A review by ekmurray
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I enjoyed this book, but I have a few issues with it, which are mostly minor spoilers so I have hidden them below:


Olive apparently runs two marathons a year, but we never see her running or thinking about running, which would actually be a great way for her to think through some of her anxieties. This seems like either a dropped thread or unconvincing characterisation. Also, she is starving due to having no money, and describes an apple and a muffin as three days’ worth of food early in the book, so I doubt she could sustain a long distance running routine on so little food.

I didn’t like the fatphobia peppered throughout the book. Olive complains when another student three times her weight (why did that have to be mentioned?) steps on her foot in a crowd, she wonders if she is too heavy for Alex to carry, he jokes multiple times that she is indeed too heavy, and she wonders whether her too-concave stomach will put him off, so she is obviously rake thin, and has internalised how being fat is bad. Sigh. This everyday fatphobia was disappointing.

Olive gets extremely anxious about everyday life stresses, but she never recognises that she might need to talk to a professional or get some strategies to deal with panic. By Alex swooping in to solve her problems, they do go away, but not because she dealt with them by overcoming her own limitations and standing up for herself. I don’t think Olive grows as a character in this book.

The sex is incredible and the sweet sweet justice of the phone recording her abuse is incredible. These two things made me want to forgive the book for everything else.

I think the development of Alex not being an awful person after all was quite obvious, as all of his decisions and statements were fair and well justified. The one time Olive tried to use her position to influence him academically was so embarrassing and inappropriate- I’m disappointed in her for trying that. 

The minor reveal about Alex’s trauma with his own supervisor was so sad. Ultimately, the terrible hours worked by Anh and Olive, and the awful pay and conditions, are so upsetting. I can see why people choose industry. Gosh, this world really needs to prioritise science more, and give scientists better pay and conditions. It’s disappointing that Alex, having gone through such a sad experience, didn’t make more of an effort to make his own students feel safe, welcome and valued. This indicates to me that Alex doesn’t undergo any growth as a character in this book.

I thought Tom’s taunt about stealing her research was unrealistic, because she has an email chain in which she sent him her report (to a monitored university email address) and a talk where she delivers her research and findings. So her authorship is quite well documented, and any attempt by him to steal it and claim authorship would be unsuccessful. I’m disappointed that Olive fell for this temporarily, before looking into it herself as well a bit later on.

Also, just to nit-pick: there already is a biomarker for pancreatic cancer: CA19.9. It’s not used broadly as a screening test, and I’m not sure why, but I suspect it’s because pancreatic cancer is so rare and thus the cost of testing the whole population once a year would be out of proportion to the years of life gained by the few true positive cases detected. It’s also not a very specific marker, which means it rises in other diseases too, which also reduces its utility as a screening test. Ultimately, the best thing we can do to reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer is to find a way to convince people to stop smoking, or not start smoking, so perhaps Olive’s research could have gone in that direction instead.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings