The Love Hypothesis: An almost well-deserved BookTok sensation

The Love Hypothesis: An almost well-deserved BookTok sensation that could have been perfect, so let's discuss the yays and the nays.

This is not intended to be an in-depth analysis of the book, but rather a reflection on it. All in all, it's a cute and fun ROMCOM (capitalised because it actually made me laugh; rare for a romcom) set against the backdrop of academia at its best. I am going to lay out what made and what broke the story for me. However, my one-sentence review: butterfly-inducing romance with underwhelming payoff.

Elements that worked:

1. What really hooked me was the no-nonsense drama between the two leads, Adam and Olive. Usually, when the girl has a preconceived notion about the guy, she is mostly insufferable towards him. But here, Olive is smart enough not to fully berate Adam based on the rumours surrounding him. However, she was still influenced by them, leading to her outrage while texting Adam after an argument with Gregory, who had just had an outburst over Adam's failing his proposal.

I like it when the female leads are shown as sensible, smart humans capable of controlling their emotions when needed, rather than being a damsel in distress every time they are in the vicinity of the male lead. Olive is smart, funny, and almost sensible enough to know what she wants, and not just be an overtly shy girl who is always lost in her own thoughts.

2. The interactions between the main couple are absolutely swoon-worthy. You can feel the tension and the best part, they are not interrupted by something completely out of the blue while having a moment (except that one scene where Jeremy broke their tender moment in the cafeteria), which I tell you is the absolute worst thing in a Romcom, and there are enough interactions between the two that you don't get bored. I find it excruciating when the secondary characters are given more time and space than the leads without adding anything substantial to the story.

The Love Hypothesis

3. The writing is impeccable, especially in humorous scenes. The sarcasm was on point in most parts, specifically Olive's. Her banter with Adam made me giggle the most. As I said, I love it when the female leads are portrayed smartly, which brings out the best humour. The language is smooth, and the chapters are just short enough, so you are not counting the pages. (I am not a fan of long chapters.)

4. The book is not spicy, and it probably has like two chapters dedicated to this one steamy scene. Not to forget, it's an absolute treat, beautifully done. Anyone who is not into spicy scenes can easily skip those two chapters, and you won't miss a thing, which is a great way to separate the story.

I think more than the tension, it is the gestures that really made this a beautiful read. You could feel the comfort and this sense of safety between the two from the beginning. The way Adam stood by her at every moment,    be it her first interview with Tom Benton or the conference in Boston, he was not a knight in shining armour, but a reliable friend.

5. Last but not least, much like usual romcoms, they always have these past issues, which typically shape the way the characters function and make decisions. They are very much present with Olive and Adam, but I am glad they are not milked as sob stories. These two are not using their pasts as an excuse for their present actions; instead, they are trying to work on them in their own ways. There is enough emotional depth to make your heart go out to them; however, it doesn't feel inauthentic and overly forced. These backlogged emotions have positively shaped them and also justified their goals.

Room for improvement:

1. I absolutely hate it when the sizes of the main leads are emphasised in every two lines, like "He is a giant", "I am so small", "His hands are so big", "I fit in his one hand", etc. I mean, I don't need to know in every single paragraph that he is a huge monster and the girl is a delicate feather (BTW, she is 5'8!) in front of him. Why this obsession with the size?

I would have loved it more if their size difference had not been shoved down my throat every two minutes.

2. Now I know every rom-com would end in two pages if people would just communicate, but it is important to make the misunderstanding reasonable and convincing, which this book fails to do.

Why is it that when a guy is basically worshipping you (Okay, exaggerated), and the girl gets to know that the guy has been swooning over someone for years, while doing everything to make said girl happy, her first thought is never herself? Come on, girl, you are a STEM scholar!

The Love Hypothesis

3. When I initially read the book, I found the setting of the whole scenario quite unsatisfactory. The beginning, where she randomly kisses him and the next day, he is suddenly pretending to be dating her, though he is this hotshot professor with a bad temper, just does not make sense. I wanted a more believable set-up for the whole book. 

Firstly, why would she even kiss a professor notorious for his bad attitude among students and not some uncomplicated guy?  It was definitely settled that it was a well-intended plan to find a guy to fake-date, then why not someone easier and more believable?

4. Now, the secondary characters were not very likeable either, except maybe Malcolm, who also annoyed me sometimes. But I have a bone to pick with Anh, who is so nosy and just not a friend I would ever want. I mean, if my friend forced me to do PDA despite knowing how uncomfortable I am, just to feed her own ego, I would kick her out of my social circle! She annoyed the bejesus out of me, and I just never felt she gave enough space to Olive to open up. The rest are simply forgettable.

(Also, Holden and Malcolm's story was so rushed, I wanted to know more or at least some build-up to the whole shebang.)

5. Finally, I was not completely happy with the ending. The reason is that I wanted to read a whole conversation between Olive and Adam, clearing the air. I wanted Adam to confess to Olive that he had loved her for years, rather than Holden revealing it for him. I think it was a missed opportunity because that is an ending that would have overshadowed all the flaws for me. The last two chapters with an unnecessary double date made the ending bleh and rushed. The confessions lacked a satisfying emotional payoff.

Overall, I can see why this book has surged in popularity over social media because who doesn't like a good grumpy-sunshine trope paired with fake dating and a dose of sweetness? At first read, you might not even focus on the shortcomings. But when given time, it ends up becoming an average book that had the potential to become a cliché-defying romcom if some scenes were handled a bit differently, because you expect better decision-making from adults.

Still, I would definitely recommend it to those looking for an appropriate portrayal of the realities of academia, blended with a fun romance between two people brought together by fate and a fake-date.