60 pages • 2 hours read
Ali HazelwoodLove on the Brain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Romance Genre Tropes
Love on the Brain is a romance novel and follows the conventions typical of the genre: It has a couple at its center, is narrated from the perspective of the female protagonist, and is mainly focuses on the development of the couple’s romantic relationship. Because the novel is a romantic comedy, humor plays an important role in plot development: The meet cute, in which a cat knocks over some equipment, causing Bee to fall into Levi’s arms, signals a lighthearted tone. Despite the ups and downs the couple faces, they and everyone else around them, experience a happy ending to their story.
The novel features the “enemies-to-lovers” trope, in which Bee and Levi are presented as grad school nemeses at the outset. Hazelwood uses the “stuck-together” trope, forcing the two to be unavoidably thrown together in a situation not entirely of their choosing. The situation heightens conflict and provides opportunities for their relationship to develop; because they have a history, they must confront the past to move forward.
The main tropes echo in the storylines of secondary characters, creating narrative symmetry, and situations commonly used in romantic writing bring the couples closer together—for instance, one incident sees Bee stuck in a situation where she is forced to call Levi for help, allowing him to be presented as a knight in shining armor.
Critical Context: Women in STEM
Along with being a writer of romance, Hazelwood is also a neuroscience professor, and her writing focuses on the experiences of women in STEM and the discrimination they face. The protagonist, Bee, is a smart and efficient neuroscientist who prizes her intellectual and academic accomplishments above all else. This is reinforced through the chapter titles, all of which are named after the part of the brain responsible for the corresponding emotion, perception, or experience that is explored in the title. Another example is the numerous anecdotes from the life of Dr. Marie Curie, Bee’s idol, which she narrates to reflect on and process her own experiences. Curie as a repeating motif also points to a major theme explored in the book of the perceptions surrounding, and experiences of women in STEM. By paralleling incidents from Curie’s life with what Bee experiences in contemporary times, Hazelwood draws attention to the kind of sexism, discrimination, and unfair limitations that women and other marginalized groups continue to face in STEM and academia. In this manner, the specific context of women in STEM allows Hazelwood to explore conventional romantic tropes in an unconventional setting. It also allows her to elevate the ideas explored in the book to a level not generally seen in a typical romance novel, transforming the context of the book into one of its major themes.
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