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The Love Hypothesis

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The Love Hypothesis

Each year thousands of members vote for our Book of the Year award—congrats to The Love Hypothesis !

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Ali Hazelwood, on your first book!

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After a fake relationship generates real sparks, a rising scientist must decide if she's ready to experiment with love.

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As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships—but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor—and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding... six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

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Frankly, Olive was a bit on the fence about this whole grad school thing.

Not because she didn’t like science. (She did. She loved science. Science was her thing .) And not because of the truckload of obvious red flags. She was well aware that committing to years of unappreciated, underpaid eighty-?­hour workweeks might not be good for her mental health. That nights spent toiling away in front of a Bunsen burner to uncover a trivial slice of knowledge might not be the key to happiness. That devoting her mind and body to academic pursuits with only infrequent breaks to steal unattended bagels might not be a wise choice.

She was well aware, and yet none of it worried her. Or maybe it did, a tiny bit, but she could deal. It was something else that held her back from surrendering herself to the most notorious and soul-?­sucking circle of hell (i.e., a Ph.D. program). Held her back, that is, until she was invited to interview for a spot in Stanford’s biology department, and came across The Guy.

The Guy whose name she never really got.

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Why I love it

Rachael Burlette

Botm editorial team.

What is the formula for a perfect romance? For me, it’s about the sweet moments, the witty banter, and amazing chemistry. I’m particularly drawn to love stories that also go beyond falling in love, which is why I was excited to read about Olive’s journey as a young scientist. I loved her drive and ambition. Once I began reading The Love Hypothesis , I knew that it had all the right elements to become one of my new favorite romances.

Set in the world of academia, Olive is a Ph.D. biology student who spends most of her time in a lab. She certainly doesn’t have time for dating. So when she kisses a random person at her university to convince her best friend, Anh, that she is doing just fine, she finds herself entering into a fake dating agreement with the infamously grumpy Professor Carlsen. It’s the perfect plan: Olive’s friends will stop worrying about her and Adam’s bosses will believe he’s not leaving for a new job anytime soon. Adam and Olive just need to follow a few ground rules and not fall in love. What could possibly go wrong?

On the surface, this book is a fun romance about a hilarious fake dating scheme. But it’s also more than that. It’s a glimpse into the world of academia and the obstacles women face in the male-dominated STEM field. I found myself reading this book whenever I had the chance. I felt completely invested in Adam and Olive’s love story and how everything would unfold. The Love Hypothesis is everything that you’ll want in your next read. I have a theory you’ll love this book—I know I did!

Member ratings (71,124)

Lindsay P .

Portland , OR

Don’t mind me, as I add Ali Hazelwood’s 2 upcoming STEM-inist novels to my TBR. Best Rom-Com I’ve read in 2021.The worst part of this book, is that’s it a debut and I have for more ???? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Metamora , MI

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I read this in one sitting, could not put it down. Adam has single-handedly destroyed my standards for men. Hazelwood’s wit has yet to be matched. Can’t wait to read more of her work :)

Allison A .

Prosper , TX

Could not have loved this book more! Finished it in 24 hours, I stopped only because I had to go to work. I absolutely love the characters, the storyline, the brains, the chemistry. It’s a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

La Mesa , CA

Slow to develop the characters/their story line but halfway through it picked up. I absolutely loved how it all came together. A little cheesy but that’s exactly what it was supposed to be. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Belton , TX

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ O.M.G. So good! I totally lost sleep cause I couldn’t put it down!! Great hidden romance plot. I would have loved to have more steam, but what we did get - phew watch out! Best add-on ever!

'The Love Hypothesis' won Amazon's best romance book of 2021, has a near-perfect rating on Goodreads, and is all over TikTok. Here's why it's such a unique love story.

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• " The Love Hypothesis " grabbed the attention of romance readers everywhere in 2021.
• It was named Amazon's Best Romance Novel of 2021 and was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award.
• This book checks off all my boxes for a great romance read and is definitely worth the hype.

This year, Amazon named " The Love Hypothesis " by Ali Hazelwood the best romance book of the year. Even though it was only recently published in September 2021, "The Love Hypothesis" has quickly become a fan-favorite, with 88% of Goodreads reviewers giving it four- or five-star-level praise .

It was also nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award and is hugely popular amongst Book of the Month members , with only 1% of readers giving it a "disliked" rating.

"The Love Hypothesis" is about Olive Smith, a third-year Ph.D. candidate studying pancreatic cancer at Stanford. In an attempt to convince one of her best friends that she's moved on from an old crush, she impulsively kisses Dr. Adam Carlsen, the department's notoriously brutal (but undeniably attractive) professor. After the kiss, Adam and Olive agree to fake a relationship so she can prove to her friend that she's happily dating and he can convince their department that he isn't planning to leave anytime soon.

I'm a little picky about my romance novels , so giving this read every bit of a five-star review didn't come lightly. My standards are high because the best romance novels have the potential to expose readers to authentic and imperfect relationships and offer new topics of discussion without making us feel like it's a story we've already read. 

With all the hype surrounding this new romance read, I couldn't resist picking it up.

Here's why "The Love Hypothesis" is one of my favorite recent romance books:

1. the story focuses a lot on olive and adam's lives outside their romance, making their love story more believable and interesting..

