The Love Experiment

Thank you to HarperCollins, One More Chapter, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Love Experiment by Kitty Wilson is a lovely rom-com that will appeal to fans of Tessa Bailey or Ali Hazelwood. The story revolves around Lily, who runs the Love Doctor podcast, where she solves other people's love dilemmas. One day, while in the sauna, she meets the handsome Jay. It turns out that they need to work together. Will sparks fly between the opposites? Or will this fling end in heartbreak?

Here is a humorous excerpt from Chapter 1, which is from Lily's point of view:

"I listen to my sign-off on the final version of this week’s Love Doctor podcast. The subject matter is a little close to home but I’m done, I click upload and tap through to make sure all has gone smoothly before I close the lid of my laptop. As I do so I cast around the box room cum wardrobe where I record each week. This room is perfect with clothes on racks along each wall which absorb the sound and provide me with a little podcast-making cocoon, with just enough room for my teeny table.
Now I’m finished, I give a quick but firm nod to the polystyrene heads that adorn high shelves. I try not to be intimidated by them. Obviously, I’m aware they are inanimate objects and that we don’t live in a Toy Story kind of world where these things come to life, but still, I don’t trust them, not one iota."

Overall, The Love Experiment is a rom-com that is told from dual 1st person POVs. One highlight of this book is the original premise. I thought it was so original to have a "Doctor" as the female protagonist. I also loved the idea that she is an expert at handling other people's love problems. I did take off 1 star, because I had some issues with the tone of the book. A scene filled with sexual tension is followed by a scene where the female lead talks about being assaulted in school. At times, it felt darker than a typical lighthearted rom-com should. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, you can check out this book when it comes out in July!

Trigger Warning: mention of past violence and abuse, workaholic, PCOS
“When the time is right you will meet the perfect person”
“I’m the female Hitch, a dating servant for the twenty-first century”
The Love Doctor, a commitment-phobe with serious issues from her past, who’s very good at giving advices but not so good at following them herself …
A man who just wants to settle down and have a family, with the Right One but is trying to stop dating every woman who has legs, to prove a point to his amazing little sister …
And High Jinx … I JUST LOVE HER WITH ALL MY HEART !!!
This woman’s fiction romance was amazing !!!! I loved it completely!!!
I loved the issues it dealt with! I loved the romance between the characters !!!
I loved the journey they all had to go through, in their own way and time, to better understand themselves and get to finally be able to live fully and completely their own identities !!!
I loved the tension and the funny moments !!
And I loved that, in one way or another, this book was a triumph of diversity !!!
And let me tell you … JINX IS STILL QUEEN OF THE NIGHT !!!
I’m so glad I had the chance to read this book !!! I learned so many things I don’t think I’ll ever forget … not even the four golden rules !!!
“It was instinctive, primal, it felt right, as if I had been waiting for this night my entire life without ever realising it”
“Be brave
Have faith
Be true to yourself
But don’t lick their faces”

this was such a cute and fun read! it was very fast paced and i was able to finish it quickly! i absolutely loved these characters so much!!! lily and jay had such incredible chemistry and i loved seeing that tension and how it escalated throughout the whole book! and the other characters like cassie, kevin, and dan were EVERYTHING!! they definitely added so much to this story and i loved every second of it!! definitely will be reading more from this author!!💗

Sometimes I fall in love with a book instantly, and sometimes it takes a little while. This was one of the latter, but let me tell you, by the final chapters I was laughing and sobbing at more or less the same time, which isn’t the best of looks in a busy Starbucks branch.

The premise of The Love Experiment is deceptively simple; Lily won’t date – even staying the night after a hook up is too much like commitment, and Jay can’t date – he’s promised his sister he won’t in an attempt to show her that changing the habits of a lifetime is possible. But there the cliches end. This book is laugh out loud funny while at the same time dealing with serious issues and the horrendous scars they leave. The more I came to know about Lily’s past the more I ached for her to be able to move forwards. The more I understood what made her the way she is. The more I wanted to be her friend.

All the characters, large and larger than life, are drawn with an incredible eye for detail and a roundness that is often missing in romantic comedy. They were real and will stay with me for a very long time. And laugh? Did I mention a fair chunk of the action is set in a drag club? The names of the artists alone was enough to make me cackle. And don’t even get me started on the harpist…

I fell in love with Kitty Wilson after reading Every Day In December last year. So, when I received an email from One More Chapter asking me if I was interested in an ARC of her new book I felt like a kid on Christmas day and I decided to "unwrap" the gift immediately and... well... I was not disappointed!

