Prove The Hypothesis

I recently finished reading The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. *POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT* Rating: 4.25/5 stars "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." The first 1/3 was tough for me to get through because I found the multiple forced PDA scenes mortifying + I’m not into professor/student romances and had to get over that (even though she’s a grad student and they don’t work together) + the protagonist generally acting embarrassing (girl please be more professional!!). However, chapter 12 onwards was smoother sailing, and when we got to the good stuff: juicy misunderstandings, hurt/comfort, smut, a big protective dude, etc. The book definitely requires suspending my disbelief, but I enjoyed squealing at the romance once I could fully get into it.

The Love Hypothesis will go down as the biggest surprise of this year and no one is more surprised than me. I couldn't outrun this book, even if I wanted to. And you know with hype comes great expectations. And with great expectations comes even greater disappointments. Therefore, I made it my mission to go into it expecting nothing and received everything.

I've read the prologue and I was hooked. Olive and Adam's meet-cute already had me in a chokehold.

Following, the story was brimmed with so many rom-com tropes. So many. Maybe Ali Hazelwood tried a little bit too much to bring all of these tropes into one story and maybe it was a bit too much. Personally, I didn't mind it, because every Olive x Adam interaction just made me smile like a fool.

The Romance: It literally has all of my favorite tropes in one book. From the first interaction between Adam and Olive, I was glued to the pages. I love their easy banter with each other. Olive teases him about his age. Adam's hate about everything sugary.

Adam is notoriously known as the campus asshole professor who makes every grad student piss their pants. He's super strict when it comes to research and calls his student out on their bullshit when someone is not good enough. But when it comes to Olive, he is a soft harmless kitten. He believes in her so much. Adam always encourages and praises Olive for her brilliant work. Adam Carlsen is Olive's #1 fan.

Women in STEM are underrepresented and it was refreshing to see Olive being one of the few women working there and making a difference with her research on pancreatic cancer. It was interesting to read Olive's frustration with being a grad student.. all the struggles and insecurities that come with it. All these privileged white men that think they are some hotshot, but doing the bare minimum work.

Olive's smart, a great friend, but you know when I fell in love with her? When Olive and Adam went on their first fake coffee date and Adam offered to pay for her coffee, cuz he knows she's a poor student, ad what does that girl do? Adds a chocolate chip cookie, a banana, and a pack of gum to her coffee. The audacity lmao yes girl get that luxury package lunch.

The Love Hypothesis was very low on the heat level, but that one sex scene we got. I looooved it. When Adam tells her that he wants to go down on her until she passes out. When Adam asked Olive if he can fuck her... I'm on my knees for my consent King.

The Friendship between Olive and Anh: Anh was a queen anyway and it wasn't hard to stan her. Find yourself a best friend who would marry you if she thinks you will get deported back to Canada and need a green card. You don't understand how much I love Anh.

I love that she didn't want to date Jeremy, because Olive dated him and gave her approval. This girl knows the girl code too well and it's for her that Olive had to come up with this ridiculous idea of kissing the first guy she sees in the hallway to convince Anh that she's over Jeremy, so these two can get it on. But then, Anh is also the best wingwoman without knowing.

The Side-Characters: The rest of the secondary characters like Holden and Malcolm were awesome too. I love Adam and Holden's friendship. How Holden tries to embarrass Adam and Adam pretending to be annoyed and tolerating him even tho their bromance is more than solid. Most of all Holden has Adam's back.

Malcolm and Olive had a cute friendship too. Loved how Malcolm was so supportive of Olive's feelings for Adam even tho he didn't like him. Malcolm with Anh is probably the only character with some brain cells. He gave Olive some good dating advice, but did she listen noooo.

A Book not without its faults: I call this book dumbasses-to-lovers for a reason. Olive and Adam had clearly feelings for each other but were too chicken shit to confess them. Olive had confessed to Malcolm that she was falling in love with Adam and Adam heard it and when Olive said she was talking about someone else, that dumbass really believed her. I mean it makes for good angst for exactly 3 seconds because I could feel my boy's pain, but how could he not have known it was him all along? Same with Olive and her thinking the "amazing girl" Adam was pining for all these years was some random woman in his faculty like, guys I thought you were smart.

And that ending was so unsatisfying. I hate it when a romance doesn't have a proper love confession scene. I know Adam loves Olive and he told it to others, but we never got his "I love you" that he said to Olive. There was her confession and then it was cut right to the epilogue which wasn't all that satisfying either.

Check out Love Hypothesis, and take on the pining and fake dating throughout the academic setting. Happy Reading :)