Romance novels tend to fall into a few popular tropes such as " enemies-to-lovers " or "forbidden love." "The Love Hypothesis" combines two of the most popular tropes right now, "Fake dating" and "grumpy/sunshine," really well — I loved the contrast between Adam's serious attitude to Olive's bright and sugary one. 

But despite following these tropes, the story feels fresh because it's also largely about Olive's work and its meaning to her. The only other romance book I've read featuring a STEM heroine is "The Kiss Quotient" , so I loved seeing that representation and learning about something new. 

The story honestly reflected the challenges Ph.D. candidates face in academia and that authenticity — deepened by the author's personal experiences — brought the characters, the settings, and the romance to life even more as Olive and Adam faced challenges with funding, time-consuming research, and questioning their sense of purpose.

2. The steamier scenes are also awkward and realistic, which made them even better.

In romance books, there are a few different levels of how graphic a steamy scene can get , from little-to-no detail to explicitly outlined movements. (I personally prefer mine to "fade to black.")

There was only one chapter with adult content, and it was definitely graphic. While I made a ton of ridiculous faces while reading and tried to skim past the parts that made me audibly gasp, I loved that it wasn't a movie-made, perfect sex scene with graceful movements and smooth dialogue. The scene was a little awkward, imperfect, and full of consent and conversation, making it refreshingly real.

3. The book deals with other topics besides the main love story, making it a much deeper read.

While it's wonderful to get swept up in the magic of a romantic storyline, having a secondary plot that addresses real issues is what makes a romance novel truly great . 

Mild spoilers and content warnings ahead: While "The Love Hypothesis" is a fun romantic read, it also addresses the pain of familial death, power differentials, intimacy challenges, and, most prevalently, workplace sexual harassment. 

Love is beautiful, fun, and amazing, but "The Love Hypothesis" takes the opportunity to also include conversations about serious issues. While these topics may be tough for some readers, I think these plot points, hard conversations, and complicated emotions take "The Love Hypothesis" to the next level and make it a five-star read. 

The bottom line

"The Love Hypothesis" has everything I personally look for in a romance novel: A unique storyline, authentic characters, and an important message. If you're looking for a perfectly balanced romance read, "The Love Hypothesis" is worth the hype and definitely one of the best romance books to come out in the past year.

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The Love Hypothesis (Review, Recap & Full Summary)

By ali hazelwood.

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, a delightful rom-com about a fake relationship between a biology Ph.D. student and a professor.

In The Love Hypothesis , Olive is a third-year biology Ph.D. candidate who shares a kiss with a handsome stranger in order make her friend think that she's in a relationship. She's horrified when she realizes the "stranger" is Dr. Adam Carlson, a prominent professor in her department who is known for being a hypercritical and moody tyrant.

She and Adam each have reasons for needing to be in a relationship, and they agree to pretend to date for the sake of appearances. Of course, as she gets to know Adam, it's only a matter of time before she starts feeling something for him, and it becomes clear that her little experiment in fake-dating just might combust...

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

Three years prior, Olive Smith talks to a guy when she's in the bathroom fixing her contacts (and can't see) after her Ph.D. candidate interview. She tells him about her passion for her research. She doesn't catch his name but remembers the conversation distinctly and wonders about the guy she met.

In present day, Olive is a biology Ph.D. student researching early detection methods for pancreatic cancer. She kisses a guy randomly in order to trick her best friend into thinking she's dating someone (so that her best friend Anh won't feel bad about dating Olive's ex). That guy turns out to be Dr. Adam Carlson , a young, handsome and highly-respected tenured faculty member in her department. He's also known for being hypercritical and moody.

Meanwhile, Adam's department chair is worried that he's planning on leaving for another university and has frozen some of his research funds. So, Adam he agrees to pretend to be in a relationship with Olive in order to give the impression he's putting down "roots" here, in hopes they will unfreeze the funds.

As Olive and Adam fake-date, they get to know each other. Olive sees that Adam is demanding and blunt towards his students, but not unkind or mean. Olive confides in him about her mother getting pancreatic cancer, which is why she's doing her research.

Olive soon realizes that she has feelings for Adam, but she's afraid to tell him. When he overhears her talking about a crush, she pretends it's about someone else. Olive also hears someone else refer to a woman Adam's been pining after for years and is surprised at how jealous she feels.

In the meantime, Olive needs more lab space and has been talking to Dr. Tom Benton for a spot at his lab at Harvard. When Tom arrives in town, it turns out he's friends with Adam. Adam and Tom are friends from grad school, and they have recently gotten a large grant for some joint research that Adam is excited about. After Olive completes a report on her research for Tom, he offers her a spot in his lab for the next year.

Olive and Adam's relationship continues to progress until they attend a science conference in Boston. Olive's research has been selected for a panel presentation, while Adam is a keynote speaker. There, Olive is sexually harassed by Tom, who makes advances on her. When she rejects him, he accuses her of someone who sleeps around to get ahead. He also says that he'll deny it if she tells anyone and that they won't believe her.

While Olive does finally sleep with Adam at the conference, she soon tearfully breaks things off since she doesn't want to complicate things with Adam's joint research project with Tom. Adam is also in the process of applying for a spot at Harvard.

Olive is certain no one will believe her about Tom until she realizes that the accidentally recorded the conversation where he made advances and threatened her. Meanwhile, Olive's roommate Malcolm has started seeing Dr. Holden Rodriguez, a faculty member who is a childhood friend of Adam's. Olive and Malcolm turn to Holden for advice, who encourages them to tell Adam about the recording. He points out that he thinks the main reason that Adam is considering a move to Harvard is because Olive is supposed to be going there.

