'The Love Hypothesis': 5⭐

(Unpaid Review: thank you to @alihazelwood, @netgalley and @prhinternational for allowing me to read this eArc copy in exchange for a review).

Adam and Olive. Olive and Adam. Lord, is there any more perfect couple? I'll give you an exact answer: no, there's not! These two are the perfect equation, a perfect match and yet not a simple one.

What really intrigued me in this book was the way the author introduced me to academia: I hardly read academia, especially romantic comedies set in academia, but this one has my heart and soul and I just want to dream about these characters forever.

Must know tho: ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️
- sexual assault (very potent, very triggering and maddening);
- public speaking;
- undermining womanhood.

Bloody victorious! Highly recommend!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Berkley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, I know you've probably seen a huge amount of hype revolving around this book. Let me tell you: it's worth every single bit.

Olive, a woman in STEM (hell yes) who is trying to work on the cure for cancer with a brand new method. She enjoys researching and spending time with her friends, but things get complex when her best friend likes her ex-boyfriend a little too much. So she decides to kiss the first guy she sees--and he happens to be Dr. Adam Carlsen. Also known as an ass.

Adam and Olive begin to fake-date, as it benefits both of them. The more time they spend together, the more Olive questions if he happens to be the right person for her, after all.

I really loved the romance and chemistry between Olive and Adam. I also adore the fact this was a Star Wars fanfic, because I love me some Kylo Ren. Did I picture him throughout the entire book? Why yes I did.

The story got steamy too, which I loved! But this isn't just a warm and fuzzy read, it's also hilarious at times, and gets very deep. I could relate to Olive deeply in a lot of ways.

I can't recommend this book enough! It's so cute, witty, and entertaining. Definitely a 2021 favorite.

tw: terminal illness (pancreatic cancer), death of a parent, sexual harassment.

I loved this book so much! This book is why I love romances so much. I wish I knew it was a slow burn. TikTok made me think it was super spicy. It's not, but the spice that is present is amazing. While the sexy aspect is important, that's not why I loved this book. The characters were amazing together and their chemistry *chief's kiss*.

This book was so unexpected and so cute! I adored Olive and Adam and this entire story. I can't wait to read what Ali Hazelwood does next.

This book was so much fun! I gobbled it up in a day. The main character's endearing blunders, her wonderful cast of friends, the chemistry between her and her 'fake boyfriend,' the perfect portrayal of academia -- all of it combined made for a really delightful read. I'll definitely be recommending it widely and watching for more books from this Ali Hazelwood.

Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis is a great read for any romance readers, especially those who enjoy reading about academia or intelligent women in general. Olive Smith, the main character, is a Ph.D. candidate who kisses an unsuspecting professor to trick a friend. They start "fake dating," but end up with real consequences.
What to say about this book... It's soso good. I was hooked immediately by the prologue, and I enjoyed every chapter. I thought that the characters were well-written and had a ton of depth to them. Each one had different layers that were revealed throughout the book, and it made me love them even more (except for one.. if you know you know).
The romance is a slow burner for sure, but well worth it in the end. Sometimes I don't enjoy slow-burners, but I didn't mind it this time because the book itself was enjoyable to read and the end felt more rewarding/exciting.
This is definitely one of my favorite reads of the year. 1000% recommend. I look forward to Ali Hazelwood's future projects.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Olive é uma estudante de PhD e uma promissora cientista, tem como família os melhores amigos Ahn e Malcow e ela faria tudo por eles. Por isso ela toma uma atitude impulsiva para convencer Ahn de que ela não está interessada em Jeremy, Olive beija o primeiro homem que encontra no corredor do laboratório da faculdade. O problema é que esse homem é ninguém menos do que Dr. Adam Carlsen, temido e odiado pelos alunos por ser um professor linha dura com seus orientados.

Quando a notícia se espalha, Olive eé surpreendida com uma proposta de Adam: eles fingem namorar por um mês, assim Olive se beneficia ajudando a melhor amiga, e Adam convence a universidade de que não vai sair de lá e não perde as verbas para suas pesquisas. Eles não poderiam ser mais diferentes, e o relacionamento deles faz com que os colegas dela fiquem espantados, afinal quem gostaria de namorar um homem como ele?

