Book Review: ‘Two Can Play’ by Ali Hazelwood
Ali Hazelwood built a reputation on hyper-competent women, emotionally constipated men, and workplaces where attraction simmers under professional restraint. Two Can Play keeps her core chemistry engine but moves it into gaming culture and into a story where the professional collaboration mirrors the romance almost too perfectly. As a novella, the story narrows its focus. It cares less about narrative complexity and more about emotional payoff, escapism, and chemistry.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by Berkley for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood contains some light spoilers!]
A narrowed focus increases the intensity in Two Can Play
In that sense, the format works. The book reads like a deliberate break from reality, cozy, indulgent, and heightened in the way short romances often aim to be. Ali Hazelwood prioritizes tension and steamy moments over plot scaffolding, delivering a relationship that feels immediate rather than gradually constructed. The confined timeline encourages emotional intensity because the story does not ask the characters to live with the consequences very long. As a guilty pleasure romance, it succeeds. It is easy to read in a single sitting, easy to emotionally invest in, and easy to enjoy without requiring much analysis.
However, the novella length also exposes limitations. Hazelwood lacks space to develop the surrounding world beyond functionality. Supporting characters feel more like conversational devices than people, and the professional stakes, two competing indie studios collaborating on their biggest project, remain largely conceptual. The collaboration matters because it forces proximity, not because we deeply understand the creative or career implications. Instead of the workplace shaping the relationship, the relationship simply happens within it.
This compression becomes especially noticeable in the thematic parallel at the center of the story, the fictional fantasy series Limerence. Viola and Jesse are designing a game adaptation about two protagonists cursed to fall in love repeatedly across lifetimes but never end up together, a narrative rooted in destined and enduring love. Yet the relationship Hazelwood portrays is more akin to psychological limerence.
Limerence, in psychology, describes obsessive romantic fixation fueled by uncertainty, limited interaction, and emotional projection. It thrives on ambiguity. The less information available, the more the brain fills in the gaps with idealized detail. It is less about knowing someone and more about anticipating them.
That framework aligns almost perfectly with Viola and Jesse’s dynamic. They have spent six years, mostly orbiting each other professionally, while harboring private assumptions. She believes he dislikes her. He believes she rejected him. Their interactions are polite, brief, and restrained, exactly the type of intermittent reinforcement that intensifies fixation. The emotional energy comes not from shared experience but from imagined interpretation.
After finally spending meaningful time together during the retreat, the narrative asks readers to accept that Jesse has been deeply in love the entire time. The story presents this as enduring love, yet it is structurally akin to attachment built on absence. They have not accumulated memories. They have accumulated possibilities.
This creates an ironic tension between the internal and external stories. The Limerence series inside the novel represents love that survives time and separation because the bond is real and tested. Viola and Jesse, by contrast, are drawn together largely because their bond has never been tested. Miscommunication preserved the feeling. Silence protected the fantasy.
Seen through that lens, their relationship works differently from how the text frames it. What resolves at the end is not a year-long romance finally fulfilled, but the collapse of two parallel imagined narratives. They replace assumptions with information. The emotional payoff comes from relief rather than destiny.
Final thoughts on this novella from Ali Hazelwood
The novella format of Two Can Play strengthens this emotional beat but weakens the thematic claim. Because the reader spends so little actual time watching them interact, the story relies on retrospective intensity. We are told the feelings were always profound rather than showing a gradual accumulation of intimacy. The steamy scenes provide immediacy, but immediacy is not the same as familiarity.
Ironically, the story’s most compelling interpretation may be unintentional. It portrays the transition from limerence to real affection. Once they communicate openly, they begin to know each other rather than reacting to imagined versions. The ending works best if read not as confirmation of epic love, but as the moment their relationship actually begins.
Ultimately, Two Can Play succeeds as a romantic escape. It delivers warmth, banter, and chemistry in a compact format designed for emotional indulgence. Its brevity prevents the relationship from fully supporting the mythic parallel it gestures toward. The fictional lovers are cursed to repeat love forever. Viola and Jesse are trapped in uncertainty until they finally talk.
The book argues for timeless love. What it convincingly portrays is something more human: the powerful pull of possibility and the relief of finally discovering whether the story you have been telling yourself was ever real.
My Rating: 5/10
Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood is available now to purchase from Berkley publications! Have you read this novella yet? What did you think of the story and romance? Share your thoughts on social media and tag @bsb.insider to continue the conversation!
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