Olive finds Adam and shows him the video. He is incensed at Tom and reports it to their faculty. When Adam returns from Boston, he reports that Tom has been fired. Meanwhile, Olive has been reaching out to other cancer researchers for spots at other labs, and she's gotten promising responses. Olive tells Adam that she loves him and that she never liked anyone else. Adam admits that he remembered her from the day he met her in the bathroom and that she's the one he's been interested in for years.

Ten months later at the anniversary of their first kiss, Olive and Adam re-create the kiss to mark their anniversary.

For more detail, see the full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary .

If this summary was useful to you, please consider supporting this site by leaving a tip ( $2 , $3 , or $5 ) or joining the Patreon !

Book Review

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood came out a few months ago, and I didn’t really pay much attention to it. However, people seem to really be enjoying this book, and after reading The School for Good Mothers , I was really in mood for something light and fun.

In the Love Hypothesis, Olive is a third-year biology Ph.D. student at Stanford who ends up fake-dating a young and handsome tenured professor in her department. All the usual rom-com shenanigans ensue.

The Love Hypothesis is an unapologetically cheesy rom-com novel — with an upbeat attitude, meet cutes, fake-dating tropes, etc. — but it’s also a genuinely fun and often funny book. It hits a lot of familiar notes if you’re familiar with this genre, but somehow Ali Hazelwood has arranged them in a way that ends up being delightful and entertaining.

The book is super melodramatic at parts, uses so many tropes I couldn’t even list them all here if I was inclined to do so and is predictable in the way that rom-coms are always kind of predictable. That all said, I still had a fantastic time reading it and it flew by.

This is a short review because honestly it’s not that complicated to explain that this book is super cheesy and super fun.

Read it or Skip it?

If you like “chick lit” and rom-coms, you should definitely look into this book. I tend to be a little hypercritical of books in this genre, but I really enjoyed The Love Hypothesis . I found myself smiling and chuckling quite a bit as I read it.

This book is a straight-up cheesy rom-com — it is funny, melodramatic and fun as hell. I thought it was great.

See The Love Hypothesis on Amazon.

The Love Hypothesis Audiobook Review

Narrated by : Callie Dalton Length : 11 hours 8 minutes

I listened to about half of this on audiobook. I think the audiobook is solid. The narrator is easy to listen to and does a good job with it.

Hear a sample of The Love Hypothesis audiobook on Libro.fm.

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of The Love Hypothesis

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As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships--but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor--and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding...six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

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A STEM love story! Read an exclusive excerpt of Ali Hazelwood's next novel, Love, Theoretically

We've got a juicy taste of Ali Hazelwood's STEMinist rom-com.

Enemies-to-lovers, but with a STEM spin!

Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis, is back with a new STEMinist love story, following Elsie Hannaway and Jack Smith-Turner. Read the official synopsis and an exclusive excerpt below!

The Love Hypothesis synopsis

"It's a rivalry as old as time: theoretical versus experimental physicists. Elsie Hannaway is firmly in the camp of theoretical physics—an adjunct professor by day, she toils long and hard to teach students about the laws of thermodynamics in hopes of landing tenure. But to make ends meet, Elsie takes on another role in her (very) limited spare time: fake girlfriend. In this career, Elsie can pretend to be anyone her client needs her to be… and while she's not supposed to go on more than one date with a guy, she develops a soft spot for one who really needs her help in front of his family. What could possibly go wrong?

"Here is what can go wrong: her client has an older brother. A very hot older brother. And, on an interview for her dream tenure-track position in MIT's physics department, Elsie learns that said older brother is a member of the hiring committee. And he also just so happens to be the very same experimental physicist who ruined her mentor's career and is the reason why the entire science field views theoretical physicists as wastes of space. Did we mention that he happens to be terribly sexy? And he thinks that Elsie is a librarian who has been dating his brother?

"Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage when her physics nemesis realizes that Elsie isn't who she had claimed to be. But…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she's with him? Will falling into an experimentalist's orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?"

Ali Hazelwood's Love, Theoretically hits stores June 13, 2023, but EW has an exclusive sneak peek below.

The Love Hypothesis excerpt

From Chapter 3

"Calm down," Jack murmurs against the shell of my ear, like he knows that I'm on the verge of popping an aneurysm."

"They're from the MIT table," I whisper under my breath.

"Shh." His giant paws tighten around my waist, as if to contain me and my panic. They span my waist. Our size difference sits somewhere between absurd and obscene. "Settle down."

I feel dizzy. "Why am I standing on the toilet?"

"I figured you'd rather Dr. Pereira and Dr. Crowley keep on chatting about superpolynomial speedups and not see your heels under the stall. Was I wrong?"

I close my eyes, mortified. This is not my life. I'm a discerning scientist with insightful opinions onspintronic tech, not this blighted creature clinging to Jonathan Smith-Turner's shoulders on top of alatrine.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is exactly my brand. Improbable. Cringeworthy. Botched.

"Settle down," Jack repeats, gruffly reassuring. We're way too close. I want his breath to be garlic and sauerkraut, but it's vaguely minty and pleasantly warm. I want his skin to smell ridiculous, like mango tanning mousse, but all my nose picks up on is good, clean, nice . I want his grip to be creepy and knee-in-the-groin worthy, but it's just what I need to avoid slipping in the toilet. Argh. "Stop fidgeting."

