Book Review

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

tw/cw

CW: There is an instance of sexual assault towards the end of the book.

Well, colour me pink and call me tickled. This was a read that was worth waiting for. I had squirreled it away in my TBR knowing that the publication date was only in September (HOW are we past September already?!) and past me did present me a real solid in that respect. This is a slightly creaky but charming romantic comedy that had me smiling at the pages.

Olive is a graduate student in the Biology lab at Stanford. She went on a couple dates with Jeremy, a fellow grad student, but there were precisely no sparks. You know who does have sparks with Jeremy? Olive’s best friend: Ahn. In order to convince Ahn that Olive is no longer interested (actually, never was interested) in Jeremy, Olive decides to tell a little lie: Olive has moved on.

Why is this lie so important? Olive wants her best friend to be happy and she knows that Ahn is deeply infatuated with Jeremy, so she tells Ahn that she’s going on a date with someone else. Does Olive expect to see Ahn in the corridor of the bio lab at the exact moment that she is supposed to be on her date? No. What does Olive do? She kisses the first person she sees. And that person is none other than Professor Adam Carlsen.

Here, I need to hit the brakes for a second, on two counts. First, not sure how I feel about just randomly kissing people… so that’s a little iffy for me. Not to mention the graduate student/professor part.

Second, really? This is how she chooses to manage the situation? Olive then compounds the confusion by telling increasingly ludicrous lies to keep Ahn in the dark.

But why is it so important for Olive to convince Ahn that she’s dating? Alas, if you’re looking for solid reasoning, you won’t find it here. If Ahn is her best friend, why can’t they just have a sensible conversation about this? Olive is an orphan and has some heavy baggage around being alone and losing people. This goes some way to explaining her behaviour, but not all the way.

And this is precisely why I call the plot creaky: technically, it’s a fake relationship trope fiesta, but in practise, it was difficult to surrender and buy into the whole thing. As the reader I felt expected to go along with all of Olive’s increasingly bizarre, complicated lies.

What redeemed this book for me? First, for the most part, Olive is familiar and disarming in her awkwardness and insecurity. But far more importantly, the interactions between Adam and Olive charmed my socks off. I was squirreled away under my quilt with numerous cups of tea squeeing with delight whenever these two interacted. The kind of teasing banter that comes with real affection can be difficult to bring into a book, but in this case: FIREWORKS.

The two agree to a fake relationship because Olive needs to keep the lie to Ahn going (still: WHY?) Adam has his own reasons which are a little less tenuous than Olive’s, but the whole thing is really just an excuse for them to be together. And really, once they actually spend time together, the charm factor was so high that I forgot about the flimsy rationales keeping them next to one another.

There are a lot of other things to love about this book, especially the frank discussion of women in STEM that forms part of the backstory. Much of this is set out by Ahn, Olive’s best friend. Their journey as women in STEM and the challenges they face allowed me to look at this issue with fresh eyes.

While the book was enjoyable to read when Olive and Adam were together, the rationale for their fake relationship was pretty dismal and as a reader I found it difficult to accept. Why would it be more important to keep Ahn happy with deceit than for Olive to tell the truth? This is sort of explained, but not really.

Once Adam and Olive start interacting in earnest, then the magic really gets going and I found it much easier to forget about the rickety set-up. If you can suspend your disbelief for the opening chapters, then you can relax into the rest of the book knowing that it will carry you home in splendid fashion.

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The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

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  1. G. says:

    The cover and the choice of the male character’s name gives me pause. I know that this was AU Reylo fanfic and I have nothing against that, but cover/name choice are pushing it towards real person fanfic for me, and I’m conflicted. Maybe that’s nitpicky of me, but… why did it have to be “Adam” instead of any other name? And why did the cover character representations need to be so very obviously recognizable as Driver and Ridley? It sounds like a fun read, but now I can’t unsee/unknow/etc. That just me?

  2. DinnerandaBook says:

    I had an issue with the big misunderstanding (re: sexual harassment) at the end of the book. There was evidence of the harassment, which led to everyone believing the victim. I think it would have been more appropriate if there hadn’t been evidence, or if everyone would have believed the victim without the evidence being produced first. It felt like a cop-out, and I didn’t leave the book feeling as sure of the relationship.

  3. Lori says:

    @ G: no you’re not the only one. I remember my interest in this book being piqued by the blurb and then I found out it was originally Reylo fanfic. I mean to each their own but knowing the dynamics that most Reylo fanfics tend toward, I feel like this isn’t for me. The fact that in revising the fanfic to be a novel the author chose Adam as the hero’s name just adds another level of creepiness to it.

  4. alex says:

    I have a difficult time believing that a book featuring a relationship between a professor and a graduate student in a positive light has anything interesting to say about “women in STEM.”

  5. Sunflower says:

    I loved the book and didn’t get a creepy Reylo vibe from it (or any Raylo vibe, for that matter), although I am admittedly oblivious about these things sometimes and I did not know it had started out as fanfic prior to reading it. (I am a Star Wars fan, so I’ve watched the movies, etc.) I occasionally got annoyed with Olive’s lying but I found her an endearing character regardless so that helped, while Adam was amazing.

  6. Zana says:

    @G. I agree the cover was super annoying re: Reylo similarities but the characters were different enough that it didn’t bother me once I got into the story.

    @Alex, she wasn’t his graduate student and didn’t have real overlap with his research. When I was in grad school, grad students and professors (again usually not ones working together) getting together were more common than you think…probably due to all those long hours/late nights spent at work!

  7. Taylor says:

    @Alex, I agree. I work as a prof in STEM and this is not ok. There’s too large of a power differential. I don’t care if it isn’t a direct report situation.