Eu estava com as expectativas muito altas ao pegar esse livro, ele está causando um burburinho na gringa mesmo antes de ser lançado. Adam e Olive são o que chamam de grumpy & sunshine, o mocinho carrancudo e a mocinha radiante, é divertido ver suas diferenças, seja no meio social, no humor ou no que eles pedem no café. O romance é construído aos pouquinhos, o que torna o livro um slow burn, mas em alguns momentos parecia que o enredo não avançava, até chegar em um certo ponto que as coisas explodiram na minha cara e eu devorei o livro.

The Love Hypothesis tem algumas partes com termos científicos para mostrar bem o universo que Olive e Adam vivem, confesso que eu não entendi muita coisa nessas horas, mas não é nada que tenha atrapalhado a minha leitura. Esse é o primeiro romance da autora Ali Hazelwood e estarei no aguardo de mais livros dela, principalmente dentro desse mesmo universo.

I am so freaking charmed. You all mean to tell me this is a debut novel? Brava, Ali Hazelwood! THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS is a delight. What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been said? It’s like a big cup of hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream and sprinkles (which our heroine would love and our hero would hate!)

From the very first page, I knew the writing and plot just worked. Our heroine, Olive, is a spunky grad student who, in a fit of panic, kisses Adam – the biggest jerk professor in the biology department. From there, an unlikely and deliciously fun fake dating romance starts between our sunshine-y heroine and major grump hero.

Do I know anything about high-level, fast-paced academia? No. But I loved learning about it through Olive’s eyes. I was fascinated by the challenges women in STEM face. Hazelwood masterfully weaves professional challenges, personal angst (so much angst), and toe-curling romance in an obviously personal setting.

The longing/pining and banter were the highlights of this book for me. Adam was so incredibly dreamy. Watching Olive slowly, oh so slowly fall for Adam, and his gruff kindness over sugary coffee and inside jokes was just fabulous all the way around. Waiting for the slow burn in this book to pay off was EXCRUCIATING at times; it was worth it. One of the best love scenes I have read in a long time. I mean… sigh I am still thinking about it.

I love how self-aware Olive is about her trope-tastic life. Who doesn’t love a romance-reading heroine? Living in her head was both wonderful… and occasionally a bit of a chore. While it is addressed in the book, Olive lies. A lot. To herself, to her friends, and to Adam. And while it does add to the overall angst and make the book more than 150 pages long, there were parts where I just wanted to shake her. I understand why Hazelwood needed Olive to be so unaware – to enable the reader to be aware of Adam’s real feelings – but it occasionally made her seem dim. And annoying.

I also thought the ending was extremely anti-climactic. I needed at least one more chapter to believe the HEA and get a little more insight into Adam’s POV. While these things kept me from giving it five stars, I still enjoyed the book a whole lot.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The angst made my heart hurt, the issues addressed added the emotional heft I wanted, and the romance made my heart warm. THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS is a hard-to-put-down warm hug of a romance novel; I can’t wait to see what Hazelwood writes next! Consider me a fan!

**I received a free copy of this book in order to provide an honest review**

I looooove a good fake dating trope! What’s even better? A hot professor and a female scientist who might also be total opposites. Adam is grumpy and Olive always puts others first. They’re an unlikely pair, except for their obvious chemistry…see what I did there?

I thought this one was sweet, steamy, funny, and very clever. I absolutely adored it!

Excellent, excellent romcom!

4.5 stars

TW: sexual harassment; mentions of death of a parent

This was an unexpected surprise. I was hesitant to read this since the author was pretty big in the Star Wars fanfic scene and I’ve had not great luck with other big fandom authors. But, aside from a few nods, this definitely stood alone as original work and I appreciate it. The slow burn here was excellent and I really enjoyed the characters. While there were a few romance tropes here I didn’t enjoy (over emphasis on how large of a person he is in contrast to how small she is; characters being so oblivious it’s painful), I overall adored this. There were a few bits at the very end that I felt were a little over the top, which combined with the mentioned tropes kept it from being 5 stars. But if you like fake dating and slow burn, this is for you.

Grad school, fake relationship, slow burn romance, with found family. These are all my favorite things! I loved this story so much, it was incredibly relatable and funny, while also dealing with fairly heavy topics.
I found the way graduate school was represented to be very accurate (besides all the hot professors). And I think the emphasis on found family was what really sold this story for me. Yes, it was about Olive and Adam finding their happy ending, but it was also about the people in their lives who helped them get there too. Plus it was an accurate look at balancing graduate school with a relationship.
I just loved it, and I wish I could read this again for the first time.

