Ali Hazelwood’s third STEM rom-com novel, “Love, Theoretically” (2023), became a bestseller following up on the runaway success of her two previous books, her breakout debut “The Love Hypothesis” (2021) and “Love on the Brain” (2022). The film adaptation of “Love, Theoretically” is currently being developed by Amazon MGM Studios and will be directed by Sofia Alvarez, who previously adapted the hit “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” trilogy. Alvarez is also set to write the screenplay for the romantic comedy with Hazelwood as a co-writer and the film’s executive producer. 

“Love, Theoretically” features Elsie Hannaway as its main protagonist, a cash-strapped young female academic trying to land a coveted tenure-track position in theoretical physics. The novel opens with Elsie a year out from completing her PhD at Northeastern University, struggling to cope with the economic realities of adjuncting—poor pay, no job security, no sick days, and no health insurance.  

She is teaching nine courses across three campuses—a course load that amounts to roughly 500 students a semester to manage on her own as a late-twentysomething trying to project an image of an in-control, independent adult. Their lame emailed excuses for why they can’t even come to class, let alone produce any coursework, become the dark comic paratext of a novel perched on the premise that a workaholic like Elsie inadvertently develops a love life. 

Ironically, because her work is never done, Elsie has also taken on a side hustle with a fake-dating app called Faux. In contrast to the solidly middle-class atmosphere at the comparatively lower-grade academic institutions where she adjuncts, this position puts her on a path to encounter young men from elite backgrounds.

Elsie pretends to be romantically involved with these young single men for social events, family gatherings, or work parties, the deal being that it lets them show up with the perfect, customized date to keep up appearances without having to do the emotional labor of forming such attachments themselves. In the guise of a fake dater/librarian girlfriend, she catches the eye of one of their brothers—Jack—who happens to be an experimental physicist himself—only she doesn’t know that yet and thinks he is a physical education teacher because the man in question is ripped (as compared to his weedy brother, Greg/her faux boyfriend). 

Their meet-cute happens at exactly the moment where she passes out on the date at his family home, because she is a Type 1 diabetic having a slice of cake to please the others, and not able to sufficiently dose her insulin. As it turns out, she requires a continuous insulin glucose monitor (CGM), sensors and supplies of fast sugar to keep alive, and despite working all the hours that God sends, it sometimes doesn’t all add up. Noticing her going into a crash, Jack catches her in his arms—when no one else, including Greg, seems to notice.  

But wait, on top of all that, Elsie has to perform at another level of pressure still—when she lands an interview for her dream tenure-track job at MIT—and in front of Jack, who turns out to be Jack Turner-Smith, a rockstar experimental physicist. As you can imagine, this novel is rather twisty and makes you follow a lot of details about Elsie, including a pattern of low self-esteem, people-pleasing, overwork, sexual inexperience and professional sabotage involving a senior male colleague, which carry over as motifs in Hazelwood’s first novel. 

Her developing attachment to Jack even invites a cameo appearance from her first successful protagonists, Olive Smith and Dr. Adam Carlsen, into the story here for fans to savor. What does change, however, is that Elsie is made to confront her failings–not professionally so much as personally–in ways that allow us to really consider what it is that makes her insecurities hinder her otherwise apparent genius. Jack, for the most part, is the good guy helping her along while fighting his own developmental demons. 

There is some sleight-of-hand in making him seem less creepy than he might be, because long passages of the book seem to deal with his obsession about Elsie from the first time he encounters her in the company of his brother, Greg, at that fateful gathering.

He claims to be jealous of his brother and defensive about his feelings when Elsie seems not to be credibly attached to him, but, generally speaking, this side of things quickly gets out of hand. Jack subtly makes his attraction to her known, scene after scene, as the two find themselves alone during the days-long interview process.

The glitch is that Jack has threatened the very premise of her career by writing a scathing article that tanks the intellectual weight of theoretical physics, so the question arises: how can she find this dude remotely appealing, or, more importantly, how can Hazelwood redeem his character arc? All I can say is, look for a bigger baddie that has been hiding in plain sight all along, and spoiler alert, it isn’t Jack’s ambiguously rendered younger brother, Greg.   

On a related note, the announcement that Colleen Hoover and her company, Heartbones Entertainment, are producing “Love, Theoretically” drew strong backlash online. Fans feared it would fundamentally compromise the integrity of Hazelwood’s signature mix of thoughtful relationship dynamics and authentic insight into STEM’s intellectual atmosphere from the perspective of young professionals. Setting the action between Northeastern and MIT as an intellectual rivalry is definitely an IYKYK moment! Readers remain critical of past controversies surrounding Hoover, but it is hoped that Alvarez working alongside Hazelwood can retain that insider flair.

News also just broke that Netflix is developing Hazelwood’s 2025 bestseller “Deep End” with Laura Kosann as screenwriter. The sports romance involves a competitive diver and college swimmer. Hazelwood is set to executive produce alongside Matthew Janzen, Emily Morris and Emily Feher, and producers Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Alex Cooper and Matt Kaplan. Laura Kosann will write the script.

About the writer

Stephanie Polsky, like most academics, dreads the intensity of interviews in the academic job market and relates to the idea that finding career belonging is as much an article of faith as is finding love itself.