We all love a good black cat and golden retriever duo, right? When one partner is always brooding, never smiles and hates practically everyone. And, of course, where the other loves rom-coms and chocolate.
Scientists Olive Smith and Adam Carlsen, “known ass” and “destroyer of research careers,” give us something of the sort. He only drinks black coffee — she loves sugary pumpkin spice lattes. She gets overjoyed at conveyor belt sushi — he thinks it doesn’t count as real food.
Adam is a professor at Stanford, and Olive is a grad student there. Not his grad student, but it is odd enough to receive some side-eye from me. They strike up a deal where they will fake date for both of their benefits, and I’m sure we can all imagine where it goes from there.
Throughout “The Love Hypothesis,” Ali Hazelwood puts a lot of emphasis on Adam’s size — a bit too much for my taste. He is broad, towering and even “as tall as Mount Everest.” I wonder, is that really the sexiest tall thing she could compare him to? The whole thing felt a bit too feeble and perhaps cliché, where a petite woman finds her big and strong savior.
Speaking of our strong man, Adam’s character was also just too bland for me. He had the tall, moody guy thing down, but that was pretty much it. I wanted to see more, and found myself wishing that the characters in this book went beyond being scientists and their one other surface-level trait assigned to them.
As their fake dating goes on, Olive sees past Adam’s moody guy front. She catches herself noticing his abs and his dimples, but continues denying her attraction to him. She digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole as her lies build up. Once she realizes she’s falling for Adam, she even leads him to believe she’s in love with someone else. Even though he often goes out of his way to help her and is clearly in love with her, Olive is convinced she’s a nobody that Adam would never truly want.
I didn’t love Olive and got immensely frustrated with her while reading. To me, she’s a classic romance protagonist type, beautiful, smart and funny, with friends who remind her how great she is. Yet, she constantly thinks she’s nothing special and not good enough for anything. She’s the type to throw her hair in a messy bun and slap on whatever clothes she finds first, looking effortlessly beautiful to everyone but herself.
Olive’s insecurity doesn’t make her feel relatable — instead it feels like a plot device. The story needs her to stay oblivious and self-deprecating to stretch out the tension, but it undercuts her intelligence and self-awareness. I felt like I was watching her hold herself back for no reason. Look, I understand being insecure, but insecurity paired with a protagonist who is otherwise presented as perfect without trying reads less like depth and more like cliché.
However, though I found myself screaming at her for not seeing what’s so obviously right in front of her, I weirdly rooted for her throughout the entire book. Maybe her stubbornness made her eventual happiness feel earned.
“ However, though I found myself screaming at her for not seeing what’s so obviously right in front of her, I weirdly rooted for her throughout the entire book. Maybe her stubbornness made her eventual happiness feel earned. ”
I wish we got to see deeper into Anh, Olive’s best friend. She is a Vietnamese woman in a male-dominated field, always trying to make things more inclusive. Yet, she didn’t feel very fleshed out. It sort of felt like her only character trait was being a woman of color in STEM, and even that didn’t feel very explored. Olive describes Anh as “her person,” yet we watch her lie to Anh for most of the book. I wish Hazelwood had given Anh more dimension — her perspective as a woman of color navigating academia could have added depth to the story, and her friendship with Olive could have provided a stronger emotional anchor beyond the romance.
At the same time, some parts of the book felt overly drawn out. The sex scene in the book lasted about two and a half chapters, which felt far too long and fleshed out. I found myself no longer absorbed in the book and waiting for it to end. The scene also fell into the unfortunate trope of an older, powerful man guiding the innocent, younger woman. Despite this, I liked that sex wasn’t a main focus of Olive and Adam’s relationship! However, this scene could have been trimmed without losing anything important.
Overall, this book has a lot of miscommunication, so if you aren’t a fan of that trope, it will probably make you very angry. It’s painful to watch two people not realize they’re madly in love — think “Pride and Prejudice” levels, where if they just spoke honestly for a few minutes, everything would be fine.
Despite its flaws, “The Love Hypothesis” has its charms. Do I think this was a fun read that was easy to get through? Yes! I can admit that I did find Adam and Olive cute at times. Definitely cute in a corny way, but I can appreciate that. Did this book kind of feel like fan fiction? Also yes! Would I recommend this book? Sure, if you like silly rom-com novels that you can’t really take seriously. If not, then I would tell you to pass on this one. Either way, it’s the kind of book you can enjoy with a pumpkin spice latte in hand, no deep thinking required.
Kassia Zabetakis PZ ’28 loves speeding through romance novels in only days, but usually ends up hating them after she’s done.