A review by naviareadinghub
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

1.0

1/5 what an absolute fucking waste of time and paper. I almost dnf but I dislike not finishing books completely.

the good things first
> the representation: we had a Jewish mmc, women in STEM, lgbtq+ characters, and non-american fmc in America
and that's it....

the bad things. god.
> the fmc: I can probably write a whole slideshow presentation on why Olive is the worst fmc in a book. Adam was just bearable, but this girl was a whole new level of annoying, idiotic, common sense-lacking, stupid character, who could have avoided half of the conflicts in her life, had she used something known as a brain. Literally, I never hated someone this much. Especially that the entire book was written from her point of view so we could never catch a break.

> the side characters: Malcolm was fine, but Anh was another level of pestering and stupid. I'm sorry but there's no way such childish people with no common sense are classified as such smart scientists. Her forcing everything down was irritating.

> the power gap: Olive was such a vulnerable, naive, dumb student while Adam had so much power, connections, professor-job and what not. The entire power-gap in their dynamic was uncomfortable, because it felt like Olive could be easily taken advantage of.

> the story development: 350+ pages for what? absolutely trash. Olive embarrassed every time she spoke, Adam being a creep and watching her for years, the whole miscommunication between them where they didn't talk shit, the way Olive kept lying for no reason which did nothing but ruin the plot, being so ignorant of what Adam wants and god, they had the worst chemistry for people involved in science.

> the smut: If someone ever tags this book as spicy, I would tell them to read Twisted series, Haunting Adeline, Praise etc. The one and only smut was horrible, uncomfortable, incredibly dumb and no steam or vannilla. I love reading smut, but I almost cried blood while reading this one. Had to reread some of Rhys and Bridget's scenes from TG to refresh my mind.

> the setting and realism: now, there's a thin line between fiction and actual nonsense. This book fell in the latter category. How can professors from Stanford date students there (even if not the same department), the entire first encounter with those contacts, because no way Miss Smart-ass is a Biology student and wearing expired contacts which could ruin her vision and also, not able to see anything? How can such a lap scene happen between the staff and students while in a whole talk by one of the greatest cancer researchers in the country?

Ali Hazelwood absolutely wrote a horrible book which I would never like to touch ever again. So damn overrated