"I'm not—" Pereira and Crowley are still talking physics— can't believe all the fuss with the quantum Hadamard transform —with the added background of a stream trickling. Oh God, they're peeing. I'm eavesdropping on one of the world's foremost solar neutrinos scholars peeing . I can't comeback from this, can I?

"Elsie." Jack's lips graze my cheekbone. "Calm down. They'll leave as soon as they're done, andyou can go back to the table. Laugh at Volkov's puns till he votes for you. Tell a few more lies."

"I'm not lying. " I pull back, and our eyes are at the same level. The slice of blue in the deep brown is icy, weird, beautiful. "I can't explain, but this is . . . not the way you think it is. It's . . . different."

"From what?"

"From the way you think it is."

He nods. Our noses nearly brush together. "That was remarkably articulate."

I roll my eyes.

"Monica will love to hear about your secret librarian identity—"

"No!" I barely keep my voice down. " Please , just call Greg before you talk to Monica. He'll explain."

"Convenient, given that I can't get in touch with him while he's on his retreat, and he won't be backuntil your interview is over."

Crap. S---. I'd forgotten about Woodacre. "There must be a way to reach him. Can you tell him it's an emergency? That, um, he left his porch light on? You need his alarm code to go turn it off. Save the environment."

"No."

"Please. At least—""No."

"You're being absolutely unreasonable . All I ask is that you—"

"—you think about the girl? Hannaway, right?" one of the urinal voices asks. We both still and instantly tune in.

A mistake, clearly.

"CV's real good. Her two-dimensional liquid crystals theories . . . good stuff."

"I remember reading her stuff last year. I was very impressed. Had no idea she was that junior."

"Right? Makes you wonder how much of it is her mentor's." A vague hum of agreement that has my hands tightening around the balls of Jack's shoulders. None , I want to scream. It was my model . "She's young and beautiful. Which means that she'll get pregnant in a couple of years, and we'll have to teach her courses."

It's like a punch in the sternum, to the point that I almost slip butt-first into the toilet. Jack stops me with a hand between my shoulder blades, arm contracting around my waist. He's frowning like he's as disgusted as I am. Though he's not. He can't be, because Pereira, or maybe Crowley, adds:

"Doesn't matter. I'm voting for Jack's candidate. He's got influence, and he hates theorists."

"He does? Oh, yeah. Can't believe I forgot that article he wrote."

"It was brutal, man. And hilarious. Wouldn't want to be on his bad side."

A hand dryer goes off, muffling the rest. Jack's still holding me, eyes on mine, foreheads near touching. My nails dig into his chest—made of some granite-Kevlar blend, engineered by a task force of experimentalists to exude heat. He's a sentient weighted blanket, and I—

I hate him.

I've never hated anybody: not J.J. Not the Film Appreciation 101 professor who nearly failed me for saying that Twilight is an unrecognized masterpiece. Not even my brother Lucas, who had me convinced that I was adopted for over six months. I'm mild mannered, adaptable, unobtrusive. I get along with people: I give them what they want, and all I ask in return is that they not actively dislike me.

But Jack Smith. Jonathan F---ing Smith F---ing Turner. He's been hostile and unpleasant and suspicious since the day we met. He has shat upon my field and destroyed my mentor, and now stands between me and my dreams. For that, he lost the privilege that I afford every human being: to deal with the Elsie he wants.

The Elsie he's going to get is the one I care to give him. And she's pissed.

"I want this job, Jack," I hiss over the hand dryer. I actually need this job, but—semantics.

"I know you do, Elsie." His voice is low pitched and rumbly. "But I want someone else to get it."

"I know. Jack ."

"Then it seems like we're at an impasse. Elsie ." He articulates my name slowly, carefully. I'm going to lean forward and bite his stupid lips bloody.

No, I won't, because I'm better than that.

"You do not want to come at me," I hiss.

"Oh, Elsie." His hands on me are incongruously gentle, and yet we're on the verge of the academic equivalent of nuclear warfare. "I think it's exactly what I want."

The dryer turns off into silence and saves me from committing aggravated assault. "They left," I say. "Let me go ."

His mouth twitches, but he deposits me on the floor in some ludicrous reverse– Dirty Dancing move. His hands on my waist linger, but as soon as they leave me I'm scampering out of the stall, heels clicking on the tiles. I nearly lose my balance. With Jack's scent out of my nose, the stench of the place hits me anew.

"Talk to Monica if you want to," I bluff, turning back to him. "You'll see the good it does you."

"Oh, I will." He's clearly about to smile, like the angrier I get, the more amused he becomes. A never-ending vicious cycle that can end only in me holding his head in the toilet bowl.

"It's my word against the word of the guy with a decade-long agenda against theorists, after all."

He shrugs. "Maybe. Or maybe it's a physicist's word against a librarian's."

I scoff and stalk to the entrance, suddenly confident in my stilt shoes, determined not to be in his presence a second longer. But when I reach the door, something ticks inside me. I whip my head back toJack, who's standing there like the K2, studying me with an interested frown, like I'm an exotic caterpillar about to pupate.

God, I hope he has itchy, purulent ass acne for the rest of his natural life. "I know you have despisedme since the very first moment we met," I spit out.

He bites the inside of his cheek. "You do?"

