Ali Hazelwood’s debut book, The Love Hypothesis, has pretty much taken the romance world by storm. Although it might not have racked up a ton of written reviews, it’s become extremely popular in online communities. With its use of well-known romance tropes and steamy scenes, it’s caught booklovers’ attention. Just go on BookTok, and you will find a slew of videos praising the book as one of their all-time favorites.
The book centers around Olive Smith, a student in Stanford’s biology Ph.D. program. She is smart, hardworking, and passionate about her research on pancreatic cancer, as well as a selfless and dedicated friend. But her life is thrown into chaos when a convoluted rumor about her kissing Dr. Adam Carlsen, a young and brilliant professor, spreads like wildfire throughout the entire grad program. As the novel progresses, she finds herself creating a fake dating scheme to get around the rumor. Little does she know that, among all the fake dates, she will be drawn to Adam, despite a reputation for being cold, cruel, and even heinous.
The book is fun and a real treat for any avid romance reader. Hazelwood’s detailed plot rife with multiple beloved and popular romance tropes shows that she is clearly an avid romance reader. She uses the fake relationship trope, grumpy/sunshine dynamic, forced proximity, and even the workplace romance trope. Although these have all been used before, Hazelwood breathes new life into these popular tropes by using them in an academic setting. Hazelwood even makes outright references to the fact that she is using tropes. When Olive asks Adam to fake-date her, he asks how many times she has done this, to which she replies, never but that she is familiar enough with the trope.
Hazelwood touches on the cutthroat world of academia, illustrating the imposter syndrome that comes with pursuing a Ph.D. She calls attention to the double standards, lack of representation, and sexual harassment that women and people of color face in STEM. We see, for instance, Olive’s friend Anh, a woman of color, try to assemble a BIPOC in the STEM community. Yet, while I appreciated the representation, I wish Hazelwood had focused on this more, allowing the book to take on a more realistic feel.
Another interesting development arises as Olive pursues a research opportunity working with Dr. Tom Benton, a well-respected and well-funded researcher whose lab offers her the room to expand upon her research. When Tom offers Olive a position, she is ecstatic. However, when they are alone at a conference, he comes onto her and tells her that the only reason he offered her a position in his lab was to sleep with her. His words make Olive feel powerless as she questions