Ali Hazelwood - Stuck With You

Ali Hazelwood - Stuck With You   

3.5⭐

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance, Fiction, STEM, Academia, Novella

Pages: 127

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: Sphere 

Date Published: 3rd January 2023 

Book Blurb: 

Nothing like a little rivalry between scientists to take love to the next level.

Mara, Sadie, and Hannah are friends first, scientists always. Though their fields of study might take them to different corners of the world, they can all agree on this universal truth: when it comes to love and science, opposites attract and rivals make you burn…

Logically, Sadie knows that civil engineers are supposed to build bridges. However, as a woman of STEM she also understands that variables can change, and when you are stuck for hours in a tiny New York elevator with the man who broke your heart, you earn the right to burn that brawny, blond bridge to the ground. Erik can apologize all he wants, but to quote her rebel leader—she’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee.

Not even the most sophisticated of Sadie’s superstitious rituals could have predicted such a disastrous reunion. But while she refuses to acknowledge the siren call of Erik’s steely forearms or the way his voice softens when he offers her his sweater, Sadie can’t help but wonder if there might be more layers to her cold-hearted nemesis than meet the eye. Maybe, possibly, even burned bridges can still be crossed….

My Review: 

Stuck With You was definitely my least favourite of Ali Hazelwood's novellas. Firstly, there was no chemistry between Erik and Sadie nowhere in this story. Secondly, the instant love just seemed super unrealistic, especially the way they met. Very disappointing, especially as I heard so many good things about this one on Bookstagram.

This novella follows Sadie who is a civil engineer for a small company and who is very superstitious. Due to this superstition of hers, she meets a gorgeous Erik and she straight away is smitten by him. Erik seems to like her too. 24 hours and one spicy fling later, Sadie suddenly hates Erik. Why might you ask? Well…all of the details are revealed when both of them get stuck in an elevator and have to face each other once and for all…

I think if this wasn’t a novella but a full-length book, I think I would have liked it more. In this format, I didn’t get the whole instant love and then instant hate idea. Also, the story itself felt a bit unrealistic to me. Also, Erik’s character was very underdeveloped and oh don’t get me started on them talking about football. That just ruined the story for me. I liked Sadie but there wasn’t much of her true character or personality there, and at times she just felt a tad childish. I really felt that the trope took the front and the characters with their personalities took the back seat in this novella.

However, unlike in Under One Roof, at least the smutty scene here kept me interested, since the story and characters didn’t. Also, I was glad it wasn’t a long story, as I couldn’t face more of Erik and more of their silly miscommunication/ hate, which was sorted within an hour whilst stuck in the elevator…

Overall: Very disappointing story, with very underdeveloped characters and a miscommunication trope, which had so much potential but felt very short. I think this would have worked in a longer story but not in a novella format. 

About the Author:

Ali Hazelwood is the pseudonym for an Italian neuroscientist and writer of romance novels. Her main characters are women in a variety of different STEM fields and in academia. Her debut novel, The Love Hypothesis, was a New York Times best seller. In 2022 she has published three novellas: Under One Roof, Stuck with You, and Below Zero. Her second novel Love on the Brain was published on August 23, 2022.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21098177.Ali_Hazelwood