The Love Experiment is a gorgeous book about love, and I mean every kind of love: romantic newborn love, tender love, passionate love, steady love, platonic love, self-love, brotherly love and also bad, limiting and abusive love.
What I adore about this book is that every single love story is told with no judgement. As a matter of fact, the author encourages us readers to constantly keep in mind that we must do what we're comfortable with, stay true to what we want to be and try and make our decisions based on our best selves; to remember that whether people are dating or not, whether people dream about finding the perfect match or rather live sourrounded by family or friends or cats or even dolls, whether people know they're worthy of pure and healthy love or have yet to realize it, people have to do things in their own time! And I really find it pretty amazing!

The other thing that I really liked is that characters were so beautifully explored that throughout the book I constantly knew how they really felt, I was literally able to read their thoughts and I never found myself wondering the reason behind their decisions or behaviour. To me, this is pretty crucial in order to be able to feel the tension between the two main protagonists, to feel the sparks and the mad chemistry between them so that I can't help but rooting for them. I am telling you... it is impossibile not to ship Kitty Wilson's OTPs. So far, I've read two books written by her and I think this is the best part of her writing style.

Finally, this book reminded me of Abby Jimenez's The Friend Zone... and I think if you loved the latter then you must read The Love Experiment!

Thank you One More Chapter and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book. Best Gift Ever!

I have been following Kitty since the days of her Cornish Village School series that I loved. This, for me, is a completely current type of book, although the blurb says that it is a Romcom it is far deeper than that, which doesn't always make for easy reading. Lily, the "Love Doctor" has many issues of her own which results in her going for brief relationships, whereas Jay is looking for someone to spend the rest of his life with, but somehow there is a definite spark between them. The book covers many issues, including abusive relationships and PCOS , but there are some really great Drag Queen scenes - I loved Jinx - to stop it being totally dark. In summary it is a book that you need to read slowly and absorb, making you think about your own relationships, but it does have its entertaining side as well.
I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley, however this did not influence my review of the book.

A great summer beach read for any romance fan! On the surface, this feels like quite a light, cosy romance but Kitty Wilson tackles some heavier topics such as domestic abuse and bullying with care, offering great advice from the book’s Love Doctor, Lily. Wilson’s writing is a graceful balance of the fluffy, warm romance and the darker subjects that make this a more realistic read with complex characters - exactly what I look for in my romance books!

There are a host of fantastic characters sprinkled throughout this book and they all had their own personal issues and backstories which made it easy to connect with them. Wilson showed real life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but there is happiness to be had and it’s possible to grow if we put in some hard work and, who knows, romance could be on the horizon! Beyond loving the concept of Lily being the Love Doctor with her own podcast, I thought the advice on different topics was incredibly interesting and really sound advice. It added an extra special layer to the book.

Despite Lily’s profession, she has a lot of her own past to deal with before she’s ready to date Jay who honestly, may be my perfect man. While he’s trying to live in the moment, Lily struggles to think of the future but when they’re together the sparks fly and with a bit of self-reflection and bravery (mostly Lily’s) they might just make it work. I would say though that although I did really enjoy this book, I did find Lily to be a little frustrating at times - she was cruel, making bad decisions and acting immaturely. It wouldn’t stop me recommending this book, though!

A story about an love doctor with her own history and the man who flips her world upside down. At the beginning I got confused when the chapters switched points of view and didn't know it switched until further in the chapter. Really cute story and loved the message it shares.

An enjoyable read with a nice love story but almost better is the really warm and loving thread re friendship flowing through it.

This is a funny and adorable book. When two people meet that have vowed not to have a serious relationship with anyone, sparks fly and they try to keep things at bay. As you can guess, lots of scenarios force them to be together. There is a ton of comedy in their situations to help alleviate some of the more serious aspects of their lives. It is a bit long with a lot of chapters spent on their self analysis, which I didn’t find necessary but overall it was a fun book. The drag scene added some exceptional humour and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some parts. If you are looking for a rom/com than this is the one for you.

I loved the premise of this book and was instantly intrigued. This was a great love story that had me hooked.