Book Review: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

Title: The Love Hypothesis

Author: Ali Hazelwood 

Description:

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor–and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive’s career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding…six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

RATING

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Here continues my exploration of the fake dating trope. This book was good but I must admit I had a few issues with it.

This is a super popular BookTok book and as such high ratings. It’s basically a fake-dating story about Olive, a STEM student and the most notorious Stanford professor.

Extra points for this being a book about a female in STEM because honestly, that’s super uncommon especially when it comes to contemporary romance. I really enjoyed reading about it even though I may not understand some of the things she’s doing lol.

This was such a cute read and I went through it so quickly! Olive and Adam definitely had some good chemistry. I can see why this book is so popular right now.

However, I will be totally honest and share some stuff I found super weird and a bit annoying. First things first, Olive was mostly an enjoyable main character, but the fact that she would repeat on many different occasions how small she was and how big Adam is was kinda weird. We get it girl you’re “tiny”. That, including some other stuff (like for example every conversation was about how much she ate) gave me pick-me vibes.

Also, the first sex scene was hella uncomfortable to read. I do understand that maybe the author wanted to portray that not every sexual experience is so smooth and dreamy but it felt a bit weird to me and I didn’t like it at all.

All in all, this was an okay book. When it comes to my not-so-large knowledge of fake-dating books, I would definitely recommend The Spanish Love Deception which I am in love with (and I liked it waay better tan this), but you do you.

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