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

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 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

