Not in Love

The author's note at the forefront of this book was well-warranted; this was not just another Ali Hazelwood STEM rom-com.

This wasn't swoony, or humorous, or super science and academia-based like her previous works. And no, it's not a paranormal vampire-werewolf arranged marriage story either. This is entirely new territory that leaned into the contemporary fiction more than the contemporary romance, focused more on a business scandal in the science industry than the science itself, and is more emotional and sexual than funny and cute. And I gotta say, I wasn't as disappointed as I expected to be.

I'm a huge fan of Hazelwood, having now read all of her published novels all in this year, and I would consider her to be one of my favorite authors of all time. Not to say I haven't had a bump in the road with one of her stories in the past, but she's one of those authors where I come away from her books feeling emotionally drained and pleasantly empty every single time. With her smol sassy and lovable main characters and her big swoony simp male love interests and so much scientific information packed in that I'm forced to remember that I graduated high school with a 2.4 GPA, I can't help but love her works better than most.

However, this was nothing like those works. Not In Love was a story of healing from past traumas, some of which I could relate to. Dealing with food insecurity and an unstable home life is something I'm no stranger to, so I felt a connection to Rue right away. She's not your typical Hazelwood FMC though, as she doesn't come off as an adorable, likeable ray of sunshine. While it was refreshing to see a new kind of FMC, it kind of made me miss Olive, Bee, and Elsie. I also loved Eli's story, and the mystery behind Florence was so well done- better than the one in Bride, in my humble opinion. I also liked that this was Hazelwood's first foray into a fully dual point-of-view novel. I've been wanting to see dual-POV since reading the Adam's POV bonus content in The Love Hypothesis and I hope she continues this style in her future rom-coms. Plus, the fact that all of her novels are intertwined and set in the same universe is awesome. I loved the Check & Mate reference, it literally made me freak out lol.

In the end, I think this is another great novel from Ali Hazelwood- so long as you go in knowing what to expect. <3