The love hypothesis

It took me one day to finish this, that’s literally how amazing it was. I absolutely am glad I got to buy this book, there’s nothing else I could say. This book is now officially one of my favorites, I absolutely adore the characters and Holden is my favorite

The book is nothing deep and the writing isn't anything special – but it's fun. Like a popcorn movie.

It was ok, but not particularly amazing.
Maybe I'm simply too old for the classic insecure-but-secretly-super-hot-and-smart heroine. I just couldn't really identify with the female protagonist in this story. But then I'm not working in an academic field, maybe being told and shown your worth less than your male counterparts all the time does this to you.

Still a reasonably good plot and indeed convincing characters (My favourite is Holden. I want a Holden-story next, please.)

I didn't know I liked contemporary romcom novels about women in STEM and academia, and yeap, I do! This was fun and light-hearted! Just what I needed to get out of a sudden book slump at the end of the month. I empathized with the characters, their academic struggles, and their self-doubts. The romance was adorable, I just wanted a happy ending for all the characters!

3 maybe 3 1/2 for the humor. Contemporary romance is not my favorite genre but I can really love it sometime. This one lost that a little over 1/2 way because of too many lies that lead it in a bad direction.

So the good, this has a lot of humor, not sarcastic mostly quirky and some situational. The romance ends up really good but there is a little drag with the hesitancy and lies. This is told in one point of view, Olive's, so we cannot be sure of what the stoic Adam thinks or feels, or when his feelings are engaged but by a certain point... a blind man could see. He one, actually agrees to this crazy idea, built totally on a lie. The only thing I could think there is that he wanted to get to know her better. I actually did not catch on that the first scene was them meeting when she was an applicant to the graduate program but that really would not have given us any better clue except when his friend Holden mentions the woman that he has been pining for. But it is clear before that, that Adam is pretty much all in if she would open her eyes. Over all though the romance is fun and pretty good.

What brought it down... well the whole premise starts on a lie, and we accept that as a spur of the moment situation, she lied to her friend to try to give her more permission and reason to date her ex. She is trying to help her friend with a white lie and spur of the moment, she backs up the lie by a quick kiss of the closest guy, oops. Sounds lame when I say it but... the author makes it quite fun and funny. That the friend confronts her the next day and Adam happens to be there to back Olive's lie up, well that just solidifies the situation, fake dating. He gives a good reason to her for doing this, which if she isn't questioning whether there is ulterior motives, she is not thinking. Yet, we get to hear her thoughts and hypotheses which don't question it. So we can over look that especially after understanding her past and losses, which make her have poor relationship skills. So the "fake" dating is very fun and leads to several situations with her original friend Anh, whom yes starts dating the ex, yea! I'm always wondering at these situations with Anh, whether her friend is pushing her for other reasons. I thought that maybe Anh was suspicious the whole time and this was why she kept suggesting these intimate encounters. But rather she thought that Olive was just a socially awkward misfit and was trying to help the relationship on. So the beginning lie was a catalyst for them to learn more about each other and for several lol moments. But when the lies start piling up later, I started getting frustrated rather than finding it funny or enduring.

The irritation started about 60-65% in and made the rest of the story not work as well for me and definitely took away from any humor. I think it was supposed to be emotional but it seemed like it was all caused by non-truths and could have been solved pretty easily. Where it turned the corner for me was where she is talking to Malcolm, who knows the truth, and she talks about how she has fallen in love. Adam over hears this and she tells him it is somebody else. so this was the breaking lie for me enjoying this book. I figured it could turn around but then there were a bunch of other bad decisions and lies to continue on. When she is sexually harassed and threatened by Adam's friend, Tom, she decides not to tell Adam. Not only that but decides to let him accept a job in Boston with Tom even though Adam obviously wants her to be in Boston too. Does she not get that maybe his decision is also that she will be there. And two, that he has the integrity to NOT want to stay friends with a man that is such a skank. She lies to him, then actually goes and breaks up the "fake" relationship which has become real with hot sex, and then lies to her friends. It is only the happenstance that the truth is discovered and things get resolved. Without the truth Adam would've been in a situation that he didn't want without the woman that he had been in love with, all because of her lies. which is just too much. And then she didn't even consider Adam's other best friend and the warning about Tom. It is only Malcolm that reminds her that she has someone that she can talk to about it. So if the friends were not in the room when she discovered that she recorded Tom's assault, and they heard it too, she would just be fighting for her science to remain hers... OK good idea but... even if she cannot prove Tom did what he did, she should give Adam all the facts so he can judge for himself what he wants to do. I just couldn't get over these bad decisions by a scientist that supposedly runs off information and facts, yet she is hiding some of the most important facts. Does it work out in the end, sure but I stopped enjoying it until nearly the very end which only came together due to luck and really I no longer loved the quirky Olive. I'm not sure if I even liked her by then.

