Review: Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood

BOOK STATS

Rating: ☆☆☆.5
Title: Below Zero
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Series: The STEMinist Novellas #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Audience: Adult
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Savannah Peachwood
Length: 4 hours (124 pages)
Publisher: Berkley; Penguin Random House Audio
Release Date: April 4, 2022
Source: Library
Content Warnings: injury, abandonment, misogyny

SYNOPSIS

It will take the frosty terrain of the Arctic to show these rival scientists that their chemistry burns hot.

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…

Hannah’s got a bad feeling about this. Not only has the NASA aerospace engineer found herself injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station—but the one person willing to undertake the hazardous rescue mission is her longtime rival.

Ian has been many things to Hannah: the villain who tried to veto her expedition and ruin her career, the man who stars in her most deliciously lurid dreams…but he’s never played the hero. So why is he risking everything to be here? And why does his presence seem just as dangerous to her heart as the coming snowstorm?

To read Mara and Sadie’s stories look for the novellas Under One Roof and Stuck with You available now from Berkley!

MY THOUGHTS

This is my least favorite of the STEMinist novellas. I love the premise of a NASA enemies to lovers romance…but this is not actually enemies to lovers. It’s instalove to miscommunication to overblown “rivalry” that only Hannah knows about to more miscommunication to near-death experience to finally romance. The miscommunication trope is not cute, especially when it affects the funding of NASA projects that cost millions of dollars! Hannah and Ian’s first encounter was very unprofessional, and I found Hannah to be annoyingly judgmental and self-righteous. I actually liked Ian, but while his grand gesture was swoon worthy, the conflict was so unnecessary.