Book Review: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I normally don’t read new releases on the year/day it comes out. But because there was so much hype for this book, I decided to read it. My god, the hype for this book is real, because I loved every single moment of it. The grumpy/sunshine trope, the fake dating trope-set in academia? I was there. And the cover of the book drawn by one of my favorite artists on Twitter? I pre ordered this book before I could say less. There were other couples in this book, and the diversity in this book is really good as well, but I loved Olive and Adam’s fake relationship, and I also love Olive’s whole entire character. This book was just so good that I don’t know if I can get through the rest of the review.

The Love Hypothesis takes place at Stanford University, where Olive Smith is a third year Ph.D candidate, who makes the biggest mistake of her life and kisses the first person she sees...that person turns out to be Adam Carlsen, a well-known arsehole and a professor/scientist who wanted to automatically report Olive for kissing him. So Olive came up with a good idea to pretend they’re fake-dating, and shockingly, Adam agrees.

They go on dates at Starbucks, Olive putting sunscreen on Adam’s back, the sex in the hotel (pretty damned good, honestly) and the Tom Benton problem...I hated him. Just like Maven in Red Queen, I had a weird feeling towards Mr. Benton, until after Olive’s presentation at the science conference and he said all those horrible things that made her feel so horrible after she had sex with Adam and heard the recording right in front of her friends made me feel for her, because she wanted Adam free from her and that she won’t be in Boston to work for Tom.

Well thanks to the power of Malcolm and his boyfriend, Olive found Adam in a restaurant filled with a bunch of Harvard higher ups and Tom, and she got scared and just...pulled out her phone and played the recording for everyone to hear. To me, this was such a powerful move for a girl who is scared of someone, who doesn’t know what to do, but to stand there and play the horrible words that Tom has said to her. Of course, Adam got upset (Kylo Ren, is that you??) and told Olive that ‘he’ll take care of it’ and then the cute double date-SO CUTE. I loved it (and that Malcolm and Adam hates Pumpkin Spice...I AM OFFENDED in a good way) and Tom Benton went away, and everything is fine. Adam isn’t moving to Boston, and Olive is going to Berkeley to pursue what she wants to study really badly.

I honestly loved this book, mostly because I can relate to Olive very well, even though I;m not pursuing a scientific degree, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. In the words of our lord and savior Adam Driver: “Good Soup.”

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