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A review by maddy707
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
1.0
Let me preface this review by stating that I am not a romance reader. It's not that I don't want to read romance, it’s just that I have only read 1 other romance book. Perhaps if I was more familiar with this genre I would've enjoyed it more. That being said, here's my review.
Pros
My only pro for this book is that it did a good job of displaying the cutthroat nature of academia. It did not sugar coat the rigorous nature of these fields. It showed how male-dominated academia is, and how that leads to woman being denied the same opportunities as men.
Cons
I found our two main characters to be incredibly boring. Adam had no personality outside of being brooding and Olive, had no personality outside of being a woman in STEM. There was nothing distinctive about these characters outside of the fact they are both in academia. This book being from Olive's POV, I found the description of Adam to be very repetitive. All she can tell me is how tall and broad he is. Ok I get it, he's tall and you're short. Anything else? Because of these repetitive descriptions, I found the chemistry between these characters to be unbelievable for majority of the book. Even their banter is repetitive. All she does is go on about how much of an ass he is and all he does is call her a "smartass". Where is the variety? Where is the flavour? Seeing the repetitious banter over and over just made me roll my eyes every time. It led to these characters feeling incredibly one-dimensional. Although, I think they developed a good friendship by the end of the book, I just found their romantic chemistry to be lacking.
I hate how Adam is described as being an asshole. That's his only personality description. Yet everything Ali Hazelwood presents, shows me a character that doesn't understand social cues or emotions well. Is he really an asshole or does he just display neurodivergent traits?
Although the harassment Olive experienced set up an interesting plot point, the ending of it was mishandled. Why does Olive need Adam to deal with this situation for her? Why can't she be the one to speak of her harassment directly? Why does she need a big strong man to do it for her. It showed me that unless you are a man, or have some big influence in your field, you aren't taken seriously. And while I understand that to be true in academia, it would've been nice to see a story where the woman is taken seriously/is able to stand up for herself when experiencing harassment. Having Adam deal with it just felt cheap and quick. As if what she experienced wasn't serious because the "big strong man will fix it for her".
The potential for demisexuality or even gray ace representation was fumbled so hard. Both Olive and Adam present demisexual traits, and yet the author doesn't focus on this nearly enough. (Which is a shame because Olive had literally nothing else interesting about her.) Instead, the author goes on to say that Olive "has something wrong her brain". She makes it seem that Olive "isn't normal" because she doesn't experience sexual attraction in the same way other people do. It's incredibly ignorant and misrepresents an already stigmatised sexuality.
Now for the sm*t. The sm*t of this book wasn't overall bad. But there were 2 moments that just made me cringe so hard and took me right out of the story. The first moment was when ADAM FULLY ATE OLIVE'S ENTIRE BOOB. I remember reading that and just thinking "how the fuck does that even work. How do the mechanics even…" The second moment was when Adam was just fully inside of Olive and she stops and is like "Hey." "Hey." God I cringed so hard. This man is 9 inches deep and that is the moment you decide to try some emotionally connection?
Final Thoughts
I will be giving Ali Hazelwood another chance as I already own Love On The Brain. But I doubt I will be impressed with it based off everything I've heard. Overall, I found this book slow and boring. I had high expectations going in due to the hype, shame it wasn't met.
Pros
My only pro for this book is that it did a good job of displaying the cutthroat nature of academia. It did not sugar coat the rigorous nature of these fields. It showed how male-dominated academia is, and how that leads to woman being denied the same opportunities as men.
Cons
I found our two main characters to be incredibly boring. Adam had no personality outside of being brooding and Olive, had no personality outside of being a woman in STEM. There was nothing distinctive about these characters outside of the fact they are both in academia. This book being from Olive's POV, I found the description of Adam to be very repetitive. All she can tell me is how tall and broad he is. Ok I get it, he's tall and you're short. Anything else? Because of these repetitive descriptions, I found the chemistry between these characters to be unbelievable for majority of the book. Even their banter is repetitive. All she does is go on about how much of an ass he is and all he does is call her a "smartass". Where is the variety? Where is the flavour? Seeing the repetitious banter over and over just made me roll my eyes every time. It led to these characters feeling incredibly one-dimensional. Although, I think they developed a good friendship by the end of the book, I just found their romantic chemistry to be lacking.
I hate how Adam is described as being an asshole. That's his only personality description. Yet everything Ali Hazelwood presents, shows me a character that doesn't understand social cues or emotions well. Is he really an asshole or does he just display neurodivergent traits?
Although the harassment Olive experienced set up an interesting plot point, the ending of it was mishandled. Why does Olive need Adam to deal with this situation for her? Why can't she be the one to speak of her harassment directly? Why does she need a big strong man to do it for her. It showed me that unless you are a man, or have some big influence in your field, you aren't taken seriously. And while I understand that to be true in academia, it would've been nice to see a story where the woman is taken seriously/is able to stand up for herself when experiencing harassment. Having Adam deal with it just felt cheap and quick. As if what she experienced wasn't serious because the "big strong man will fix it for her".
The potential for demisexuality or even gray ace representation was fumbled so hard. Both Olive and Adam present demisexual traits, and yet the author doesn't focus on this nearly enough. (Which is a shame because Olive had literally nothing else interesting about her.) Instead, the author goes on to say that Olive "has something wrong her brain". She makes it seem that Olive "isn't normal" because she doesn't experience sexual attraction in the same way other people do. It's incredibly ignorant and misrepresents an already stigmatised sexuality.
Now for the sm*t. The sm*t of this book wasn't overall bad. But there were 2 moments that just made me cringe so hard and took me right out of the story. The first moment was when ADAM FULLY ATE OLIVE'S ENTIRE BOOB. I remember reading that and just thinking "how the fuck does that even work. How do the mechanics even…" The second moment was when Adam was just fully inside of Olive and she stops and is like "Hey." "Hey." God I cringed so hard. This man is 9 inches deep and that is the moment you decide to try some emotionally connection?
Final Thoughts
I will be giving Ali Hazelwood another chance as I already own Love On The Brain. But I doubt I will be impressed with it based off everything I've heard. Overall, I found this book slow and boring. I had high expectations going in due to the hype, shame it wasn't met.