This was fine for a light romance novel (though I feel a bit odd calling it “light” when the one of the points, it would seem, was highlighting the difficulties of being a woman in STEM, including and especially sexual harassment). So much about the book was preposterous, though. Before I read the author’s note, I would have assumed the author was not in academia given some of the glaring misrepresentations of how things like placement and grants actually work. I know these were done in aid of the story, and it wouldn’t bother most readers, but on top of the everything else (the inexplicable character decisions and preposterous, but convenient happenings typical of this type of book), the book seemed to ask to much of me in the way of suspension of belief.

There were some things I really liked about the book like Adam’s character in general (though, personally I would have preferred if he wasn’t a perfect physical specimen) and that the main characters were not sexually motivated (demisexuals? There’s specific discussion of the possibility of Olive being asexual)

But there’s a reliance on tropes and stereotypes (including a promiscuous bisexual) and, what bothered me the most after reading the author’s note was the fact that the author decided to make Olive’s major professor a woman. The gender of that character didn’t make any difference to the story, but having the distracted (by family concerns), checked-out advisor be a woman does nothing to make the case for women in STEM and/or academia.

A review by morsecode The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

A review by morsecode
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood