“The Love Hypothesis” from Ali Hazelwood is a Young Adult romance
novel. It all starts with the main character Olive being in a weird
situation with her friend Anh: She has to convince Anh that she is
dating somebody (so Anh can date a boy Jeremy without being scared
that Olive has feelings for him). The whole situation is a little
confusing, but Olive is determined to act as though she is having a
date with someone. The easiest way to achieve that seems to be to
walk up to the random person standing there, in the hallway, and to
kiss him. The only problem: Olive did not check who the random
stranger is – otherwise she would have kmown that he is the always
grumpy seeming professor Adam Carlsen. Not only that: Anh does not
believe that Olive was on a real date and somehow Adam and Olive
develop a plan to fake date, of course not for actual attraction or
feelings but just because they will both benefit from the situation…
Right?
The novel is written
from the pov of Olive – her thoughts are funny and sympathetic and
she is clumsy in a very relatable way. I have seen people describe
her as childish before, but I think that what they mean makes her so
understandable and near to me. And since it is a Young Adult book in
my eyes it is completely valid for the main character to be a little
bit childish especially if it is not in a boring but funny way –
which is definitely the case here. Adam is also nice and I admit,
that I fell a little in love with him too. So the reader really gets
to wish them both a happy end as much as they do (preferably them
involving being together of course).
Although this is a
fake dating romance book which makes the book end in a not very
unexpected way, there still is a lot of tension and some plot twists
(at least for me they were quite unexpected). This book got me
absolutely hooked – that is because Olive’s thoughts are very
enjoyable to read – I found myself bursting out laughing all of a
sudden multiple times – and new things keep happening, even though
this book might be a bit of a cliché.
I definitely
recommend this book to all Young Adult and/or romance readers
especially if they are looking for a fun, entertaining novel to get
addicted to or just for a romance novel involving a super-sweet
couple.
