The Love Hypothesis Review

Bad Blurb: Olive, an overwhelmed graduate student finds herself caught up in a situation that forces her to fake date Adam, a gifted biology professor (not her teacher).

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I took a break from my regularly scheduled fantasy reading to read a romance book for the first time. I honestly didn’t expect much, but this was really fun. I loved how low stakes everything felt and that the goal was to kick my feet in the air and squeal.

I picked this up because I heard it was originally a Reylo fanfic, but I felt that inspiration in the character descriptions, but not much else.

I was hooked from the first sentence I really like how Hazelwood plops the reader into situation. There is quite a bit of exposition that happens with character’s personalities, but considering romance books are relatively short, I didn’t mind a little bit of telling so we could move forward with the plot.

One thing I really enjoyed about the romance was how sweet it was. There wasn’t an electric chemistry where they instantly tried to jump each other’s bones, but you could feel the pull Olive felt towards Adam and vice-versa.

I also extremely appreciate how much communication was in the spicy scenes. It proved that explicit consent and talking about boundaries did not have to lessen or alter the mood.

The two things that stuck out to me was that Olive’s narration began to feel a little repetitive, and I felt as though we felt the connection between the two, but we didn’t see it. We didn’t witness Adam talk about himself a lot, and it felt like most of their talks showed compatibility rather than a deep connection.

I loved the tropes, and they didn’t feel too cliche or cringey. The two beds actually being two beds was pretty funny. And I felt like the fake dating situation actually ended up being really sweet. There definitely were cliches. I felt as though the whole Olive’s mother storyline was a little too predictable to be so dramatic, and I would have rather talked through it naturally instead of it seeming like a secret.

But I actually felt as though Hazelwood did a good job having the science be thoroughly incorporated into the story without it being to difficult for me to understand. I loved the chapter headings especially.

And I loved how Olive was demisexual. It made the story feel a little more grounded when some of her other peculiarities felt a little over explained.

I highly recommend. It’s simply fun and sweet. I think the book accomplished everything it set out to do, and it did not try to do more than it was capable. There is something to be said for authors who know what they are creating, and don't try to overdo it.