55 pages • 1 hour read
Ali HazelwoodNot in Love
Fiction | Novel | YA | 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.
Themes
Challenges for Women in STEM Careers
In most of Hazelwood’s novels, she examines the many invisible challenges that women face during their attempts to pursue careers in fields relating to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This issue manifests in a wide variety of ways, whether in social and professional power dynamics; competition for funding, jobs, and recognition; or through instances of blatant sexism and misogyny. While Hazelwood habitually portrays a nuanced view of the issues that many women face in this context, the narrative structure of Not in Love is designed to subvert expectations, for although the character of Florence has undoubtedly suffered from such injustices, she is also guilty of unethical behavior to compensate for the systemic biases that she faces.
Hazelwood also makes it a point to develop Rue as a female protagonist who is lucky enough to be employed by a woman she admires, unlike many of the author’s other protagonists, who are young women with colleagues and employers who are mostly men. By contrast, Rue believes Florence to be a strong, competent woman who fought for her patent and managed to overcome systemic misogyny in order to build Kline. In addition to Florence, Rue also has the benefit of working alongside her best friend, Tisha, another intelligent woman who is supportive rather than competitive. Outwardly, Rue’s professional position is portrayed as being much healthier and happier than that of the protagonists in Hazelwood’s other works, and the author utilizes her established storytelling patterns to create the false impression that the invasive Harkness Group is the collective villain of the story, for Eli and his colleagues are ostensibly threatening everything that these strong women have managed to build.
Hazelwood does not reveal the twist until more than halfway through the novel, when Rue finally learns that Florence, not Harkness, is actually the villain of the story. By reframing Florence as the perpetrator of injustices rather than the recipient, Hazelwood creates a more nuanced view of the struggles that women encounter within STEM fields, for Florence attempts to justify her theft of Minami’s work by claiming that her actions were the only way that she, as a woman, could gain any traction in her field. Thus, while Minami and Rue represent the women who often find themselves taken advantage of in STEM fields, Florence represents the other side of the coin, as she has wholeheartedly embraced the cutthroat culture of her field rather than working to support and encourage other women. Ultimately, Florence believes that the only way to be successful is to undermine the women with whom she works.
Thus, Not in Love makes the bold move of portraying a more complex dynamic of women in STEM fields, suggesting that not all women are victims of their circumstances. The character of Florence is designed to prove that women can be just as competitive and morally ambiguous as their male colleagues. Rue ultimately learns that although Florence is a fellow woman in the same field, she is not automatically trustworthy. By contrast, Hazelwood’s portrayal of women like Minami, Tisha, and Rue shows that women in STEM fields can often achieve greater success by working together rather than by competing against each other. Ultimately, Florence loses everything important to her because she throws away her most important connections in pursuit of her own greed and ambitions.
Overcoming Childhood Trauma
Against the competitive backdrop of the conflict between the Harkness Group and Kline, Hazelwood builds a much more emotionally nuanced relationship between her two main characters, and Rue and Eli bond most deeply over their similar experiences with childhood trauma and the lifelong insecurities and regrets that stem from such harsh beginnings. As they struggle to form meaningful adult relationships, they must both work through their unresolved issues in order to love one another the way they need to be loved.
Their main approach to this ongoing challenge is to openly share stories about their pasts that have always made them feel ashamed. Even before they become romantically involved, Rue and Eli begin exchanging stories that they don’t often talk about, and this confessional act becomes a vital source of healing for them both as they reveal their worst thoughts and fears and refrain from judging one another. For example, Rue admits that when she was young, she stole money from her best friend’s family in order to buy food. Likewise, Eli admits that the last thing he ever told his mother was to hope that she would be a better mother to his younger sister than she was to him. As Rue and Eli listen to each other without passing judgment, they learn to trust each other more deeply, and the act of telling difficult stories becomes a ritual that proves to be even more intimate than sex. Rue realizes that she can trust Eli because he knows about all of her darkest moments and still hasn’t left her side.
In addition to emphasizing the healing aspects of personal relationships in the midst of seeking to overcome trauma, Hazelwood also suggests that key settings can play a similar role in this process. For Rue and Eli, the ice rink has always been an important source of healing, acceptance, comfort, and support, especially given the unconditional care and love of Dave and Alec, the couple that owns and operates the rink. Because Rue and Eli’s home lives were not stable, their coaches, Dave and Alec, gave them the structure that they needed, and they also gained a sense of joy from the act of skating. Throughout the novel, the rink takes on increasing significance as a place of support and therapeutic encounters.
The two protagonists also find extensive support for their past traumas in the care and solicitude of their respective friends. Tisha has been Rue’s friend since childhood and knows everything about Rue’s past, while Hark, Minami, and Sul are also very loyal and protective of Eli. While the framework of the novel depends on the broader conflict between Kline and the Harkness Group, the true action of the novel takes place internally, for both Eli and Rue find ways to overcome the last of childhood shame and regret by getting to know each other and relying on the unconditional love and support of their friends. It is also significant that Rue shares stories with Eli that she has only admitted to her therapist; this information suggests that such confessional activities are most effective when the confidante in question is personally invested in the one telling the story. All in all, Not in Love portrays two people who are trying to overcome guilt, trauma, shame, and other issues in their past. They utilize several healing and coping strategies, but the ones that bring them closest together are sharing their stories with each other and trusting in the love of their friends.
The Importance of Loyalty in Friendship
While Rue and Eli’s respective friendships play a significant role in helping them overcome their trauma, both characters have significant lessons to learn about the importance of loyalty in developing and maintaining solid friendships. In fact, it is the issue of loyalty that initially causes Rue to see Eli as an enemy, for she is so loyal to Florence that she feels nothing but shame for her own growing attraction to the man who is jointly responsible for threatening Florence’s company and career. Thus, the first chapters of the novel are dedicated to establishing both Rue and Eli’s existing loyalties—hers to Florence and the company, and his to Harkness and his friends’ need to exact revenge for Florence’s past betrayal.
From Rue’s perspective at the beginning of the novel, she believes that just as Tisha has always been there for her, Florence is also a loyal friend. Misguided by her own loyalty to her only two friends in the world, she persists in the belief that Florence is committed to helping her advance her own career. She assumes that because she and Florence are both intelligent women in a STEM field, Florence understands the challenges of being a woman in a high-level role and is willing to support her colleagues. For this reason, Rue is loyal to Florence and even feels guilty for betraying Florence by falling in love with Eli. Eventually, however, her loyalty shifts when Eli reveals the true story of Florence’s betrayal. He then demonstrates true loyalty when he helps her fight to get her patent so that Florence cannot betray her as she once did to Eli’s colleague, Minami. In light of Florence’s unethical choices and inherent flaws, Rue must rethink her assumptions about who is most trustworthy. Luckily, Tisha and Eli remain steadfast in their love and friendship.
Rue and Eli have both experienced quite a bit of disappointment and were let down by their families when they were young, so their friends are very important to them. Eli and his friends also value loyalty, and after Florence’s betrayal, they come together to form an even stronger bond, pulling each other out of the debt and mitigating their despair over Florence’s theft of Minami’s research. Ten years later, they still support each other and help each other achieve their goals. As Minami tells Rue, Eli is one of her oldest and best friends, and this vote of confidence helps Rue to trust him as well. In a world where family members and mentors don’t always follow through with the support that they are expected to provide, it is important for Eli and Rue to find loyal friends whom they can trust, and these valuable relationships serve as object lessons that ultimately help them to form a lasting bond with one another as well.
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By Ali Hazelwood
