Not In Love?? We’ll See.
If you told me this book was about biotech mergers and betrayal, I might’ve passed. But slap a moody-romantic cover on it, throw in Ali Hazelwood’s name, and suddenly I’m checking it out from the library faster than you can say “corporate espionage.”
Not In Love had a lot going on—emotionally, thematically, and yes, sexually. The buzz around it was hard to ignore, but does it live up to the hype? Let’s break it down: the aesthetics, the characters, the spice level, and whether this one’s worth adding to your TBR (or not).
Hype Report
Goodreads readers have rated this 3.63 stars, and I agree. This book is appropriately hyped.
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Aesthetic
The Cover
This cover caught my eye. Clearly romantically entangled people with the title Not In Love, coded in romance colors with some vaguely sciencey elements. The typography hints at some chaos. Yep, I’ll stop to read the blurb.
Interior
Because I checked this e-book out from my library, and the app it uses does not send it to Kindle, I read the book fully on my phone. While that is not my preferred method of reading, the experience was not bad because the book’s formatting was properly responsive. This is a testament to the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into making a book available in a digital format. Well done, eBook fomatter, well done.
Did the design affect whether I bought the book?
Yes, I was browsing trending ebooks on my library’s app and stopped at Not In Love‘s cover because I was in the mood for a romance, and I have been seeing a lot of mentions of Ali Hazelwood. So this was a combo scroll stopper.
Summary
In Short
A chance encounter through a hook-up app followed on by the MMC trying to take over the FMCs place of business lead to a complicated entanglement with lots of spicy elements.
From the Publisher
An Indie Next and a Hall of Fame LibraryReads Pick! A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science—from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threaten to bring it all crumbling down.
Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who’s off-limits to him.
Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps.
Character Analysis
Rue is an interesting character in that her shy, socially awkward, bluntly honest personality is not just surface. Those traits are intrinsic. They do not change throughout the book. I love this. Often, we see characters “develop” by shedding their awkwardness and gaining self-awareness. Here, Rue is very self-aware, but has a lot of difficulty relating to or connecting with others. We do see her fall in love, but not in what would be a typical trope-driven way. It is very refreshing. In a way, perhaps her matter-of-fact delivery, Rue reminds me a bit of Elizabeth Zott from Lessons in Chemistry. Eli’s personality is a bit more subtle. I think the reader falls in love with him because of the way he falls in love with Rue. He falls first, falls harder. Infatuated from the first interaction, Eli makes it his business to learn more about her and loves the things about her that make other people turn away. The side characters were also well-drawn and believable – many were even lovable.
That’s quite a…I believe the scientific word for it is ‘coinkydink.’
Writing Style
The writing is compelling. It is easy to read and stay engaged with. Erotic forward, this book is spicy. But the sexual basis of the main characters’ relationship does not overshadow the development of tenderness and respect, and a shared devotion to one another. A delicate balance is struck. Vulnerability between the characters is introduced unusually – sharing deep, dark secrets like they were fun facts – which I am here for. The strange juxtaposition of lust and true open vulnerability is, of course, a breeding ground for attachment, but you just don’t see this approach in other novels.
I’d told him things I’d never admitted out loud to another soul. It was the same for him, I knew without having to ask.
Themes
A fun spin on enemies-to-lovers/forbidden romance. They shouldn’t, but they do. Food insecurity, eating disorders, childhood trauma, and deaths of parents intermingle and drive the plot forward. There is also a well-defined betrayal/revenge plot that cannot be missed. That may seem like a lot to pack into an erotic romance, but Hazelwood does it seamlessly in Not In Love.
Critical Evaluation
Beyond the realistic nature of the characters’ personalities, it’s also worth noting that not every element of angst is resolved in a way that screams “happily ever after.” Compromises are made. While the primary and secondary conflicts are resolved, they are done in a realistic way. This gives the reader room to ruminate on how that might look years down the line, but not too much.
Personal Opinion
Not In Love is the first Ali Hazelwood book I have read. Interestingly, it was one that she comments about in the Foreword as being atypical of her usual writing style. As I liked this book very much, I now feel compelled to try a book in her normal style to see if maybe her books might be “must reads” for me going forward.
She made him eager to do unspeakable things for just one more minute with her. She made him crave that comfortable, expansive silence between them. Rue made him stop and think, and above all, she made him yearn like he’d not thought himself capable of, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life cataloging the ways she shouldn’t have been right for him, and yet still managed to be perfect.
Recommendation
If you like it sweet and spicy, this is for you. Closed-door romance readers need not apply. This book got very mixed reviews on Goodreads—wild swings from full-on LOVE to absolute HATE. As always, I think there is a community for pretty much every book, so I take those extremes with a grain of salt. If it sounds up your alley, read it. I think you might like it, but it’s not something that you’ll be mulling over two weeks from now.
Notes
Please note that some themes may be triggering to those sensitive to them (food insecurity, eating disorders, childhood trauma, and deaths of parents).
If you’ve read other stories by Ali Hazelwood and Not In Love, I’d be interested in your take on how different this is for her style and if you liked it or not.
May your life be as full as your bookshelf and as long as your TBR list.
Happy Reading!
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