60 pages • 2 hours read
Ali HazelwoodLove on the Brain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Nucleus Accumbens: Gambling”
Bee and Levi begin regularly working together in what she describes as a “Hostile Companionable Silence™” (151). One night, Bee asks Levi for the latest blueprints, which he insists are on the server although she cannot find them. They make a bet about whether or not Levi has actually saved the latest ones on the server: If Bee wins, Levi has to give her a mug that reads “Yoda Best Neuroscientist;” if Levi wins, Bee needs to run a 5K in Houston. When Bee protests, Levi promises to train her for it and run it with her.
Upon investigating the logs, they discover that Levi had saved the new file, but someone else removed it later on. Levi notes that this is not the first time that files have been misplaced; however, he manages locates the blueprints in a different folder on the server, effectively winning the bet.
Boris arrives and informs the duo that they are to attend the Human Brain Imaging conference in New Orleans together over the upcoming weekend. MagTech will also be attending, and Boris wants them to find out and report back to him about their progress.
As Levi walks Bee back home, he tells her that he plans on holding a meeting with the engineers to berate them for their carelessness about the files. Bee disagrees with this as they are not yet sure whether it is someone on their team who is responsible for the mistakes. She insists that being co-leads, she and Levi ought to make disciplinary decisions together. She asks him not to do anything until they have proof, and Levi reluctantly agrees.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Ventral Striatum: Yearning”
@WhatWouldMarieDo’s tweet about the GRE blows up. It generates the hashtag #FairGraduateAdmissions, with numerous associations announcing a GRE strike and asking students to submit applications sans GRE scores. Bee’s account begins to receive requests for interviews from numerous media outlets and publications, including The Atlantic, CNN, and Fox News. The #FairGraduateAdmissions movement continues to gather steam, even as Bee teams up with Schmac to write an essay about how the test lacks scientific evidence to justify it as a reliable admission tool. Rocío is invigorated and thrilled, deciding not to prepare for the GRE anymore in solidarity with the movement. She attributes the entire circumstance to divine intervention on the part of La Llorona, whom Rocío has been trying to appease.
Bee and Schmac discuss their respective life and work situations. Bee tells him that she and her partners are actually collaborating fairly amicably now; he, in turn, tells her “things are great, in the worst possible way” (164) with the woman from grad school. They have been working together a lot, which Schmac finds difficult because she takes up his whole attention. He describes all the things he knows about her, revealing how intensely in love he is with someone who is married and will not reciprocate.
An engineer informs Bee about an update to the log system and apologizes for the mess, revealing that Levi had, in fact, called a meeting with the engineers and taken them to task for their slip-ups. Levi appears shortly after, offering to cover an exposed air vent in Bee’s office, which Bee refuses, assessing that it is how Félicitte gets in and out, to Levi’s consternation. When he moves on to begin discussing logistics for their trip to New Orleans, Bee interrupts him and calls him out for holding the meeting despite her asking him not to. She is furious that he did so behind her back, and when he tries to defend his actions, she asks him why he didn’t inform her. Levi turns cold towards her, simply saying that he will pick her up the next day.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Superior Colliculi: Will You Look at That?”
Bee ignores Levi’s greeting when he picks her up the next morning, and they spend the first hour and a half of their journey in silence. Her thoughts stray to Schmac and the woman with whom he is in love, and she begins to wonder about Levi’s romantic life as well. Levi finally breaks the silence and sincerely apologizes for being controlling and not involving Bee in important matters, and the tension evaporates. As they break into conversation, Bee reveals details about her childhood to Levi, including the existence of a twin sister, their parents’ sudden deaths in a car accident, and Reike and Bee’s haphazard upbringing spread across countries and continents. Levi, in turn, reveals that he is not close with his own brothers; everyone in the family, except him, has a military career, and being the only cousin who is a civilian makes him the family disappointment.
At the conference, Bee tells Levi that she is planning to go out for a drink after, and he asks her if she will be going with Annie, whom he points out to Bee from the crowd. Upon seeing Annie, who also happens to be chatting with Tim, Bee promptly passes out.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Periaqueductal Gray & the Hippocampus: Painful Memories”
Bee wakes up in Levi’s hotel room. She tells him that Annie and she had a falling out, and Levi apologizes for pointing Annie out to Bee. Bee further details how the fallout was over Tim. She confesses that everyone except her knew what Tim was like from the start; Bee’s therapist believes a part of Bee was willfully blind to his behavior because of the stability that the relationship and Tim’s extended family provided. Eventually, she discovered that Tim cheated on her throughout their seven-year relationship: Bee found out three years into their engagement and attempted to end it, but Tim promised to stop, even twisting it around and blaming bad sex with Bee for driving him to infidelity. Bee reconciled with him and tried harder, but when she discovered shortly after that Tim was continuing to cheat on her, and that too with Annie, she finally ended the relationship.
Levi finally realizes that Bee isn’t married, and she further clarifies that the ring is her grandmother’s, which she wears for luck. Levi declares that he will no longer be collaborating with Tim on anything. He blows off the conference for the rest of the day and invites Bee to join him. They end up at the gym, where Levi officially kickstarts Bee’s 5K training, after which they head out for drinks. They discuss Levi’s cat, and how Guy will be looking after him over the weekend. Bee asks Levi if he “stole” Guy’s job, and Levi explains that Guy would have probably ended up leading BLINK if Levi had not chosen to transfer from his last position. Bee comments on how gracefully Guy seems to take it, attributing it to the fact that Guy knows he is cooler because he is an astronaut. Levi reveals that Guy has never actually been to space and never will go; he has only ever served as ground crew. He was supposed to go to the International Space Station but failed the psychological screening at the last minute. Levi insists that it doesn’t mean much as the test is highly selective.