"Yes. And you know what? It doesn't matter if you hated me at first sight, because I've hated you long before we ever met. I hated you the first time I heard your name. I hated you when I was twelve and read what you'd done in Scientific American . I've hated you harder, I've hated you longer, and I've hated you for better reasons."

Jack doesn't look so amused anymore. This is new to me—talking to others like the me I really am. It's new and different and weird, and I freaking love it.

"I'm really good at hating you, Jack, so here's what I'm going to do: not only am I going to get this job, but when we're colleagues at MIT, I'm going to make sure that you have to look at me every day and wish that I were George. I'm going to make you regret every single little jab. And I'm going to single-handedly make your life so hard that you'll regret taking on me and Monica and theoretical physics, until you cry in your office every morning and finally apologize to the scientific community for what you did."

He is really not amused now. "Is that so?" he asks. Cold. Cutting.

This time I'm the one to smile. "You bet, Jonathan ."

From LOVE, THEORETICALLY published by arrangement with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin RandomHouse LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Ali Hazelwood.

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The Love Hypothesis Kindle Edition

• Print length 383 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Berkley
• Publication date September 14, 2021
• File size 3306 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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Chapter One

Hypothesis: When given a choice between A (a slightly inconveniencing situation) and B (a colossal shitshow with devastating consequences), I will inevitably end up selecting B.

In Olive's defense, the man didn't seem to mind the kiss too much.

It did take him a moment to adjust-perfectly understandable, given the sudden circumstances. It was an awkward, uncomfortable, somewhat painful minute, in which Olive was simultaneously smashing her lips against his and pushing herself as high as her toes would extend to keep her mouth at the same level as his face. Did he have to be so tall? The kiss must have looked like some clumsy headbutt, and she grew anxious that she was not going to be able to pull the whole thing off. Her friend Anh, whom Olive had spotted coming her way a few seconds ago, was going to take one look at this and know at once that Olive and Kiss Dude couldn't possibly be two people in the middle of a date.

Then that agonizingly slow moment went by, and the kiss became . . . different. The man inhaled sharply and inclined his head a tiny bit, making Olive feel less like a squirrel monkey climbing a baobab tree, and his hands-which were large and pleasantly warm in the AC of the hallway-closed around her waist. They slid up a few inches, coming to wrap around Olive's rib cage and holding her to himself. Not too close, and not too far.

It was more of a prolonged peck than anything, but it was quite nice, and for the life span of a few seconds Olive forgot a large number of things, including the fact that she was pressed against a random, unknown dude. That she'd barely had the time to whisper "Can I please kiss you?" before locking lips with him. That what had originally driven her to put on this entire show was the hope of fooling Anh, her best friend in the whole world.

But a good kiss will do that: make a girl forget herself for a while. Olive found herself melting into a broad, solid chest that showed absolutely no give. Her hands traveled from a defined jaw into surprisingly thick and soft hair, and then-then she heard herself sigh, as if already out of breath, and that's when it hit her like a brick on the head, the realization that- No. No.

Nope, nope, no.

She should not be enjoying this. Random dude, and all that.

Olive gasped and pushed herself away from him, frantically looking for Anh. In the 11:00 p.m. bluish glow of the biology labs' hallway, her friend was nowhere to be seen. Weird. Olive was sure she had spotted her a few seconds earlier.

Kiss Dude, on the other hand, was standing right in front of her, lips parted, chest rising and a weird light flickering in his eyes, which was exactly when it dawned on her, the enormity of what she had just done. Of who she had just-

Fuck her life.

Fuck. Her. Life.

Because Dr. Adam Carlsen was a known ass.

This fact was not remarkable in and of itself, as in academia every position above the graduate student level (Olive's level, sadly) required some degree of assness in order to be held for any length of time, with tenured faculty at the very peak of the ass pyramid. Dr. Carlsen, though-he was exceptional. At least if the rumors were anything to go by.

He was the reason Olive's roommate, Malcolm, had to completely scrap two research projects and would likely end up graduating a year late; the one who had made Jeremy throw up from anxiety before his qualifying exams; the sole culprit for half the students in the department being forced to postpone their thesis defenses. Joe, who used to be in Olive's cohort and would take her to watch out-of-focus European movies with microscopic subtitles every Thursday night, had been a research assistant in Carlsen's lab, but he'd decided to drop out six months into it for "reasons." It was probably for the best, since most of Carlsen's remaining graduate assistants had perennially shaky hands and often looked like they hadn't slept in a year.

Dr. Carlsen might have been a young academic rock star and biology's wunderkind, but he was also mean and hypercritical, and it was obvious in the way he spoke, in the way he carried himself, that he thought himself the only person doing decent science within the Stanford biology department. Within the entire world, probably. He was a notoriously moody, obnoxious, terrifying dick.

And Olive had just kissed him.

She wasn't sure how long the silence lasted-only that he was the one to break it. He stood in front of Olive, ridiculously intimidating with dark eyes and even darker hair, staring down from who knows how many inches above six feet-he must have been over half a foot taller than she was. He scowled, an expression that she recognized from seeing him attend the departmental seminar, a look that usually preceded him raising his hand to point out some perceived fatal flaw in the speaker's work.

Adam Carlsen. Destroyer of research careers , Olive had once overheard her adviser say.

It's okay. It's fine. Totally fine. She was just going to pretend nothing had happened, nod at him politely, and tiptoe her way out of here. Yes, solid plan.

