Eva Acharya

A STEMinist romcom by Ali Hazelwood, published in 2023 by Berkley Romance (an imprint of Berkley, a division of PRH USA).

Backcover Blurb:

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.

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?

Ali Hazelwood is represented by Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

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[Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers. If you are someone who hates spoilers, do not read ahead. Go read the books or watch the movies first. Keep in mind that this breakdown of the story is simply one perspective (mine) and may differ from others. I am simply just an author trying to learn from experts in the industry. You might not agree with my interpretation of the story, and that’s okay, too. But don’t argue with me about it. I’m just as entitled to my opinion and understanding as you are to yours. However, I hope you will take away something valuable in my breakdown of the stories I study. The following is NOT a review of the books/movies, but I may discuss elements I liked and elements that didn’t work for me. ]

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Before I read this book, I had no idea Ali Hazelwood had a PhD. in neuroscience and she is a professor. All I knew was that she was someone who writes phenomenal romcoms I kept hearing about. But as soon as I read her bio in the book, I told myself, ‘No wonder she writes STEM romcoms/romances. She’s got the background for it!’ I might have followed it up with ‘aww’, because I felt inspired suddenly. Part of me was saying, ‘If Hazelwood [who is far more awesome and awe spiring than you] can do science and write romcoms, and English is her second language, you can too. Hop to it!’

Suffice to say, I’ve been hopping since that day – well, as well as anyone can hop with an 8-month-old bub who demands mummy pick her up all the time. Every morning since then, about a month ago, I’ve been chipping away at a rewrite I’ve been wanting to do; turning an award-winning romantic-suspense webnovel of mine into a full-fledged romcom. I’m on chapter 8 of god knows how many. It’s been slow going, but progress is progress and I have Hazelwood to thank (not that she knows it). I may have become an Ali Hazelwood fan just for that reason. She’s the poster-author for me; a routine reminder that this dream is possible for women like me. Like that song from the animated movie, Anastasia, goes, “If she can learn to do it, I can learn to do it too.” (I’m possibly paraphrasing but you get my point.) So here goes.

This book is also what started the idea of studying romcoms for their structure for me. Then that idea ballooned even more, and I thought, ‘maybe others might want to see what I find as well,’ so here I am. 

I was looking for some other book when I came across a copy of Love, Theoretically at the local library and grabbed that instead, just to see what the fuss was about. 

Overall, I enjoyed Hazelwood’s writing. Her narrative voice was light and easy to read, sprinkled with candid honesty and humour I loved (sciencey jokes had me giggling for sure! I’m someone who enjoys puns myself). Some of her turn of phrases and sentences were impeccable and noteworthy, and I loved how she incorporated interiority. Overall, I dug it and will read her backlog for sure. 

I have a tiny confession, though. I was slightly disappointed when I realised Dr. Elsie Hannaway and Dr. Johnathan ‘Jack’ Smith-Turner were not work rivals. They were enemies for sure (in Elsie’s books) but they were not what I’d call ‘work rivals’. Work rivals to me usually means two people who work in the same building/company, but I felt the back copy alluded to it — that they were rivals. Perhaps the fault lies with me misunderstanding it. 

Also, I found Dr. Elsie Hannaway’s character slightly contradictory. She was supposed to be this smart young woman whose side hustle implied that she was a pro at reading people and molding herself to their likability, yet she cannot read what a twat her mentor is? She cannot read what he’s putting down? I picked up on her mentor being an antagonist from early on, and none of her meetings with him made me believe that a woman like her wouldn’t pick up on his passive-aggressive, controlling attitudes. That was the only thing that bugged me throughout the entire story. I just didn’t believe a woman who can read others so well as she could, couldn’t read him. Thus, the entire premise of I-hate-Jack-because-he-hurt-my-mentor angle felt somewhat impersonal and forced. It’s a big plot point that basically kept Elsie from declaring her love for Jack, and I didn’t buy it.

One can absolutely dislike someone who causes grief to a person we care about, yes, but hate them so much so that you keep them at bay (and hold yourself back) because so and so told you to stay away from them, felt improbable. 

Other than that, I couldn’t have picked a better story to start my ‘A Study in Structure’ venture. Love, Theoretically is a well loved romcom and I’m someone who loves romcoms, be they book/movies/tv shows. It’s also a genre I also write in. I’m excited to look at this story on a deeper level and learn more about the genre and its conventions from Ali Hazelwood. 