Originally published on Goodreads.

DNF @ 24%.

I'm bummed about this one because I was fully expecting to be very into this (here for women rep in STEM!), but the writing style and the characters were not for me.

I had no idea until I read reviews that this began as a Reylo fan fic though it's obvious in hindsight with the frequent descriptions of Adam's "broad" shoulders and long nose (and, omg, I just realized we're not even pretending here and she named the character ADAM). I am...just not attracted to Adam Driver so point off there for constantly making me picture him. But I also did not see the "Reylo" connection at all. Adam is supposedly grumpy. Rude to his grad students. Okay, AND? Did he go to the dark side and murder a bunch of people because he had anger/self-esteem issues??? I also was told way more that he was an asshole than I ever actually SAW him being an asshole, and he's obviously already smitten with Olive so he's nothing but neutral/nice to her, so... IDGI.

Also, Olive is no Rey. Olive herself is another reason I put the book down; she is super oblivious to everything, her internal monologue was repetitive (my least favorite writing tick), and I could tell she was going to be a weird kind of awkward that I don't necessarily enjoy (girl, stop lying to your friend!). I could get the reasoning behind one kiss to convince her friend that she was over this dude she dated like twice, but to continue the fake dating just so the friend (who had already went on a date or two with said dude) would...what? Not break up with him because Olive's fake date/one-night stand didn't work out? Why would she do that?? If you're going to use a silly plot device, either make it logistically convincing or be SO off-the-wall entertaining that I'm having fun despite the lack of logic.

I read another few reviews that discuss what happens in the rest of the book (esp. the stuff with Tom) and I am feeling pretty confident in my decision to stop.

I received a free Netgalley ARC from the publisher. This in no way influenced my review.

THIS BOOK WAS SO CUTE. Before finishing, I went to buy my own copy of it (because I wasn't on top of it enough to read the ARC before publishing day and I'm kinda mad about it because I much rather would have read this on vacay than some of the other books I did), and I was extremely upset to find out that it was backordered everywhere! But then I was like, oh, but that's so good for Ms. Hazelwood!!! And then I told myself to reign in my impatience because at least I got to savor the ARC.

I super enjoyed getting to know Olive and Adam. I wanted to hug each of them on multiple occasions. The look into academia, which I exited after my master's, was an interesting one, especially as someone who has spent zero time in the science world. There was fake dating, grumpy/sunshine, ALMOST a one-room/one-bed, slow burn, all kicked off by expired contact lenses and then an impromptu kiss in a lab. I will be shoving this one in everybody's hands.

Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my thoughts!

Book: The Love Hypothesis
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Genre: Romance
Rating: 10/10
5 stars

Thank you so much Berkley Publishing and Penguin Random House for the gifted copy of this book! Published September 14, 2021.

MY THOUGHTS

WOW! This book absolutely lived up to its hype for me. I always get so nervous picking up books that so many people adore out of fear of starting out with my expectations too high, but with this one I absolutely joined the hype train. I cannot believe this is Ali Hazelwood's debut novel. It is a literary masterpiece that grabs you immediately and takes you along Adam & Olive's journey. I also love that the writing aided people with or without a background in science. It was universally appealing for all audiences. Well done, Hazelwood!

*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*

I am going to preface this review by saying that I have my graduate degree in chemistry and I have been a long time romance reader. This is the first book I have read where STEM graduate school is ACCURATELY portrayed. I wanted to shout with joy that Olive wasn't walking around in booty shorts, flip flops, and a face full of make-up everyday. Thank Ali Hazelwood for capturing women in STEM so well!

Now lets dive into the romance, I love a fake dating troupe. How this whole mess starts was hilariously awkward and delightful. Olive just seems to dig herself into a deeper hole every time she opens her mouth. Too be fair though, I loved how Adam, while portrayed as a hard *ss, seems to take everything in stride. There is definitely an underlying chemistry between Olive and Adam, and the two form a genuine friendship over time. The emotional-aspect of their relationship, I adored.

But I didn't like the physical aspect of their relationship. As in it went from practically non-existent to full-throttle in pages. To be honest, I was really taken aback by the progression here. Especially given the fact that Olive just went through something traumatic, it left my heart aching for Adam, who seemed to be being used as a distraction. The pacing of their physical relationship felt off and by the time things did happen they felt rushed. But in the end, things wrapped up nicely and it was awkward, adorable, and endearing.

