The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

 

Previous review: Why does that look like Kylo Ren and Rey wearing lab coats tho

I have a reputation for being a harsh reviewer, but honestly-- I'm just immune to hype. If I like a book, I like a book, whether it's popular or not. Usually, I find myself not liking hyped books, so I tend to avoid them, but as someone who works in STEM and did lab research, something about the premise of this book was constantly beckoning me. I NEEDED it.

Now that I have read the book, I have some thoughts.

LIKES

✔️ The STEM angle. I did get the impression while reading this that the author was on comfortable and familiar territory. I felt that way about reading LOVE ON THE BRAIN, too. It blends into the narrative in a really nice and satisfying way. You get the, "Oh yeah, I'm reading about science! SCIENCE RULES!" vibe, but it never feels inaccessible. You're in on the joke. That's not always easy to do with technical writing, so I admired that in this romance.
✔️Adam. Look, he might have the personality of a sour glass of milk, but do we stan a gentle giant of a consent king? Yes the fuck we do. I'm starting to suspect that Ivy League Professor love interests are basically celebrity romances for stuck-up dark academia girlies. The way people swoon in this man's presence like they're at a Daisy and the Six concert in Daisy and the Six just cracks me up.
✔️The food descriptions. I'm a sucker for a food-friendly romance. And if you're going to have a book set in Palo Alto, you gotta dig in (literally! nom nom nom) to the California food scene. Which this book did. To my appreciation.
✔️ The weird cheap dates. They're students and supposed to be broke. So I don't know, I thought it was kind of cute how one of their dates was a stereotypical coffee date and another was a trip to get their flu shots together. I don't know, it just felt very college. (Plus, pro-vaccine!)
✔️ The sex scenes. Were honestly fine! But BookTok would have you believe that this is Fifty Shades of Science, though, and it is not. On the spice scale, this ranks so low that a Midwestern housewife might actually use it to season her mashed potato casserole. This isn't even a chili. It's black pepper with a kick. Yes, it's open door, but it's very vanilla and pretty brief.

DISLIKES

❌️ My sense of disbelief has been thoroughly snapped. The entirety of this book hinges on Olive kissing Adam (not consensually) to trick her friend into thinking she's over a guy. Then they fake date to (1) continue this ruse of lying to her friend and (2) trick Adam's superiors into thinking that he isn't going to move away and get a better job. I haven't read this much pathological-lying-for-fun-and-profit since Sophia Kinsella's Shopaholic series. Lying is not just a cute little misunderstanding. I know people can be nonconfrontational but this really did feel pathological.
❌️ The demisexual(?) rep. Olive appears to be coded as demisexual because at one point she tells Adam that she has a low sex drive and can't really have sex with people unless she feels an emotional connection. But then, ofc, she becomes a total size queen who's horny for Adam... and it starts to feel kind of like she was "cured" by sex. I will not understate the value of a sexual relationship that makes you feel emotionally and psychologically "seen," but if Olive was demisexual, I wish she had used the label and there had been more context for her sexuality, and why she feels the way she does.
❌️ He can fit her whole boob in his mouth. I did not need to know this. But now, alas, I do. Also she's the tiniest smol-smol pixie girl to ever stand at a mighty 5'8" and there's like several mentions of how Adam's monstercock and monsterhands are so BIIIIIIIG that he might, idk, snap her like a wishboner. I rolled my eyes over all of this a lot. I know it's a kink, but it's not mine.
❌️ There's a lot of hate for the sciences in a book that's supposed to be empowering to women. I wouldn't say this if it weren't also present in the other book by the author that I read, but... for a "STEMinist" book, it kind of feels like this book hates women in the sciences. Both this book and LotB had conflicts that revolved around the heroine suffering some HUGE (police-involvement-level) harassment campaigns as a result of her gender that interfered with her work. Both this book and LotB feature heroines who seem almost disillusioned with their work and aren't really sure they're in academia for the right reasons. Both this book and LotB kind of give the impression that it's every girl for herself in the science world, which P.S. sucks by the way, so it ends up giving not-like-other-girls.
❌️ BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS EVERYWHERE. If you like this trope, you'll be happy. But I'm not a fan of big misunderstandings where both otherwise reasonable characters are deliberately and out-of-characteristically obdurate for the sole purpose of furthering the plot.

So overall, this book was fine. I'm surprised the author gets as much hate as she does for her books because they do what they set out to do. LOVE ON THE BRAIN is definitely a superior work, though, so I'm actually super curious about her most recent releases because she does seem to be improving with each subsequent book. My advice is to go into these expecting an airport chicklit sort of read, except with a hefty seasoning of some easily digestible science facts. 

I know I'm probably forgetting to say more stuff but I think my review more than substantiates the rating.

2.5 to 3 out of 5 stars