Das ist seit Längerem mal wieder so ein richtig gelungener Liebesroman! Schon das Setting ist ungewöhnlich: Die Hauptfigur ist Doktorandin in Naturwissenschaften an einer amerikanische Uni und in diese Wissenschaftswelt musste ich erstmal ein bissle reinkommen, weil ich mich da nicht wirklich gut auskenne. Aber die Autorin schafft es recht schnell mir klar zu machen, auf was es in diesem Umfeld ankommt. Alle Figuren fand ich toll, alle sind nicht nur eindimensional gut und toll, sondern durchaus vielschichtig und herrlich divers. Es gibt also nicht nur weiße, heterosexuelle Figuren, sonder das geht durch diverse Nationalitäten und Sexualitäten, ohne, dass das ein Riesenthema ist - wird eher am Rande miterzählt, weil es ja eben normal ist. Die Fake-Dating-Geschichte wird dann schnell - wer hätte es gedacht - zu echten Gefühlen, aber die Entwicklung wird nachvollziehbar erzählt und nicht zu holterdipolter. Dabei gibt es jede Menge nette Szenen - die Sonnencreme-Szene zum Beispiel oder auch die Eröffnungsszene im WC des Labors - klasse! Ein wirklich toller Roman, mit viel Sprachwitz erzählt - ich hoffe, das kommt auch in der deutschen Übersetzung rüber! Das englische Cover und auch den Titel finde ich auf Englisch auf alle Fälle um Klassen besser! Ein echtes Highlight für mich und ich hoffe, Frau Hazelwood wird noch viel nachlegen!

4,5⭐⭐⭐⭐

No podréis no enamoraros de Adam.

Bueno, bueno, no sé ni por dónde empezar a hablar de este libro después de lo blandita que me ha dejado. Por un lado tenemos a Olive, una estudiante de postgrado con una gran inteligencia y mucha motivación en su investigación contra el cáncer de páncreas; y por la inversa está Adam, un profesor de la academia con mucho mal genio para educar a sus alumnos y muy introvertido. Son de las personas más distintas que podrían encontrarse pero por azares de la vida, concretamente que Olive le bese para que su mejor amiga Anh se crea que tiene pareja, tendrán que empezar a fingir que son unos recién enamorados. Claro, con todo esto vosotras diréis: "La misma historia de siempre" y yo os diré que bueno: "Sí, pero, ¿qué más da cuando tienes un libro con dos personajes que se quieren tanto, que la autora lo sabe reflejar tan bien y ENCIMA que nuestro protagonista masculino es de los que te hacen babear?"
Ali Hazelwood nos muestra una relación super bonita, que avanza poco a poco dándonos muestras de cariño y amor cada vez más grandes y obvias, que sigue un curso normal de pareja con unos ritmos sanos y que te hacen disfrutar de la lectura haciendo que nunca quieras llegar al fin y a la vez devorándolo. La trama en si no tiene mucha complejidad pero no le hace falta porque nos sabe encandilar con todo el amor que desprenden las páginas, deja algunas cosas muy al aíre pero porque tampoco creo que quiera centrarse en esos conflictos y nos los muestra como algo más contextual.
Creo que, y para finalizar, la autora sabe darnos a un personaje masculino gruñón e introvertido pero que no lo usa para maltratar psicológicamente a la protagonista femenina y eso es un punto muy a favor teniendo en cuenta los personajes terribles que vemos dentro del género romántico.