Love On the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

I know, I know, I know. Another Ali Hazelwood novel. My seasonal depression is currently making all of my reading choices, give me a break. So, this go round we've got a neuroscientist named Bee who has purple hair and piercings, is obsessed with Marie Curie and has a career that's teetering between failure and success. She's got a betrayal by her ex-fiance and her best friend under her belt. She's also got an amazing job offer helping out on a project with NASA to develop a special helmet for astronauts that will catapult her career to success. And she has a co-lead on her project, who is a man who has despised her since college. She's got a twin who's been "backpacking" since they graduated high school, an obsession with cats and lean cuisines, she's trying to become a runner. Let's be honest, Bee has a lot on her plate. And then she lands in Houston, Texas (which is disgusting for obvious reasons) to work on her NASA project. There's no equipment. Her arch-nemesis/co-lead Luke is still an asshole. Her weird/gothic/Abby Scuito type research assistant doesn't listen to a word she says. And then she finds out that this make-or-break project is on the verge of being tabled due to NASA/NIH patent politics. All of that going on and she's still got to run her over one million follower Twitter account and the one person she feels like she can talk to is some random guy who's real name she doesn't know, who she's teamed up with to roast sexist scientists on Twitter. 

And she likes LOVE ISLAND. Same, sis. 

So once Bee gets to Houston and starts working on her project, she realizes that Luke is going to make her time on the project difficult, to say the least. He's eating her vegan donuts, criticizing her attire/appearance, ignoring her emails, and just not communicating in general. He's treating her just like he did in grad school, full of hatred. To this day, she still doesn't know what she did to make him despise her but this NASA project is her one shot out of the crap spot that she's in at NIH due to her ex-fiance cheating on her with her best friend. She had an offer for Vanderbilt and declined it due to both of those two heading there as well. So she's at NIH with a boss that she hates, no funding to complete any research, and this NASA project is her one way ticket out. 

Luke finally discloses to Bee that the project is probably going to get squashed, Luke gets some intel that there's a foreign company that's developing the exact same project so he takes it to the NASA director and gets the project going full steam ahead. Luke and Bee seem to arrive at some sort of truce, finally putting in the work on their project and end up getting along well enough that Bee starts to catch feelings. Luke and Bee get close in all of the steamy ways. They take a trip to New Orleans to "spy" on their competition and run into Bee's ex-fiance and ex-best friend. Luke is her rock during this tumultuous event and on the drive home Bee solves the issue with their NASA helmet. Everything starts falling into place, with their project Luke and Bee are spending every night together, Bee loves Luke's cat, and Bee and her twitter buddy Schmac have started a little revolution regarding graduate school admissions for STEM students. 

And then shit gets crazy. Someone hacked Bee's twitter account which results in an email threatening legal action, the public demonstration of their new helmet causes a seizure with their close friend/astronaut Guy, Bee is told that she's being removed from the project (i.e. is probably being removed from her current job that she doesn't even like and destroying her career) and Luke insisting that she stay in Houston and try to make what they have work out. Life seemingly falls apart in one day.  

But then shit gets even crazier when Bee learns who hacked her twitter account when the person shows up at her office at night with a GUN and gives her two options: jump off of the roof of NASA, faking her own suicide or get shot.

I soooo want to tell you the end but you'll just have to read it. But let me tell you, it's a good one. I left out plenty of subplots so you'll still be surprised :)

   To me, this book is fantastic. Lots of haters on Goodreads would state otherwise, ignore those imbeciles😉