Levi reveals that he tried out for the Astronaut Corps in an attempt to appease his family but was rejected for being too tall. He had been secretly relieved, however, as he is terrified of outer space. The only format in which he finds space “tolerable” is in the Star Wars movies. All of Levi’s confessions lead Bee to realize that she likes him, and she takes him back to his room for them to watch The Empire Strikes Back together. As they watch the movie, Bee marvels at how they are getting along, for two people who used to despise each other; Levi threatens to add an extra mile to Bee’s race every time she brings up this “nonexistent enmity.” They discuss how they will be effectively spying on MagTech the following day; Bee asks Levi if he committed industrial espionage by recovering the pictures of MagTech’s helmets, and when he refuses to comment, she thanks him for saving her career. Levi asks Bee to take his hand if she sees Tim and Annie the next day and begins to feel faint again, and she accepts.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Fusiform Area: Familiar Faces”
Levi and Bee discover that MagTech is slightly further along with their helmets than BLINK; they are stuck at the stage of merging hardware and software, a problem that BLINK, too, is facing. Levi and Bee decide to leave early and get started on work again, but they run into Sam, their old PhD advisor. When Sam sees them, she begins to gush about how happy she is to “finally” see them together, but Levi interrupts and explains that they are working together at NASA temporarily. Sam invites them to brunch with the rest of her grads, insisting they attend despite their protests.
Bee and Levi arrive at brunch, and Bee can sense everyone’s consternation at seeing them together: Like Bee, everyone believed that Levi hated Bee. Tim greets them, and Levi leans in for a hug; however, he appears to whisper something in Tim’s ear that leaves him looking terrified. Over the course of the meal, someone makes a comment about Levi supposedly hating Bee, but Levi shuts it down quickly and authoritatively.
Bee visits the bathroom mid-brunch, and Annie follows her. Annie attempts to have a conversation with Bee even as both of them break out into tears; she confesses how much she misses Bee and apologizes for everything she did. Annie explains that she had been jealous of Bee back in grad school—she was beautiful, the best in the lab, and made everything seem so effortless, even though this is not how Bee ever perceived herself. Even though Annie and Bee were best friends, Annie always felt alone, because at the end of the night, Bee went home to Tim. Annie slept with Tim in an attempt to be more like Bee; however, Annie had always despised Tim, and the whole affair only lasted a week. Annie had tried to reach out and apologize, but by then, Bee had blocked her number. She was further distraught to discover that Bee had decided not to go to Vanderbilt since Annie and Tim were both going there. Before Bee leaves the bathroom, Annie asks if it would be all right for her to text Bee once in a while, and Bee responds, “We could try” (210). Levi is waiting outside the bathroom for Bee, and when he asks her if she is ready to leave, she nods and takes his hand.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
The plot accelerates at this point in the novel, with a number of important events unfolding. To begin with, a seemingly insignificant occurrence, which comes back later in the story, is the case of the missing file. Although it is eventually found in a different place on the server, this specific instance leads to a couple of things that are important plot-wise: Firstly, it displays the growing ease and friendship between Bee and Levi. Secondly, it sets up an instance of conflict between Levi and Bee, in which she asks him not to hold a disciplinary meeting with the rest of the team, but he does so behind her back, anyway. This creates tension between Levi and Bee, and both the tension, as well as the quick resolution that follows, are important. Bee’s displeasure arises from her authority as a co-lead alongside Levi being ignored, a common and frustrating experience for Women in STEM. However, Levi is also quick to acknowledge his mistake and apologize for it, demonstrating character traits of sensitivity, fairness, and respectfulness. All of these are contrary to Bee’s initial perception of Levi, as well as her experience with Tim, who is her benchmark for relationships.
Confronting the past is a second major plot point that unfolds in these chapters as Bee and Levi come face to face with Tim and Annie at the conference. The circumstances surrounding the conference fall into a romance novel trope of the leads being “stuck-together,” during which the couple begins to discover important truths about each other as they experience a growing attraction. Bee fainting at the sight of Annie gives Levi another opportunity to come to her rescue, taking care of her and demonstrating that he feels vastly differently for her than she originally believed. The conversation with Sam, which Levi interrupts, indicates that Sam perhaps knew of Levi’s attraction to Bee. All of this clears up some of the misconceptions, particularly when Levi realizes that Bee is not actually married. These moments create a sense of moving forward for both Bee and Levi. Bee faces Tim and feels fine; she also meets Annie for the first time since their falling out, and there are positive signs that they may be able to heal their fractured friendship.
The conversation with Annie is also significant for other reasons. When Bee hears that Annie envied her, she realizes that her self-doubt is out of line with how others think of her. Secondly, Bee and Annie’s reactions to each other indicates that the breakup of their friendship was more difficult Bee than her breakup with Tim. Annie was Bee’s surrogate sister, making their estrangement exceptionally painful. This is why Bee fainted upon seeing Annie, rather than Tim, as she later explains to Levi. Levi, in turn, shares details of his own family background, and the readers gain more insight into the experiences that have shaped them.
Levi and Bee’s conversation over drinks, in which he tells her about being the family disappointment, leads to another important revelation, with respect to the plot: although an astronaut, Guy has never actually been to space because he failed the exam. Although an important detail that will return later, Levi brushes this off as unimportant. The reader, too, may be inclined to as well, especially considering the topic of standardized testing being questioned at this point in the story. Hazelwood uses misdirection here by providing a key plot detail and immediately undermining it to draw the reader’s attention elsewhere.
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