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A review by ayah_reads
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.5
THAT WAS SO CUTE, I ENJOYED IT SO MUCH.
This makes me wish we had SO MANY MORE NOVELS SENT IN UNIVERSITY OR ACADEMIA ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
I absolutely LOVE that the STEM academia backdrop of this story comes right from the author's own experience. I'm an undergrad, with a sister in postgrad, so when I began reading this it felt bizarrely accurate to what I tangentially know of academia and I was really impressed and loved how Olive being a biology PhD student was large part of her character and the plot. The setting was not just a background for the romcom story, and then I found out the author is a professor in neuroscience, and it made so much sense!! So so wonderful to see it.
I loved that it really exposed academia for what it is, the overworking, underpaid, often times toxic work environment it can be. I feel like the mainstream public often sees academia as something shiny and amazing when there really is a lot of issues with it. Intertwining that with a romcom story was gold.
I found it hilarious that Olive knew the fake dating trope but it seemed to completely forget the feelings that always arise from it in every romcom ever 😂
A few issues with the book tho and some spoilers below:
I did wish they had fake dated longer than a month ish, because then we could have had that time to be like okay yes I see this relationship developing and them falling in love. But that's often a romcom vibe so I just let it slide.
Problem my biggest irksome is that Olive is clearly demisexual but she would often describe her experiences as being "werid" and not like "normal people". She even mentions contemplating being asexual but then it's never mentioned again, so clearly there is some awareness of this term existing. I wished we had either Olive already know she was demisexual / on the ace spectrum (as in know there was a term for what she felt), or understood her experiences to be normal and valid or throughout the course of the novel come to find the term herself. At the very least the comments about her being "werid" shouldn't have been in this book. I'm not asexual however so I can't speak further on the representation, I just wished those comments were either addressed or not included at all.
All in all, I'm definitely keen to read more STEM academic romcoms from this author! 🤩
This makes me wish we had SO MANY MORE NOVELS SENT IN UNIVERSITY OR ACADEMIA ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
I absolutely LOVE that the STEM academia backdrop of this story comes right from the author's own experience. I'm an undergrad, with a sister in postgrad, so when I began reading this it felt bizarrely accurate to what I tangentially know of academia and I was really impressed and loved how Olive being a biology PhD student was large part of her character and the plot. The setting was not just a background for the romcom story, and then I found out the author is a professor in neuroscience, and it made so much sense!! So so wonderful to see it.
I loved that it really exposed academia for what it is, the overworking, underpaid, often times toxic work environment it can be. I feel like the mainstream public often sees academia as something shiny and amazing when there really is a lot of issues with it. Intertwining that with a romcom story was gold.
I found it hilarious that Olive knew the fake dating trope but it seemed to completely forget the feelings that always arise from it in every romcom ever 😂
A few issues with the book tho and some spoilers below:
I did wish they had fake dated longer than a month ish, because then we could have had that time to be like okay yes I see this relationship developing and them falling in love. But that's often a romcom vibe so I just let it slide.
Problem my biggest irksome is that Olive is clearly demisexual but she would often describe her experiences as being "werid" and not like "normal people". She even mentions contemplating being asexual but then it's never mentioned again, so clearly there is some awareness of this term existing. I wished we had either Olive already know she was demisexual / on the ace spectrum (as in know there was a term for what she felt), or understood her experiences to be normal and valid or throughout the course of the novel come to find the term herself. At the very least the comments about her being "werid" shouldn't have been in this book. I'm not asexual however so I can't speak further on the representation, I just wished those comments were either addressed or not included at all.
All in all, I'm definitely keen to read more STEM academic romcoms from this author! 🤩
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia