By: Ali Hazelwood
A 3 for 1 deal today. YOU ARE WELCOME!
Late last year, I saw The Love Hypothesis all over my IG page. I requested it from my local library and promptly forgot all about it. By the time it became available, I almost didn’t even go pick it up. But, I am extremely glad I did. I really loved that book. I thought the characters were really well developed and while some of the characters’ decisions were WILD, I did feel their actions made sense for their personalities. All of this is to say that when Barnes & Noble offered a special half off pre-order campaign earlier this year, I felt extremely comfortable with purchasing each of Hazelwood’s loosely joined STEMinist series novellas, Under One Roof, Stuck with You and Below Zero for a whopping total of like $6.44.
Now that I have read all three, do I feel the same as JANUARY ME? I mean, mostly yes. First, I am very, very rich so $6.44 is nothing to me. (This is not true). But also, $6.44 for my terrible book buying habit/addiction, is actually reasonable for me, so this is all fine. I also came into this with the assumption that these were probably unpublishable early works of Hazelwood that were being published solely to capitalize on Hazelwood’s new fame (I CAN CONFIRM) and in my opinion, the simple length of a novella is typically too short to make for a fully fleshed out story. There just isn’t any room. So, again, all of this exposition to let you know that I went into this with reserved expectations, which were basically met. Are these amazing books? No, they are not. Are they terrible? No, not that either. I think they would be a fine use of a library borrow, but probably no need to purchase the new formatted book, Loathe to Leave You, which contains all three novellas in one book.
Under One Roof
The plot of this novella is bananas. Mara Floyd recently graduated with her Ph.D. in environmental science. Her late advisor and mentor, Helena, left Mara her ownership in a house in Washington, D.C., the exact location of her new job as a scientist at the EPA. The main issue, and MAN IS IT A WRINKLE, is that Helena did not own the home herself. She co-owned the property with a relative, Liam Harding. Since the title transfer, Liam’s lawyers have unsuccessfully tried to buy Mara out of the property rights. She instead, with no prior warning or discussion, shows up at the house and just chooses one of Liam’s guest rooms and MOVES RIGHT IN. I mean, she legitimately rings the doorbell of said inheritance house, tells Liam who she is when he answers the door and then when he becomes upset with her, she argues with him. At the conclusion of the argument, she just walks into the home and grabs a room. Guys, LIAM FURNISHED THIS ROOM? WITH HIS STUFF? LIKE, HE OWNS THE LAMPS? Mara, lovey. What are you doing?
Liam is also supposed to be a fancy pants lawyer, but if this were true, he would absolutely have had her thrown out of that house immediately. While, yes, she has some ownership interest in the property, no Court would allow her to show up unannounced and live in this man’s guest room. Anyway, we are supposed to believe that Liam is absolutely such a nightmare because he is unreasonably angry that she moved in and it greatly concerns me that Mara never wrote into redditt’s AITA? because I think it maybe would have given her some much needed clarity and feedback.
Mara is not terrible, but she comes across very juvenile and naive. Example: she loves to eat cheese-its. (This is not a joke, by the way.) When she starts to develop feelings for Liam, instead of communicating that with him, she does literally anything else. It felt as though she was younger than a woman who would have defended a thesis to obtain a Ph.D. I will admit, I do like Hazelwood’s portrayal of an obviously very intelligent, successful woman, who maybe doesn’t have it all together and has a Bachelor-style reality show blog. I think it makes the character relatable, and shows that a woman can be smart AND fun. But Mara’s inability to share her feelings felt a little like Olive from TLH without the background context. And frankly, Liam wasn’t any better. The only two reasons he even makes a move on her is because he overheard her speaking about him on the phone to her graduate school friends, Sadie and Hannah.
However, I thought the tension between the two characters was well done and I suppose they will work out since they are both so similar. Neither would ever be able to admit to a different human being-person that they had feelings for them, so there is nowhere else for these two to go. This was fine, but also the worst of the bunch.
Rating: 🌟🌟/5
Stuck On You
The plot of Book #2 is NOT bananas, but also needed an editor to even out the story. Sadie (who we met as a friend of Mara in UOR above) is a civil engineer in New York City. She specializes in sustainable, green engineering at a small, boutique firm called GreenFrame. GreenFrame shares a building with a big bad, large conglomerate engineering firm called ProBld, which GreenFrame frequently loses its clients.