Quick reminder: SPOILERS AHEAD! Read at your discretion.

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Structure of Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The story followed the classic romcom structure where a clumsy, down on their luck protagonist working towards an external and internal goals meets a confident, intimidating love interest they don’t realise they like for a long time because of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. The entire story is about how that miscommunication escalates, to gets corrected, and leads to the lovers getting together. Only for the bump in the road to jeopardise their new relationship, which naturally forces the lovers apart for a short while, that is until the air gets cleared. The protagonist realises their mistake, makes a grand gesture and wins the love of their life back. Finally. Then comes the (implied) happily ever after (HEA), usually in an epilogue chapter. That is a must. Like all romances, a romcom also ends in an HEA. And if not a HEA, it has to have a HFN (happily for now).

If we were to strip the story back to just its major beats in Plot A, you’ll see that the lovely, bare bones of almost every romcom made are at play.  

What’s the bare bones, you say? Well, if you’re new to romcoms, below is a breakdown of the general, sweeping beats in a romcom. According to the Screencraft website, a classic romcom has: 

1. Two lovable leads,
2. A meet-cute (that may or may not be actually ‘cute’, awkward will also do, so will cringe),
3. A unique situation (that brews all the trouble),
4. Minimum, one good sidekick (who kicks the protag into action, cheers them on, or escalates the problem),
5. A fun montage (to show how the star-crossed-lovers go from being strangers/friends/rivals to realising, ‘oh, I have feelings for that person’), 
6. New relationship blooms, and almost immediately is jeopardised (the conflict caused by a certain miscommunication comes to a head!),
7. The lightbulb moment (where protag realises their grave mistake, that they should not have let their new lover go!),
8. A grand gesture (or one epic line that makes us go ‘awww’ and gets the relationship back on track), and
9. A happy ending (whether it’s HEA or HFN)

(Read the full article on romcom here: https://screencraft.org/blog/the-9-elements-of-all-great-rom-coms/)

The reason I looked at a screenwriting website is, I’m also a screenwriter and find that the screenplay format is so rigid that you have to be economical with the space your given (under 120 pages), so following the story beats of a shorter medium is easier. But don’t let that fool you. You’ll find the same beats also underline longer works, such as a novel, just with added interior world of the protag. 

First, let’s see if Love, Theoretically followed the above convention:

Elsie is the clumsy, bumbling, mistaken protag with a grudge against one scientist who ruined her field (that scientist being the LI). Jonathan, aka, ‘Jack’ is the intimidating, smart, handsome, enigmatic, and protective-of-little-brother LI who doesn’t trust Elsie, the brother’s so-called girlfriend, to begin with (Two lovable leads– ✅check.) They meet in the prologue, which takes place in a tight toilet cubicle that leads to awkward holds and touches, and hints at the embers of romance (the awkward meet-cute -✅check). Elsie knows Jack, prior to the awkward pre-interview she finds herself in, for a job she needs if she’s ever to carry on her research. But complications arise when she realises one of the panel members is the snobby brother of her fav fake-dating client — who hasn’t told his family he doesn’t really have a girlfriend. Jack knows her as a librarian, not a physicist. And Elsie can’t reconcile with the fact that Jack is the Jonathan Smith-Turner. The man who single-handed destroyed her mentor’s career and brought her whole theoretical physics field into question. A man she’s vowed to hate forever, but Elsie is also desperate for the tenure at MIT for the reason mentioned above (a unique, troublesome situation created – ✅check).

Elsie’s best friend/flatmate, Cece, is the sounding board Elsie needs, acting as a catalyst for certain plot points (minimum, one good sidekick – ✅check). As Elsie attempts to impress the interview panel over the course of 3 days, she finds Jack (annoyingly) attractive (despite her vow to hate him!), especially the way he looks at her. And he seems to want to help her, weirdly. Slowly, the two continue to orbit one another and eventually succumb to their attraction. A whirlwind romance ensues, captured over 2-3 spicy chapters (a fun montage – ✅check). Elsie is in love. Jack is everything she dreamed of and she doesn’t have to pretend to be someone else with him. Finally. Freedom to be who she is. But soon, she learns Jack led her astray. They have hired the other candidate, a woman, his friend, the one he really wanted to hire all along. She never stood a chance. Feelings are hurt. Elsie feels betrayed. But, the new hiree has enough funding and offers Elsie a job, which she’s torn about, as it means working in the same lab as Jack, the man who destroyed her field and her mentor’s career, a mentor she feels obligated to side with. But then, Elsie discovers Jack’s article, the one he wrote all those years ago harming her chosen field and her mentor’s career, was nothing more than a revenge act.

