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A review by leahfoko
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It was a bit of a struggle for me to get Reylo out of my head while reading this. Also the sock thing™️ was a little weird to me (personal preference sorry idk man). It just all felt very fanfic-ey to me BUT that is not a bad thing by any means. I am a fanfic aficionado so I have no issues with fanfic whatsoever. I just felt like it took me out of the book a little bit, since I personally am NOT a fan of Reylo. So I gotta get that out of the way at the start of the review, this definitely affected my opinion of the book, but not by any fault of the author’s or the writing.
I do love a fake dating trope. I would absolutely die for that trope, so therefore I very much enjoyed this book. I also enjoyed the science references, as a STEM nerd myself.
I found the sexual harassment thing to be kind of triggering in a way because it was just too real and horrifying. It was hard to read because I know, unfortunately, how often that kind of thing happens and it very often does not work out as well in real life as in this book. Most people don’t have a recording of the offensive misogynistic comments that they can use to hold the person accountable. I just kept stressing about how that could’ve gone so differently, and often does. So having that in the book kind of brought me out of the fluff a bit because I was so distressed. BUT that moment at the restaurant where she plays the recording for everyone was so fucking satisfying I was LIVING.
Another issue I had with the book was the way that Olive kept just lying out of her ass to Adam and not just being honest about her feelings drove me kind of crazy. I understand that she was afraid of admitting feelings and being rejected, but I also felt like she needed to tell him that her feelings had changed because it wasn’t fair to keep him in the situation when he didn’t know the full story. It feels like in that kind of situation it’s important that everyone is on the same page at a certain point. I understand her reasoning, it just annoyed me and there was like 20% of the book where she was just not telling him important stuff and I was like girl. what. I just felt like having him continue the fake dating once he thought she liked someone else seemed unfair because she wasn’t being fully honest with him. I also thought the fact that she kept assuming that he just like someone else, for absolutely no reasoning, irritated me a lot. I guess this is my long winded way of saying that Olive as a character kind of got on my nerves.
All this said, the book was fun and had some tropes that I love to death. I am an absolute sucker for fake dating and grumpy-sunshine. I just think that this was not my favorite of the fake dating/grumpy sunshine books that I have read. But if you like that trope I would still recommend this book.
I do love a fake dating trope. I would absolutely die for that trope, so therefore I very much enjoyed this book. I also enjoyed the science references, as a STEM nerd myself.
Another issue I had with the book was the way that Olive kept just lying out of her ass to Adam and not just being honest about her feelings drove me kind of crazy. I understand that she was afraid of admitting feelings and being rejected, but I also felt like she needed to tell him that her feelings had changed because it wasn’t fair to keep him in the situation when he didn’t know the full story. It feels like in that kind of situation it’s important that everyone is on the same page at a certain point. I understand her reasoning, it just annoyed me and there was like 20% of the book where she was just not telling him important stuff and I was like girl. what. I just felt like having him continue the fake dating once he thought she liked someone else seemed unfair because she wasn’t being fully honest with him. I also thought the fact that she kept assuming that he just like someone else, for absolutely no reasoning, irritated me a lot. I guess this is my long winded way of saying that Olive as a character kind of got on my nerves.
All this said, the book was fun and had some tropes that I love to death. I am an absolute sucker for fake dating and grumpy-sunshine. I just think that this was not my favorite of the fake dating/grumpy sunshine books that I have read. But if you like that trope I would still recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, and Sexual content
Minor: Cancer, Grief, and Death of parent