"Did you . . . Did you just kiss me?" He sounded puzzled, and maybe a little out of breath. His lips were full and plump and . . . God. Kissed. There was simply no way Olive could get away with denying what she had just done.

Still, it was worth a try.

Surprisingly, it seemed to work.

"Ah. Okay, then." Carlsen nodded and turned around, looking vaguely disoriented. He took a couple of steps down the hallway, reached the water fountain-maybe where he'd been headed in the first place.

Olive was starting to believe that she might actually be off the hook when he halted and turned back with a skeptical expression.

"Are you sure?"

"I-" She buried her face in her hands. "It's not the way it looks."

"Okay. I . . . Okay," he repeated slowly. His voice was deep and low and sounded a lot like he was on his way to get ting mad. Like maybe he was already mad. "What's going on here?"

There was simply no way to explain this. Any normal person would have found Olive's situation odd, but Adam Carlsen, who obviously considered empathy a bug and not a feature of humanity, could never understand. She let her hands fall to her sides and took a deep breath.

"I . . . listen, I don't mean to be rude, but this is really none of your business."

He stared at her for a moment, and then he nodded. "Yes. Of course." He must be getting back into his usual groove, because his tone had lost some of its surprise and was back to normal-dry. Laconic. "I'll just go back to my office and begin to work on my Title IX complaint."

Olive exhaled in relief. "Yeah. That would be great, since- Wait. Your what?"

He cocked his head. "Title IX is a federal law that protects against sexual misconduct within academic settings-"

"I know what Title IX is."

"I see. So you willfully chose to disregard it."

"I- What? No. No, I didn't!"

He shrugged. "I must be mistaken, then. Someone else must have assaulted me."

"Assault-I didn't 'assault' you."

"You did kiss me."

"But not really ."

"Without first securing my consent."

"I asked if I could kiss you!"

"And then did so without waiting for my response."

"What? You said yes."

"Excuse me?"

She frowned. "I asked if I could kiss you, and you said yes."

"Incorrect. You asked if you could kiss me and I snorted."

"I'm pretty sure I heard you said yes."

He lifted one eyebrow, and for a minute Olive let herself daydream of drowning someone. Dr. Carlsen. Herself. Both sounded like great options.

"Listen, I'm really sorry. It was a weird situation. Can we just forget that this happened?"

He studied her for a long moment, his angular face serious and something else, something that she couldn't quite decipher because she was too busy noticing all over again how damn towering and broad he was. Just massive. Olive had always been slight, just this side of too slender, but girls who are five eight rarely felt diminutive. At least until they found themselves standing next to Adam Carlsen. She'd known that he was tall, of course, from seeing him around the department or walking across campus, from sharing the elevator with him, but they'd never interacted. Never been this close.

Except for a second ago, Olive. When you almost put your tongue in his-

"Is something wrong?" He sounded almost concerned.

"What? No. No, there isn't."

"Because," he continued calmly, "kissing a stranger at midnight in a science lab might be a sign that there is."

"There isn't."

Carlsen nodded, thoughtful. "Very well. Expect mail in the next few days, then." He began to walk past her, and she turned to yell after him.

"You didn't even ask my name!"

"I'm sure anyone could figure it out, since you must have swiped your badge to get in the labs area after hours. Have a good night."

"Wait!" She leaned forward and stopped him with a hand on his wrist. He paused immediately, even though it was obvious that it would take him no effort to free himself, and stared pointedly at the spot where her fingers had wrapped around his skin-right below a wristwatch that probably cost half her yearly graduate salary. Or all of it.

She let go of him at once and took one step back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"The kiss. Explain."

Olive bit into her lower lip. She had truly screwed herself over. She had to tell him, now. "Anh Pham." She looked around to make sure Anh was really gone. "The girl who was passing by. She's a graduate student in the biology department."

Carlsen gave no indication of knowing who Anh was.

"Anh has . . ." Olive pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. This was where the story became embarrassing. Complicated, and a little juvenile sounding. "I was seeing this guy in the department. Jeremy Langley, he has red hair and works with Dr. . . . Anyway, we went out just a couple of times, and then I brought him to Anh's birthday party, and they just sort of hit it off and-"

Olive shut her eyes. Which was probably a bad idea, because now she could see it painted on her lids, how her best friend and her date had bantered in that bowling alley, as if they'd known each other their whole lives; the never-exhausted topics of conversation, the laughter, and then, at the end of the night, Jeremy following Anh's every move with his gaze. It had been painfully clear who he was interested in. Olive waved a hand and tried for a smile.

"Long story short, after Jeremy and I ended things he asked Anh out. She said no because of . . . girl code and all that, but I can tell that she really likes him. She's afraid to hurt my feelings, and no matter how many times I told her it was fine she wouldn't believe me."

Not to mention that the other day I overheard her confess to our friend Malcolm that she thought Jeremy was awesome, but she could never betray me by going out with him, and she sounded so dejected. Disappointed and insecure, not at all like the spunky, larger-than-life Anh I am used to.

"So I just lied and told her that I was already dating someone else. Because she's one of my closest friends and I'd never seen her like a guy this much and I want her to have the good things she deserves and I'm positive that she would do the same for me and-" Olive realized that she was rambling and that Carlsen couldn't have cared less. She stopped and swallowed, even though her mouth felt dry. "Tonight. I told her I'd be on a date tonight ."