She can’t be with such a man who destroyed an entire arm of physics anymore, especially when he blames her mentor for stealing his mother’s research (new relationship blooms, and almost immediately is jeopardised – ✅check). Elsie is angry. She meets with her mentor to tell him what’s happened, to confront him — to prove Jack wrong — only to realise Jack was right all along. Her mentor stole Jack’s mother’s research and passed it on as his own, and he has been jeopardising Elsie’s career as well (which I saw coming from a mile away, so I don’t know how an astute person such as her, didn’t, but that’s a matter for another day).

She finally realises her mentor was the bad guy all along and that Jack was a good man who cared for her (the lightbulb moment – ✅check). When Jack publicly apologises to all theorists, especially to Elsie, for harm done in another article, she’s still reluctant to forgive him. It’s only when her best friend asks her, ‘What do you want?’ that propels her to realise it’s Jack. She wants Jack, and in a grand gesture (✅check), Elsie seeks him out at his work and they kiss, in front of all his colleagues.

She then accepts the job Jack’s friend offered her, finally resumes her research, and is madly in love with Jack. By the end of the story, she is ready to commit to him just the same way he’s committed to her, forever ( a happy ending delivered – ✅check). 

As you can see from the above, Love, Theoretically, ticks every check box for a classic romcom and does it linearly. The protagonist (Dr Elsie Hannaway) classically misunderstands the love interest (Jack Smith), which propels the story forward, and we get many scenes where we just want to reach in and shake her. Then her misunderstanding/miscommunication leads to further trouble (Elsie thinks Jack hates all theorists hence why he tried to discredit the entire field, and therefore dislikes her as well) and this underpins all the conflict/stakes that arise because she feels duty bound to hate him in return. Here, the conflict is mostly internal. Elsie fights her attraction to Jack because of a flawed belief system – that he is the enemy – because of a warped sense of loyalty she feels towards her mentor, who maintains he was ‘wronged’ by Jack all those years ago and is the reason theorists all over have become a laughingstock. Her misunderstanding not only almost cost her the new relationship, but almost makes her destroy her own career by almost choosing to remain under her mentor’s influence. But her sidekick has other plans and asks her what she truly wants, and delivers the one piece of information that makes Elsie take a leap of faith. 

Ali Hazelwood is brilliant at building the UST (unresolved sexual tension) and holding it. Who doesn’t love a broody, mysterious, sexy love interest and a neurotic main character? But the chemistry between the MC and the LI, which was usually great, was a root of frustration for me. Here was this grown up, this adult (Elsie), letting her mentor’s biases become her own biases that she was virtually damaging both personal and professional prospects for herself. But, in saying that, often it is this irrational bias a protagonist has, that makes a story, and I wouldn’t have mind it as much if her other job wasn’t to moonlight as a fake-girlfriend-for-hire as this woman with the superpower to mold herself after what people want because she can read them so well.

While I enjoyed a deviation from an ordinary romcom into the STEM oriented romcom, I noted that some of the science portions might feel overwhelming. But hey, everyone deserves love, even scientists in our nerdy community and our punny ways of talking! Makes me want to attempt a STEMinist romcom myself one day, but who knows? For now, I shall stick to my awkward, clumsy Nepali protagonists and their journey to love in their own odd ways, complete with a meddling sidekick of their own (usually their Ma!). 

Alright, now that we’ve seen how Love, Theoretically follows genre conventions, it’s also easy to see why readers have loved it. Certain story structures are so popular. They are like a warm hug, something familiar we can sink our teeth into and get lost in. I am keen to study more of Hazelwood’s stories to see how she masters the genre every time.

And if you’re keen to see a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of story beats for Love, Theoretically (following the Save The Cat beat sheet), follow me for the next post, where I will do exactly that. (For a beat sheet rundown, you can check out this ReedsyBlog).

In the meantime, keep writing, keep reading, keep dreaming.

Eva 🧡