Sadie’s “quirk” is that she is superstitious. Before any big pitch to prospective clients, Sadie must purchase a terrible croissant from a specific coffee shop. One morning, the owner tells her that she just sold the last croissant to another customer. After noticing Sadie start emotionally reeling, the customer hands her the croissant and walks out of the store. Sadie, a former college soccer star, chases the customer down to thank him. When he doesn’t respond to her, she combines his lack of response and his Viking good looks, into assuming he doesn’t speak English, which I did find charming. They start talking and she learns the customer is Erik Nowak, originally from Denmark and also an engineer but works at her professional nemesis, ProBld. They end up going out to dinner that night. I did enjoy most of their chemistry, but I was an ick factor for me when he offered her a job at ProBld. While she doesn’t know this, Erik is one of the founders of ProBld so even giving him every benefit of the doubt, HE KNOWS HE IS THE BOSS and he was on a first date asking her to work for him. Yuck.
One of the improvements to this novella is that Sadie has a lot more confidence in herself than Mara. She is the one who initiates going back to his place after dinner. There is also a great moment of consent between the two of them that was well-written and paced. Plot-wise, Sadie’s decision to not communicate with Erik any more makes a little more sense since they had only known each other for 24 hours. It is realistic to me that Hannah would believe her boss’s suggestion that Erik used her to obtain their environmental-friendly strategies and she wouldn’t confront Erik directly about it.
The fact that their conflict is only resolved because the two of them get stuck alone in an elevator together is fairly contrived, but I mean, this is a romance novel blog, so this is fine to me. This is basically an insta love story, which isn’t really my personal jam, but this book ranks higher than UOR.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟/5
Below Zero
Below Zero is the last novella in this STEMinsit series. Hannah is the third best friend from graduate school. We have learned a bit about her through her phone calls with Mara and Sadie in the previous two novellas. I also think this premise could have become a full book, had it been allowed space to develop. It is also the best one of the group, although that doesn’t say much. A minor irritation of mine, and one that could have been resolved with better editing, but the timeline appeared to be incorrect. From conversations in the previous works, certain actions occurred at different times, which is just sloppy.
That being said, BZ had a much better grasp on character foundation for the main characters. While it was still brief, we learned more of their backstory. Hannah, especially, is explored through flashbacks to her childhood and her feelings of familial inadequacy leading to her preemptively rejecting people before they have a chance to reject her. It makes more sense that she would refuse any potential commitment from Ian, and I did like how both characters were honest about what they wanted. I also liked that Hannah’s bisexuality was sort of a throwaway line. It was just a part of her and Hazelwood did not feel the need to over-explain it or congratulate herself for the fact she added this into the book. That was refreshing.
Now, I am not sure if you believe that my day job is as a scientist, but just so we are clear, it is not. I am not a scientist and I frankly did not understand what Hannah needed to do in the arctic for NASA, but it seemed very strange to me that NASA was just potentially going to leave Hannah to die in this frozen crevice. I give you a 1 out of 10, NASA. BUT ALSO, exactly how did Ian discover she was injured? He just took some PTO to monitor NASA’s scientist communications, like just in case? ADDITIONALLY, did he rent or does he already own this arctic boat? They also just leave to head back to DC after this incident because she EMAILED a complaint to what I assume is NASA’s HR DEPARTMENT, like “Dear Sir or Madam, my boss left me to die on a glacier. I am displeased. Luckily, a co-worker was in the neighborhood and could rescue me. Please follow up at your convenience.” Maybe Mara just picking a random guest room to move into isn’t as bananas as I originally thought??
Finally, the use of descriptions of Mars (the planet, not the candy company) as a sort of aphrodisiac is not my personal thing (NOT TO SHAME), so that was a bit weird for me and I just skipped over those parts. Otherwise, the pining and chemistry between Hannah and Ian were very good. Hazelwood excels at a good romantic pine. In the end, this does work, but I wish it could have had more editing and room to fully realize the story. I think it could have been a good book.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟+/5 (giving this a 3+ because it is better than SOU, but it is not a 4)
These books are all sold separately in an electronic book format, or you can purchase the paperback version called Loath to Love You, containing all three novels.
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/loathe-to-love-you-ali-hazelwood/1141748042?ean=9780593437803
An independent bookstore near you OR JUST SAVE YOURSELF SOME CASH AND BORROW THIS FROM THE LIBRARY!