As a consumer of social media and an avid reader, I have been exploring the world of BookTok to decide if these books are genuinely good reads or overrated. After reading the dark and twisted novel Verity, I decided (on BookTok lovers’ recommendations) to explore the world of love and romance with The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. 

When I started reading the novel, it was challenging to get through. The Love Hypothesis recounts the romantic trials of Ph.D. candidate Olive Smith. Olive, in an attempt to convince her best friend Anh she is over her ex-boyfriend, pretends to date a professor. It begins with Olive bombarding an unexpecting Dr. Adam Carlsen with a kiss in a moment of panic in an attempt to convince Anh that she is on a date with the young hot-shot professor. 

The storyline felt more like a cheesy Hallmark movie instead of a love story that could happen in real life, which is to be expected in this genre.  With romantic novels, there is often a certain level of belief that we put aside to allow ourselves to enjoy the plot. However, it was challenging to move past the predictability of the storyline,  plot holes, and elements that just seemed to be too unrealistic. Too often I found myself cringing at the awkward rom-com style gaffs between Olive and Adam. 

I found both the foreshadowing and the jokes in this novel too corny and too obvious. Throughout the novel, I found some of the attempts at humor to fall flat.  The jokes felt a bit too corny and too obvious. While there were certainly elements of humor that amused me, some of the writing styles wasn’t what I usually find entertaining. Certain storylines, such as Anh pressuring Olive into PDA with Adam, happened repeatedly. This repetition made the first half of the novel drag on and difficult to continue reading. Similarly, the author makes obvious hints about major plot reveals throughout the novel. However, I found that because these hints were dropped repeatedly and were almost too revealing, they took away the suspense that comes from a plot twist or reveals. 

However, once the novel was about halfway through, I began to enjoy it more, get lost in the pages and feel immersed in the unfolding of the love story between Adam and Olive. Once the storyline became more direct, I could appreciate not only the love story unfolding but the commentary that author Ali Hazelwood makes on the field of academia at large. The novel addresses the challenges that many women, including BIPOC women, face in the pursuit of higher education and the discrimination they face. Through highlighting the strength of Anh, who is a person of color, Hazelwood brings light to areas of discrimination within academia and showcases a strong character overcoming them on her own. 

Hazelwood, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience, is able to draw on personal experiences to give testimony to the stress that pursuing graduate studies has on students. She addresses the challenges of the world of academia, including poor mental health, politics, and unfairness, and provides an honest insight into her reality. As an undergraduate student, it was through reading a simple love story, albeit a slightly inconceivable one, that I was able to gain insight into a life experience I have not seen firsthand. 

Some may find novels in the BookTok genre to be silly and lack the seriousness of more well-renowned works of literature. At first, I was even mocking the novel’s corny elements with my roommates and lamenting my decision to choose this as my next novel for my BookTok review. Yet it was through reading this novel that I gained exposure to an experience in life different from my own. I was able to get lost in a love story of two interesting and diverse characters. Between the plot holes and cheesiness, my mind was opened to the challenges that many face in an academic setting, unlike the one I am currently experiencing. Hazelwood’s novel tells a story that, more often than not, is untold in literature today and is therefore a valuable novel for anyone to read.

October 2022