My 40th read of the year was the #booktok favourite Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. I’ve been on a real romance novel kick lately and this book was high on the list because how much hype it received on Tiktok.

A sort of summary

The story proper begins with Olive, a 3rd year phd student, kissing the first random man she sees in the hallway, to help support the lie she told her friend about being on a date, so that her friend would finally feel comfortable dating Olive’s ex that she was clearly in love with. To her dismay, Olive realises she has kissed Adam Carlsen, a formidable professor who leads another lab in her building. To make matters worse, Olive’s friend still doesn’t buy it, so she comes to Adam with a deal, a fake relationship that benefits both of them; helping to convince her friend that she’s moved on and helping to convince the board that Adam isn’t a flight risk for leaving the university by showing him in a settled relationship. As part of their ruse, they have public ‘dates’, where they begrudgingly find themselves getting to know one another, with Adam offering unwavering support to Olive in her academic career, which comes to a climax at a huge conference where she is set to present. When things don’t go well at the conference, there fake relationship suddenly does feel so fake…

What did I think?

I really enjoyed this book! It’s cute, it’s slow burn, the character’s are lovable, it’s great! It is just, a simple, fluffy romance but the whole backdrop of the world of academia gives it some great depth. It does rely fairly heavily on the miscommunication trope, which isn’t aways my favourite thing but, I also really love a fake dating trope, so the whole thing balances itself out in the end!

So yeah, in short, I think this book lived up to the hype and I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author.

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