, this is a biased review. everybody and their mom's mom knows i absolutely love the love hypothesis and adore ali hazelwood. it's not a secret, i'm not ashamed of it, but it must be said. for that reason, i'm going to start with what i didn't like so i can spend the rest of my time telling y'all how much i enjoyed this 🤭

ali hazelwood is president of the size difference committee. this isn't something i didn't know, but when i read tlh, i think i was still so new to reading again that i didn't notice it as much. in this? love on the brain? it's extremely prevalent. overly obvious. blindingly clear. at first it's like, "okay. she's small, he's big, we got it 😉" and by the time you're halfway through the book it's, "WE GOT IT DAMN!" it was the most annoying thing about the book and the main reason i can't give this 5 stars. 

the entire third act felt rushed. we got conclusions, but not resolutions. a huge part of the plot was skimmed over and tied up in a paragraph that did nothing to tighten loose ends. because of this, the book feels off balance and incorrectly paced. 

love on the brain follows its predecessor's pattern of unknown interaction(s), small, quirky, and nerdy girl forced to be around brooding, hot, dark-haired guy who always comes off as too attractive to be in the field. they secretly develop feelings for each other and then we go into a third act conflict that's usually caused by the friend of aforementioned brooding, hot, dark-haired guy. 

we might disagree on this, but even though it's the same formula with different numbers plugged in...it works 🤷🏾‍♀️. i enjoyed it and if she released another one in the same exact format i would eat it up. 

(just one more though because after that we'll be getting into dragging it territory)

love on the brain gets 4.4⭐s from me! now let me see what these novellas are talking about...