The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships--but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.
 

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor--and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding...six-pack abs.
 

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

Side note, it’s hilarious to me how the most liked reviews for this book on Goodreads are in all caps, filled with frenetic energy or absolute distaste for elements that are really quite minor in my opinion. And that’s frankly so amusing to me considering this is possibly one of the least offensive, sickening sweet, and comfy books I’ve read perhaps this year. Falling firmly into the romcom area of the romance/chick lit genres, I thought the Love Hypothesis was a quick read that has a pitch-perfect tone for the story it’s telling. Clearly not intending to change the world nor blow you away with deep and nuanced romance, it’s a fun and light-hearted book decorated with light STEM and academic science references.

I previously read Ali Hazelwood’s YA novel Check & Mate based on a friend’s recommendation but had some personal preference issues with some of the teenage angst, so I was encouraged to try her adult novels instead. Interestingly although The Love Hypothesis has a collegiate post-grad setting and two chapters of spice, in many ways it still felt like a YA type of read in that the characters felt quite standard and the plot entirely predictable and straightforward. And despite how that may sound in a book review, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the entire book’s plot can be summarized as Olive fake dating Adam for relationship reasons, Adam fake dating Olive for logical reasons, while both try and make professional advances in their line of work. The advantage to having such a simple premise is that it allows the character dynamics and banter to be front and center, arguably The Love Hypothesis’s biggest success.

Quirky, babble-prone FMC’s are very common in this genre and at times Olive feels quite typical for this type of romance story. However the snappy banter she has with Adam just works so well, all while staying incredibly breezy and casual. I found the comedy to be a nice mix of slapstick silly and on the nose snarky, and frankly that can carry the book pretty far as-is. The book also constantly makes fun of all of the standard romcom genre tropes and instead of trying to pass them off as being clever, runs gleefully into them head-on with full unapologetic confidence. This is evident both in the plot as well as Olive’s hilarious hypotheses that open each chapter (I found them cute and witty). While some readers have found this to be silly, it’s self-awareness leaves the impression that Hazelwood knows exactly what she’s doing:

HYPOTHESIS: Approximately two out of three fake-dating situations will eventually involve room-sharing; 50 percent of room-sharing situations will be further complicated by the presence of only one bed.

“This is not real life.” “It is.” “Nuh-uh. This is a Hallmark movie. Or a poorly written young adult novel. That will not sell well. Olive, tell Malcolm to keep his day job, he’ll never make it as a writer.”

It’s an open secret that The Love Hypothesis originated as a Rey x Kylo Ren AU fanfic and despite the rework and edits, you can still see traces of its original intention. While some of the forced fake-dating situations are cleverly setup (the shared hotel room being one of them), others are less successful and felt quite cringe. You can pick any review at random and you’ll probably see it discussing about Olive being forced to sit in Adam’s lap during a guest lecture session just because the room is stuffed. Another infamous scene is the weekend social picnic where Anh squirts an entire bottle of sunscreen into Olive’s hands who has “no other choice” but to rub all the extra sunblock onto a shirtless and gleaming Adam in front of the entire faculty (of course she can’t just flick it off on the ground or wipe it off with a napkin). On one hand they are absolutely silly and comically ridiculous, yet they would be perfectly acceptable and even expected had these scenes been in a fanfic instead. Another recurring theme is Olive’s frequent comments about how large, broad, muscling, and hulking Adam is compared to her. While many readers may find this unnecessary and cringe, the size difference trope is another trope that’s so prevalent and screams fanfic. While it was not to my taste, I do think many people’s issue with this is overblown. At least Hazelwood didn’t comment about Adam having a big shoe size, if you know what I mean-

What helps prevent The Love Hypothesis from getting lost in the sea of romance novels for me is Ali Hazelwood’s writing and focus. While the prose is obviously not out to win literary awards or inspire critical analysis, it’s fun and entirely rosy; its tone to me was if Heartstopper were a romcom instead of dramedy in that it’s sweet and consciously avoids the worst places you would expect it to go. The novel also sets itself apart by Olive’s internal mile a minute spiraling thoughts that are also directly portrayed using excessive run-on sentences and huge blocks of text. Ordinarily I probably would have found this juvenile and too modern for my taste (as highlighted by many other low star ratings), but I thought it was appropriate and worked perfectly for Olive’s character narration style. This would not have worked had it been used in another book, but Hazelwood’s other book that I read did not have this quirk which leads me to believe it was a conscious artistic choice. I also love the way Hazelwood portrays Olive’s internalized thoughts with italics layered before or after what she actually says out loud. The back and forth nature and often complete duality of her responses were a highlight!