"Ah." His expression was unreadable.

"But I'm not. So I decided to come in to work on an experiment, but Anh showed up, too. She wasn't supposed to be here. But she was. Coming this way. And I panicked-well." Olive wiped a hand down her face. "I didn't really think."

Carlsen didn't say anything, but it was there in his eyes that he was thinking. Obviously.

"I just needed her to believe that I was on a date."

He nodded. "So you kissed the first person you saw in the hallway. Perfectly logical."

Olive winced. "When you put it like that, perhaps it wasn't my best moment."

"But it wasn't my worst, either! I'm pretty sure Anh saw us. Now she'll think that I was on a date with you and she'll hopefully feel free to go out with Jeremy and-" She shook her head. "Listen. I'm so, so sorry about the kiss."

"Please, don't report me. I really thought I heard you say yes. I promise I didn't mean to . . ."

Suddenly, the enormity of what she had just done fully dawned on her. She had just kissed a random guy, a guy who happened to be the most notoriously unpleasant faculty member in the biology department. She'd misunderstood a snort for consent, she'd basically attacked him in the hallway, and now he was staring at her in that odd, pensive way, so large and focused and close to her, and . . .

Maybe it was the late night. Maybe it was that her last coffee had been sixteen hours ago. Maybe it was Adam Carlsen looking down at her, like that. All of a sudden, this entire situation was just too much.

"Actually, you're absolutely right. And I am so sorry. If you felt in any way harassed by me, you really should report me, because it's only fair. It was a horrible thing to do, though I really didn't want to . . . Not that my intentions matter; it's more like your perception of . . ."

Crap, crap, crap.

"I'm going to leave now, okay? Thank you, and . . . I am so, so, so sorry." Olive spun around on her heels and ran away down the hallway.

"Olive," she heard him call after her. "Olive, wait-"

She didn't stop. She sprinted down the stairs to the first floor and then out the building and across the pathways of the sparsely lit Stanford campus, running past a girl walking her dog and a group of students laughing in front of the library. She continued until she was standing in front of her apartment's door, stopping only to unlock it, making a beeline for her room in the hope of avoiding her roommate and whoever he might have brought home tonight. It wasn’t until she slumped on her bed, staring at the glow‑in‑the- dark stars glued to her ceiling, that she realized that she had neglected to check on her lab mice. She had also left her laptop on her bench and her sweatshirt somewhere in the lab, and she had completely forgotten to stop at the store and buy the coffee she’d promised Malcolm she’d get for tomorrow morning. Shit. What a disaster of a day. It never occurred to Olive that Dr. Adam Carlsen— known ass— had called her by her name.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08T6XN4FP
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley (September 14, 2021)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 14, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 3306 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 383 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1408725762
• #59 in Workplace Romance eBooks
• #82 in Workplace Romance
• #554 in Romantic Comedy (Kindle Store)

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About the author

Ali hazelwood.

Ali Hazelwood is a multi-published author—alas, of peer-reviewed articles about brain science, in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy. Originally from Italy, she lived in Germany and Japan before moving to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. She recently became a professor, which absolutely terrifies her. When Ali is not at work, she can be found running, crocheting, eating cake pops, or watching sci-fi movies with her two feline overlords (and her slightly-less-feline husband).

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The Love Hypothesis

48 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-11

Chapters 12-13

Chapters 14-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapter 20-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Different Types of Intelligence

Through the representation of academia , Olive’s difficulty to parse her emotions, and the differences between Olive and Malcolm , The Love Hypothesis shows how there are different types of intelligence. Olive, Adam, and others within the Stanford community possess intelligence, as evidenced by the fact they work in academia. Many of Olive’s thoughts about her experiment show how she understands the material and is always seeking new information with which to supplement what she already believes. Tom’s insults in later chapters reveal just how intelligent Olive is. While Tom also possesses a level of intelligence to remain in the field, even if that intelligence is only enough for him to copy and add to the work of others, his jealousy and view of Olive as a threat shows just how intelligent her thought processes are.

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The average reader will spend 7 hours and 12 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

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Macy Sorensen has decided to settle for marriage to an older man until she bumps into Elliot Petropoulos--her first and most intense love, who eventually broke her heart--sending her reeling into reminiscence and doubt.

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Reading Experiment: Tracking Words

The title is very self-explanatory. I decided to experiment for a month to track words instead of books. Yes, I’ve managed to complicate something so simple. Although, I have a good reason. I am a slow reader, as in I usually read at a speed of 180 words per minute. And my original idea for this experiment was to keep me motivated to read, possibly to read bigger books. Every time I look at a book with more than 400 pages, my first thought is how many weeks or even months it will take me to finish it. And that discourages me. So I was on the hunt for a way to allow me to fall in love with reading, no matter the size of the book.

How the idea came to be

One day in February, I found a YouTube video about reading 30 books in 30 days and, to my surprise, the books weren’t counted from cover to cover. Usually, whenever I see videos like these, people read them at incredible speed (compared to mine!) and choose shorter books like novellas, short stories and graphic novels. Although, in this video, a book was represented by 60 000 words. And that got me thinking.

At the time, I was reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus, and it seemed it was taking me longer to read The Lost Symbol at a speed of 2 minutes per page against 1 and a half minutes for the McManus’ book. So, I grabbed the calculator.