  8. leftcoaster says:

    As a female who did a PhD in STEM with the emotional scars to prove it, I always get jumpy about these books so I read this one with some trepidation. I also hate it when people do a lot of stupid lying to their friends, so I agree with the reviewer that that part of the plot was not great. The science pieces didn’t push me out of the story, but I REALLY was uncomfortable with the whole grad student/professor dynamic. I would have enjoyed the story more if they were both students, or both professors. The fact that he sat on her friends/colleagues’ committees emphasized how not a good idea this is even more. So that part was pretty squicky for me. But the writing was good enough (I live for banter) that I would check this author out again with hopes the next book would be less problematic.

  9. MeMe says:

    @Alex, 100%!
    They flirt about Title IX as though their awareness of it somehow cocoons the heroine and makes this relationship safe. At no point is anyone worried about how this very public (she sits in his lap at a university lecture in front of all of her colleagues and advisors- GROSS) “fake” relationship with a professor who’s supposedly a superstar in their shared field would shadow the heroine FOREVER. An asterisk next to all of her future achievements.

  10. MeMe says:

    CW: sexual harassment

    The whole sexual harassment plot felt forced and unnecessary to me. That entire character/thread could have been removed without it affecting the story at all. Readers KNOW sexual harassment exists. It tends to be more insidious and nuanced than a boss straight up telling his future employee about a plan to steal her work and extort sexual favors in exchange for employment while filmed by a hidden camera. It feels like putting readers on the lookout for this specific kind of cartoonish villainy does a disservice to the actual victims of sexual harassment who have been undermined and gaslit but never got a villain monologue or digital video to show for it.

    @DinnerandaBook, you’re right about it being a cop out. There had to be clear obvious evidence because it happened to a character who’s lied about everything for no reason throughout the book. Having it on tape was a way to wave away the fact that an imperfect victim is unlikely to get any kind of justice. It’s still hard to believe that the abuser will face real or lasting repercussions without that tape going public and tying the heroine’s name and career to this man forever.

  11. Kareni says:

    I just asked my adult daughter what Reylo fanfic referred to so you can tell how up with popular culture I am!

    That said, I read this book last week and quite enjoyed it despite its imperfections. It made me reflect on my experiences in grad school (Chemistry for me rather than Biology).

  12. Star says:

    So I was groomed by a former advisor sort of in between being his student (he was my undergrad advisor; I did my Master’s elsewhere; he was my advisor again first year of PhD; it started the summer after undergrad and continued until I came to my senses and burned that bridge summer after first year back). Technically nothing ever happened, although at least one of the other professors smelled something off. I was told that if anything physical had ever happened, I would have been forced to leave. Had that happened, I would have attempted suicide.

    It bothers me that the book has the heroine being the one to technically initiate the relationship, because that sounds like the author thinks she gets a free pass for this story, as though the relationship ceases to be inappropriate and the heavily problematic power differential evaporates if the person with less power starts it. This particularly bothers me because one of my friends believes that the main reason nothing physical happened in my case was that the professor was waiting for me to initiate it so that it wouldn’t be his fault, which I never did (and would never have done). I don’t know if she’s right, but there are definitely people who pull that.

    Also, obviously a lesser issue overall, but ffs don’t randomly kiss people?! Just don’t do that. It’s not cute just because a woman is doing it.

  13. Bronte says:

    Can I ask do the readers here ever think a book is not problematic? Because that’s all I hear about here. I think I’m done. Time to move on from this site.

  14. G. says:

    @Bronte
    It’s the comment section under a review, so people are using it as intended… by commenting.
    Reading a thing more critically doesn’t necessarily mean one can’t also enjoy said thing. But if they don’t enjoy it as much as others, that’s fine too. All of us have our opinions and our lived experience that colours how we see things. And all of that is VALID. And yes, you are free to enjoy the things that others don’t. It’s not a difficult concept.

  15. gerund says:

    So while I’m not in academia, I am a woman in a STEM field and I have a bunch of friends that are in academia. While the book wasn’t perfect, I feel like the author really nailed the adorkable characteristics of her main and supporting characters, and she did a great job showing (not explaining) what academia’s like. The heroine’s internal dialogue was hilarious as she often freaked out about stuff. At the beginning I did question the professional dynamics and yes in a real life I would probably steer a friend away from entering a relationship like that, but from the couple’s on page interactions I didn’t feel like he was pressuring her, and he came off as having a sweet spot for her. If you like geeky couples with great banter and maybe a little bit of a Slytherin-Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw pairing, I recommend this book.

  16. Alceinwdld says:

    I read this in one sitting- really enjoyed it but also felt very aware of the squidgy power dynamics, especially with this book being so feminist in tone.. The banter btw the friends and main couple was so lively, the world building was great (the author knows her stuff and didn’t just read a Wikipedia article). I’d have preferred that the H was a slightly older grad student.

  17. Mzcue says:

    @ Bronte I suspect any book that’s not problematic will be considered problematic because its story is so unrealistic. I wince occasionally at the apparent expectations commenters have about things like power dynamics, privilege and other issues. But perhaps the exercise of identifying and noting what seems off kilter, unrealistic or especially, unfair, is what helps us all become more aware and more demanding of better behavior in life. Fictional characters’ flaws reflect the flaws of actual people in a way that, I think, increases our own likelihood of stepping up and insisting on boundaries. I’d hate to have missed the fun I had in reading Love Hypothesis even if I hope my daughters are never in the same situation or the same frame of mind.

  18. Julius says:

    Check out @ thehazelwoodfangpage on Insta. Amazing story, very inspiring and smart, felt comforting.

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