Book Title: Love and Other Brain Experiments
Author: Hannah Brohm
Publisher: Aria & Aries
Publishing Date: February 2026
Hannah Brohm’s Love and Other Brain Experiments opens in the familiar territory of the STEM romance: tropes such as academic rivals, fake dating, forced proximity, rivals to lovers abound, but what unfolds is something far more layered and immersive. If Ali Hazelwood’s novels brought lab coats and equations into the mainstream of romance, Brohm goes a step further: she roots the story inside academia rather than merely using it as a backdrop.
The book follows Dr. Frances Silberstein, a neuroscientist whose life has been defined by her research and relentless pursuit of discovery. When she’s unexpectedly thrown into proximity with Lewis, a fellow researcher with whom she shares a complicated professional history (read: collaboration, betrayal, unresolved tension), the story finds its pulse. What begins as a misunderstanding that forces them to keep up appearances that they’re dating, gradually unravels into something deeper, touching on ambition, burnout, and the quiet disillusionment of academic life.
At its core, Love and Other Brain Experiments thrives on the fake dating trope, but what makes it stand out is how Brohm allows her characters to navigate these tropes with the same scientific rigour they bring to their research. There were several moments where I almost wanted to say “nerd!”—not as mockery, but as affection—because every decision, every turn of the trope, felt so grounded in who these characters are. The fake dating, for instance, never reads as contrived; it unfolds as something they’d both approach like an experiment, complete with hypotheses, observations, and inevitable emotional variables. It’s this self-aware, intellectual handling that makes the novel feel both believable and fresh within the genre.
Brohm braves the deep end of academia, for love
Unlike many STEM romances that skim over the institutional grind, Brohm’s novel dives straight into it. There are the pressures of publishing, the constant scramble for grants, the politics of collaboration, and the uneasy balance between personal life and intellectual ambition. It comes across best as not just a love story set in academia, but rather a story about academia that happens to be a love story. That distinction is important and refreshing.
Frances and Lewis first meet on a plane ride that Frances is already dreading, and Lewis seeks her help with an abstract submission. It might be the most turbulent flight on Frances’ life because she finds out Lewis is actually Dr. Theodore L. North.
“Whenever I submit papers for consideration to a journal, other experts in my field evaluate the quality of the work to judge whether it’s worthy of publication. There’s always one who errs a little too far on the side of nitpicky and rude, and although the reviews are anonymous, I know that in the review process of my last paper it was Dr. North—Lewis—who pointed out all the shortcomings with an extra pizzazz of snark.”
The chemistry between Frances and Lewis feels organic, grounded in shared passion for their field. Their banter often borrows the rhythm and vocabulary of research, turning intellectual sparring into flirtation.
“How are you going to give me a ‘more of a comment than a question’ remark at my lecture on Thursday if you’re home in bed with a cold? I’ve been looking forward to this all year. Don’t let me down.”
And because both characters are well into their careers: decade-long veterans of their fields rather than wide-eyed PhD students, their conflicts and choices feel more adult, shaped by fatigue as much as attraction.
STEM as more than a sub-genre or a silent backdrop
What stood out to me was how Brohm uses the academic setting not as a gimmick but as a mirror for the characters’ inner lives. Frances’s journey, of learning to forgive, to let go of misplaced ambition, to draw boundaries between professional worth and personal identity, is deeply tied to her world. The novel captures the strange push and pull of academia: the love for discovery alongside the loneliness it breeds. Lewis, in turn, becomes not a saviour figure but a prism through which Frances recognises how much of herself she has given to an institution that rarely gives back. It’s not about him redeeming her; it’s about her reclaiming herself.
“Academia is a marathon of obsessing over the most minuscule questions, the ones you tackle deep into the quiet hours of the night with only your computer at your fingertips. It can get lonely inside your brain. Too much time there can fill you with doubts, but then, sometimes, occasionally, a cool result, a new insight, feels like the most potent drug in the world.”
The narrative doesn’t rush towards its happy ending. The third act carries emotional weight — perhaps a bit crowded in terms of how many threads needed resolving — but it earns its payoff. There’s no shortcut to resolution here; Frances grows through the messiness of her choices, and the ending feels earned precisely because it’s not tidy.
What I particularly appreciated was the academic realism that threads through the story. Brohm’s depiction of Frances moving between countries, juggling projects, and navigating fleeting professional relationships feels spot-on. Her network of acquaintances — former collaborators, rivals, exes, and peers met through conferences and forums — creates a sprawling, interconnected web that mirrors how academia actually operates. It’s refreshingly realistic to see a romance novel acknowledge that professional circles can be small, reputations sticky, and alliances short-lived.
Brohm’s academic circles have interesting characters
The supporting cast adds texture: Lewis’s family, Frances’s colleagues, and the many side characters who orbit the main duo. If anything, I wanted more time with them: Jacob, Vivienne, Brady: because they were so well-sketched that a few extra pages with them would have been a treat. Brohm makes us care about these people, and it’s easy to imagine some of them carrying stories of their own. [Insert quote here.]
In terms of tone and texture, Love and Other Brain Experiments reminded me most of Love, Theoretically, Ali Hazelwood’s most politically aware book, but with the emotional intelligence of R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, if Katabasis had chosen romance as its primary lens instead of fantasy and the banter of Nicole Cubba’s Deep In Love. Brohm’s academic world is just as ruthless, but her storytelling is gentler, anchored in humour and humanity.
By the end, the book becomes less about love as salvation and more about ambition, agency, and self-definition. It asks how much of yourself you can give to a system before it takes too much, and whether love, in any form, can make that loss easier to bear.
Love and Other Brain Experiments is a quietly revolutionary STEM romance, one that actually understands what it means to live and love in academia. It’s funny, heartfelt, and more intellectually grounded than most of its peers. A rare story where the lab notes matter as much as the longing.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance review copy (ARC). All opinions expressed are my own.