5. Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

listened on Libby (borrowed from the library)

2023
389 pgs.
Adult Rom Com (w/steam)
Finished 1/19/24
Goodreads rating: 4.15
My rating: 3.75/4
Setting: Contemporary MIT (& other Boston Colleges) Academia

My comments: The physics department at MIT, where Elsie is up for a coveted position, has two branches, theoretical and experimental physics, which are very much at odd with each other.  And Jack, the darling (and head) of the department falls for Elsie the first time he sees her, when she is "fake dating" his brother to earn extra money.  This sort of comedy of errors is fun to read.  My biggest problem with the book is that the audio reader, Terese Plummer (who's quite good) is also the reader for one-of-my favorite series (Casey Duncan), and every now and then it would throw me off because I was taken to another place and setting just hearing her voice!  Fun book to read.

Goodreads synopsis:  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.

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?