Another theme worth noting is Ali Hazelwoood’s now signature focus of women in STEM and empowered female characters. One of the reasons why I found this book to be cute but also interesting to read is the way Olive is characterized and portrayed. Despite being the silly, babbling flustered type of character that makes silly choices, Olive’s internal thought process and decision-making is anything but. Although her choices ultimately make things worse through miscommunication, she’s not a dumb character that had me chucking my ereader out the window; she’s a character that lacks confidence and has been trained to expect the worst. She’s also fundamentally smart and ambitious which is backed up by her professional achievements and success. Admittedly a lot of this happens off-screen/off-page (a major academic presentation is skipped entirely) and the science elements are more for narrative flavor rather than contributing heavily to the plot (apart from Olive’s PhD program), but it’s refreshing to read about female empowerment especially in an area traditionally dominated by men. One particular quote had me rolling, coincidentally also being one of my friend’s mantra:

Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Despite the great banter and cute progression, I did have some minor qualms with The Love Hypothesis. While I found his one-liners and dialogue great, on a closer look Adam’s characterization and development is somewhat nonexistent and he feels like the usual grouchy brooding intimidating archetype. The book tries to give a deeper backstory with his experiences during postgrad and his lifelong friendship with fellow professor Dr. Holden Rodrigues, but it feels too short to be substantial. In general I found Holden to be an interesting side character that could have contributed a lot to the story (both for Adam’s character and Malcolm’s), but he becomes notable far too late in the midst of the core conflict’s climax. The book also constantly reminds you of how intimidating, cold, and harsh Adam is known to be but there’s almost none of it actually shown. Yes, Adam’s actions are shown through Olive’s perspective who gets slightly preferred treatment from Adam, but it still feels like we’re merely told of his reputation, lowering the character growth and impact when that facade starts to melt.

The other issue I had was that while the story was fun to read and cute, it largely felt low-stakes to me. While a large portion of the book and story focuses on Olive’s pursuit of a new University lab with more resources for her research, the first two thirds of the book feel like the story is just bumbling around going through the typical rom-com motions. The content is good, but doesn’t really feel like it’s going anywhere. And while the book’s tone and storytelling is comfy, it’s also the type of book where you know everything will work out perfectly in the end and it feels almost conflict-averse. The big plot twist is a situation that could’ve gone considerably deeper or darker (ie. Lessons in Chemistry) but instead The Love Hypothesis takes the least offensive and tame route feasibly possible. And then once Olive and Adam go to attend a scholastic symposium, suddenly it’s like Hazelwood remembered where the story was heading and dumped all the conflict and character development all at once. The biggest plot twist (which I expected and could see coming early-on) and conflict occurs at the same time as Holden/Adam’s backstory which feels rushed and busy. While the rest of the book wasn’t necessarily slow or boring to read, I felt like a lot of this development could’ve been spread out better; particularly since Holden is often seen casually and quickly much earlier. And once the book reaches its conclusion, it just kind of abruptly ends and feels like it’s missing something. There is a brief one year later epilogue that’s included, but I felt it added nothing of value and either should’ve been expanded or possibly cut entirely.

All in all, I found The Love Hypothesis to be a fun and competently written rom-com. I flew through it quickly and it had me smiling at how cute it was. It’s not perfect and there is a lack of detail and development in a few key areas that give the book that “debut novel” kind of feel, but that’s really just me reading more critically than its likely intended readers. Overall the banter and tone more than outweigh its shortcomings and it’s an easy recommendation for most casual romance or chick lit readers (and this is coming from someone who talks and thinks like Adam, without his hulking size and excessively chiseled abs).