"A kind-hearted and tender romcom for fans of Ali Hazelwood’s geeky romantic men and Beth O’Leary’s heroines overcoming difficult pasts"
‘If you fall in love within six months, at a time when recently heartbroken, when you least expect it, you win. If you don’t, I win.’
As a wannabee brain geek myself, I was intrigued by the premise of this romcom – two former philosophy students making a bet about whether love is a function of the brain, rational and predictable (Luke) or creative, irrational and unable to be studied (Alice). What’s lovely about this within the format of a novel is, of course, that the reader has bought into trusting the writer that we know there will be a happy ending – we know the outcome of the bet, and can therefore sit back and enjoy knowing that the outcome of the bet is a done deal (and whoever is reading this romcom in the first place will probably self-select for people who believe her side!)
Luke is in the model of the male leads in romcoms from writers like Ali Hazelwood – genius, socially awkward men who are conversationally repressed or combative around the heroine, leading the heroine to understandably think he hates her, and the reader to know he’s nervous because of how in luuurve he is. Some of my favourite parts were when Luke and Alice’s rivalrous banter went more in-depth into studies of the brain or quoted philosophers who have thought about love.
A relevant content warning for the book is that it does explore themes of manipulative and abusive relationships, and shows a man then being sensitive to her needs as a survivor of traumatic experiences.
| Primary Genre | Romance / Relationship Stories |
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