4 — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com The best kinds of romance novels will do more than give you butterflies in your stomach. You might cry or scream into your pillow, or in the case of Ali Hazelwood’s newest release “Love on the Brain,” you might walk away feeling smarter after reading. “Love on the Brain” follows Bee Königswasser, a neuroscientist who has just been offered a dream career opportunity: working for NASA on a special mission. Life in academia is unpredictable (particularly when it comes to job security), so Bee needs everything to go well, but right away she has her work cut out for her. The equipment she needs isn’t ready. She doesn’t have the right credentials to get into her building. But worst of all, her co-leader on the project is Levi Ward, her hot but sworn enemy from grad school … or so she thinks. Given the success of Hazelwood’s debut “The Love Hypothesis,” it’s no surprise that this new “STEM-inist romcom” was one of the more anticipated romance books of 2022. At first glance, the two stories are similar — intelligent but struggling scientists, tall love interests that “hate” their heroine and plenty of Star Wars references — but their differences surpass a simple change in trope. While Bee and Levi both have successful careers in their respective fields and are paired together on an equal playing field, the characters in “The Love Hypothesis” had a more conflicting relationship as teacher and student. Beyond that, the characters in “Love on the Brain” have more to offer than their brains or their … well, if you’ve read the books, you know. Bee may be an insanely smart neuroscientist, but it’s her infatuation with “Love Island” and her downloading of Couch to 5K apps she hardly ever uses that makes her so much more relatable. In the first chapter, we learn that Bee’s also faced a lot of hardship in her life. As a kid she moved around constantly; she’s been struggling to move forward professionally; she was engaged but called it off after finding out her fiancé slept with her best friend. Having poured so much of herself into her career, Bee is left to wonder who she’d be without it. Levi, in contrast, is more than your run-of-the-mill tall, dark, handsome stranger. He’s on Bee’s side whenever something goes wrong, he notices even the smallest things about her and he never tires of telling her how he feels. Also, he goes to therapy. Enough said. Having a PhD in neuroscience herself, Hazelwood knows exactly what she’s writing about — both the good and the bad of the field. She masterfully raises important questions about gender disparity in the sciences without the story coming across as “preachy.” Bee encounters many of the struggles that women in STEM often face. Whether it’s dealing with mansplainers, sexist bosses or being straight up sabotaged, Bee goes through a lot while just trying to do her job. Worse still, her ideas aren’t taken seriously unless one of her male colleagues repeats them in his own words — a phenomenon she refers to as “Sausage Referencing.” How does Bee deal with it all? Her Twitter account, “What Would Marie Do,” inspired by her idol Marie Curie, is Bee’s safe space where she shares her and her female coworkers’ experiences to highlight the harassment that women in STEM deal with on a daily basis. Ironically, what started as a rant propelled her Sports have surrounded me throughout my life. Every year, my parents drove me to a new team event, trying to see if I preferred baseball or soccer, if I was better at tennis or basketball. My dad spent hours watching games on the weekend, talking to my older brothers about sports news so often I don’t remember them talking about much else. I enjoyed growing up outside and playing games with friends, but the obsession with following sports never clicked for me like it did for my brothers and friends. I didn’t understand why people would watch strangers play games they often didn’t play themselves. I fit the stereotype of the nerdy teenager who condescendingly dismissed anyone’s attempt to discuss sports. When I still looked distastefully upon sports, I had moments where I started to realize the attraction of watching them. These moments occurred when I watched sports movies, stories often inspired by real historical events, dramatized and condensed for the big screen. The sports movie that really started my obsession is “Remember the Titans” starring Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of MacBeth”), Ryan Hurst (“Rango”) and Wood Harris (“Creed”). Washington plays Herman Boone, a Virginian high school football coach attempting to racially integrate the team. They go on to win the state championship, overcoming racial tensions between players and coaches, along with prejudice from the community around them. I can’t pinpoint when I first watched “Remember the Titans,” but the film feels like it has always been in the background of my life. On many weekend mornings, the TV would undoubtedly have the film playing on some random channel, and I would watch it all the way through every single time. The movie is ostensibly about football, but its emotional core is based on the people and stories behind the sport. Football is used as a tool through which the audience can see characters mend their conflicts, growing together to be able to accomplish mythological feats. By watching the characters, the film’s viewers learn strategies for specific plays and also come to the realization that the rules aren’t being fairly applied to the racially integrated team. The audience isn’t truly concerned with the minutiae of the sport; instead, viewers are invested because of what these details mean to the people who are playing and how they affect their journeys. After watching “Remember the Titans” for the 115th time, I found myself obsessing over the same thing I had once deridingly put aside. It showed me how people can become captivated by a game and its players that they have no tangible stake in. “Remember the Titans” was the movie that first made me fall in love with sports movies, but it never made me want to watch real-life sports. I understood the attraction of sports, but they still felt out of reach. It would take another movie to change this. Ali Hazelwood’s ‘Love on the Brain’ makes STEM sexy again My obsession with sports movies HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Senior Arts Editor ZACH LOVEALL Daily Arts Writer Cover art for “Love on the Brain” owned by Berkley. Read more at MichiganDaily.com SPEAKER SERIES REAL-WORLD PERSPECTIVES ON POVERTY SOLUTIONS EARN AN EXTRA CREDIT! Enroll in SWK 503 001 One-credit class OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS Meets Fridays at noon, 9/30 to 11/18 Learn about the effects of marijuana legalization, the politicization of skin color, criminal justice reform, and more SPEAKER LINEUP: Ivette Perfecto Nyron Crawford Mara Ostfeld Norma Rey-Alicea Louise Seamster Eli Savit Victoria Burton Harris Rep. Rashida Tlaib Read more at MichiganDaily.com DEI Climate Survey results session What progress has been made around the climate at U-M over the last five years? Join us as we discuss the findings of our latest university-wide climate survey from 2021. RSVP to attend: myumi.ch/M9293 IN-PERSON SESSION: Tuesday, Sept. 27 | 8:30-10 am Michigan Union, Rogel Ballroom Open to all students, faculty & staff The session will also be livestreamed, recorded and posted on the DEI website. Design by Kate Shen