I counted how many words were on a full page for each book. The Lost Symbol had a little over 400 and One of Us is Lying had about 300. And right here is the first problem. The Lost Symbol has larger pages and smaller font compared with One of Us is Lying. Obviously, it was taking me longer to read a single page, it had more text. Then, in one hour, I read 30 pages of The Lost Symbol and 40 of One of Us is Lying. When I multiplied the pages I read by the number of words, I discovered that I read the exact same amount of words in one hour for each book. I was, in fact, reading at the same speed.

My slowness wasn’t real. I was just comparing two books that have different size pages. And at that moment, I realised it wasn’t a fair system to simply count books read. How can I count The Lost Symbol as one book and One of Us is Lying as another one book when both are so different in size? So, I decided to try it out. To forget the conventional way of tracking my reading. To ignore the number of books I was reading from cover to cover. To avoid how many pages I was reading every time I picked up a book. And just focus on reading.

To help me, I prepared an excel spreadsheet which I had so much fun doing – I’m such a nerd! – to count how many words I was reading. Since word count is something a reader doesn’t have access to, I took the time of the audiobook versions and multiply it by a speed of 150 words per minute. And then I let the computer do the math.

The reading experiment

Last night, I finished The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood . My second this month (the first one was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown , I started reading in late February), and I don’t feel like I read that few. Looking at my spreadsheet, I’ve been reading a little over 2 hours every day since the beginning of the month, which is double my usual time, and yet I only read 2 books. Although, I feel like I’ve read more. And looking at this number is discouraging. I feel like all this time I’m putting into reading is not translating into books. I don’t feel like I’m being rewarded. Now, it’s time to see if this experiment can change that.

Total word count: 189 308 80 000-words-book read: 2,4

Just finished re-reading Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan , and you know what… I don’t feel like a read 1 book. My Goodreads says I did. The Storygraph says I did. And my reading tracker app says I did. Yet, I don’t feel like it. In the same way that finishing The Lost Symbol and The Love Hypothesis felt like more than 2 books read, reading Saga feels like I read less than a book.

Considering a comic book one book is like drinking a glass of water and saying I’ve drank my water intake for the day. It’s not enough. It’s small, quick, and most of the pages are pictures. I love comic books, and they are a great and fun way to tell stories, although I can’t consider a comic book and a 400-page novel only ONE book. It demotivates me to read big novels because those take sssoooo lllloooonnnngggg to finish. But I want to read bigger books. Can you see my problem?

Total word count: 213 561 80 000-words-book read: 2,7

I just realised something: I’ve finished Deception by Teri Terry (third book), and I have no idea how many pages I read each day. I would just read for about an hour or until I was satisfied, and log in my time and page number to my spreadsheet. But I never calculated how many pages I was reading. And that leaves me in a kind of numb sensation. I don’t feel the pressure to compare how many pages I read today VS yesterday. And I can still compare word count and time, but I just don’t feel that need. And maybe because counting words will always be such big numbers, I don’t feel like it’s ever too little.

I’ve been eyeing the book to see how deep or how far away I am to the end but haven’t been paying much attention to times, words, pages and, for that matter, even books. At this point, I have no idea how many hypothetical 80 000-words-books I’ve read. I’m just reading every day. And I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t know if it is because I’m doing something new or if it’s really the way of tracking, but I’m always excited for the next time I can add another log.

Total word count: 320 301 80 000-words-book read: 4

I’m in the most amazing reading mood I think I’ve ever been in. I’m finishing one book after another AKA Evolution by Teri Terry (the amazing conclusion to the Dark Mater trilogy), and I just want to keep reading more and more. I’ve already started reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara , the ultimate proof that tracking words will help me tackle big books or not. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to finish it quickly, because I’m well aware that the story can get a bit much, and I want to be able to take any breaks if I feel like I need them.

By now, I have almost a full month of reading tracked by words, and I don’t compare what I read each day, even though, I can. It’s strange. I can see on which days I read more or less, but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if it’s because counting words are always big numbers, and I kind of lose the sense of what that means. One thing is for sure, no matter how many words I read, I have no idea how many pages they represent, and that is helping a lot. I don’t feel any pressure of reading a certain amount of pages every day.

Total word count: 483 667 80 000-words-book read: 6

Final thoughts

I think the primary thing that happened was a shift in my mentality. I detached from the idea that a book was something enclosed between two covers and instead saw the actual commitment I was putting into every book I read. Using 80 000 words as a threshold, allow me to see that reading The Lost Symbol would represent two books instead of one, and so, I wasn’t that preoccupied with how much time it was taking me. Meanwhile, reading something short like Saga would not give me that same level of satisfaction.

Also, avoiding page count every time I read was a huge improvement. I often compared and felt hopeless when I didn’t read a good amount of pages, especially in big books. I would realise how much time it would take me to finish the book at that speed and put me off reading. With that out of the way, I focused on making time for reading.

I’ve already filled the excel spreadsheet with my daily reading from January and February – thanks to my reading tracker app for having all that recorded . I’ll be continuing for the rest of the year to see if March was just a good reading month or if this new way of tracking is all I ever needed. So far, it’s working wonderfully!

Total word count: 514 527 80 000-words-book read: 6,4 Actual books: 5 read, 1 DNF, 2 currently reading

If you enjoyed this post, maybe go check out the first reading experiment I did this year: Reading the Last Books I Bought ! And keep tuned for more reading experiments in the upcoming months.

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