I just adored this book! I cannot say enough wonderful things about it! Just go buy it, you won't be sorry.

Olive Smith is a 3rd year PhD student. Olive wants to convince her best friend, Anh that she is over the last guy she dated, whom now Anh likes. So when the opportunity arises, Olive turns and kisses the closes person to her, knowing that Anh will see. Well it ends up being Adam Carlsen, the young, hot shot professor who everyone hates. Now Olive has a bigger problem in that she has to convince her friends that she really is dating Adam. Good thing he decides to "play" along. Of course the more time these two spend together, the more those lines keep getting blurred. When a big science conference ends up throwing Adam and Olive together, things get even hotter. Just when it looks like everything in Olive's life is starting to look promising, a wrench gets thrown into the mix and her life gets shattered. Just when it looks like there is no hope, Olive finds that she may still have a little luck on her side.

This fake dating, super sexy contemporary romance story was perfect. I just loved both of these characters. Olive was quirky, fun and so tuned into her school work that she didn't notice many things going on around her, namely Adam. Adam was stern and took his work seriously. He strived to make everyone a better scientist, and most of the time was misunderstood. He also had a secret crush on Olive. These two together provided such fun dialog and I could not put this story down. I just loved how these two meshed. Overall I cannot recommend this book enough.

LOTS of hype with this one and this review is no different.

Thoughts 💭
This book is everything that’s good about the fake dating trope. Allllll of the tension with forced touching. Awareness of how ridiculous the concept of fake dating is. Shared hotel rooms. You know the drill.

Truly, I can’t say enough good things about The Love Hypothesis. I was smiling more often than not and it’s just a damn good romcom that I read in one day.

Read if you like: Fake dating, academia, hot nerds, Jewish love interest

⚠️TWs: Sexual harassment, verbal abuse from authority figure (off page), misogyny, death of a parent, cancer

I absolutely loved this book! Would give it more than five stars if possible. I loved how it acknowledged the fake dating trope and seemed very self-aware. I also felt like it dealt with sexism in the collegiate & work force really well.
Their banter was top tier. I won't say much else so I don't spoil it for others, but this was one of my favorite romance books in a long time and keeps you wanting more. If you need a fast-paced read to pull you out of a slump, this is the book for you.

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

A rom-com set in academia with a selfless, female student working day and night all in the name of cancer research “fake dating” a professor to get her friends off her back… Need I say more?

It is no surprise that The Love Hypothesis is rated 4.49 on Goodreads with over 25K reviews and I agree. I loved and throughly enjoyed this book. If you love rom coms, definitely check this one out. You will love Olive too.

However, what impressed me the most (and hasn’t been mentioned much in reviews) was how accurately and authentically Ali Hazelwood (a professor herself) nailed the ups and downs of academia and the graduate student life, especially from the perspective as a woman in STEM. The author was spot on when she wrote: “Academia’s a lot of bucks for very little bang. What matters is whether your reason to be in it is good enough.”

Side note: My husband works in academia in a science lab as a faculty member (and he was nice enough to take this photo for me). I remember well his 8 years of graduate studies, the long hours working, the lack of appreciation, all the free lunches he and his grad students would attended.

Yep, this one is going straight into my “favs of the year” stack. I know it’s only September but you can’t stop me. Swipe for the synopsis of this gem.

This recent release has been getting a lot of hype on bookstagram so I quickly moved it up my TBR. Let me tell you, it was so worth it! It gripped me from the beginning and was enjoyable throughout. I flew through this in just a few days on my kindle. Thanks for the gifted copy @netgalley & @berkleypub!

Fake dating is one of my favorite tropes & Hazelwood executed it flawlessly. The banter between Olive & Adam was just precious and while he was a curmudgeon to start, he quickly grew on me.

While Olive & Adam are both scientists, there isn’t an excessive amount of scientific jargon and it’s all relatively easy to follow. I was a little worried about that but shouldn’t have been.

For those who like to know what kind of steam to expect, there isn’t much in the first 3/4 but the last 1/4 had a good amount. I don’t mind steam but I know it’s not for everyone so wanted to put that out there!

Trigger warnings: sexual harassment, death of a parent, cancer, sexism, misogyny, bullying