Genre: Romance
Published: September 14, 2021 by: Penguin
Pages: 383
Rating: 3/5 stars
CW: workplace sexual harassment, graphic sexual content, perhaps negative asexual rep (read more in review)
Olive Smith is a PhD candidate in her third year at Stanford University. Her best friend Anh believes in long-lasting, romantic love, but Olive isn't sure that happily ever after can exist. Olive decides to get Anh off her back by kissing the first man she sees in an effort to prove to Anh that she can be in a relationship. However, this man turns out to be Adam Carlsen, a young, grumpy professor who is caught off guard by Olive's forwardness. Still, Adam agrees to go along with Olive's plan if it means they can try to put this awkwardness behind them. But fake dating proves to be complicated once the two start catching feelings.
This book really blew up on Booktok, and it took me a while to find it at the library and see if it was worth the hype. I knew it was an adaptation of a fanfic of Reylo (romantic ship between Kylo Ren and Rey from Star Wars). That made me curious. I love Kylo Ren, but I'm not the biggest fan of that ship. Still, a love interest at least inspired by Kylo intrigued me. Fanfiction once again makes the world go round! I would say this book was middle of the road for me, with some high moments but also some issues to work through.
First off, I really did like how the book handled the grumpy x sunshine trope. That is one of my favourite tropes in romance novels and I think Hazelwood did a good job at characterizing Olive's confidence and charm mixed with Adam's sarcasm and cynicism. But, despite Adam being the grumpy character, he was never disrespectful or abusive, which I think is super important when handling this trope. I also liked how the book portrayed the fake dating trope, especially given that there were power dynamics involved between a professor and a PhD candidate. Both Adam and Olive clear their relationship with the Dean, and I appreciated this touch to avoid toxicity within their relationship.
I thought the romance was well-paced and didn't to me feel like insta-love or anything that could be totally unrealistic. I did sometimes find that Olive made impulsive decisions, and seeing that she was a PhD student, I wondered why she acted that way. I guess I just figured she'd be a bit more cautious of things, so this personality shift did surprise me a bit. But I didn't find her or Adam to be particularly unlikable characters.
The sex scenes were graphic, but nothing that I'm not used to in a lot of adult romance books. I do think Hazelwood portrayed such scenes in a healthy way, though for me, nothing can beat the representation in Helen Hoang's "Kiss Quotient" series. That series still has some of the healthiest and non-toxic sexuality representation that I've ever seen. I will constantly compare every romance to it.
On to the not so great bits. I did notice a few OwnVoices Goodreads reviewers talking about how they found Hazelwood misrepresented or awkwardly incorporated asexual representation when it came to Olive. The first time that Olive and Adam have sex, Olive admits to Adam that she has a difficult time forming the want to have sex, and forming attraction for people. But she frames this in a way by saying that there is something "weird" about her brain, and then the whole thing is kinda dismissed and not picked up again. This was something that struck me as odd when I was reading the book, but I didn't quite understand why until I read the reviews, and then I found some reviewers put my thoughts into words quite well. I am not asexual so I'm not gonna be the spokesperson on this, and I know some asexual people may have no issue with this plot point. But, I will say that I think for me personally, I would've liked this side of Olive explored a bit more if it was something that impacted how she forms sexual relationships. We never really see it developed into something more, and I think positive asexual representation is super important. You can see these reviews in the one star section of Goodreads if you'd like to read them.
I don't think the characters necessarily struck me as all that interesting. I thought Olive and Adam were an okay couple, but I didn't find myself going out of my way to root for them the way I do other romance couples. They were just okay, nothing truly remarkable though nothing terribly annoying. I do chalk a lot of this up to the book perhaps being more plot driven than character driven. I didn't feel like I knew a whole lot about these characters, so I found it difficult to connect to them.
Overall, this book was fine. It wasn't a standout for me, but I'm usually pretty forgiving of romance novels if there are some redeeming qualities. I don't necessarily think this book was worth the hype, but I'm glad I gave it a shot.
Have you read The Love Hypothesis? What did you think?
Don't think I'd heard of this one - but then, it has a pretty generic title, so it's entirely possible I've just forgotten about it (lol.)
ReplyDeleteFirst off, naming the Kylo stand-in Adam is both funny and a potential invitation to a law-suit ;)
Next: An Ace girl in a *fake dating trope* book, and it's barely mentioned?!
Listen, every Asexual person is their own person, with their own reactions to things and their own place - but if my Ace side was in the driving seat in that situation, I would be over-thinking everything, both in positive and not-so-positive ways. There's a *lot* of baggage that would come with that scenario.
And while a whole bunch of us have described ourselves as 'weird' for the Ace-ness at one time or another, to have it there with no pushback and what *sounds* like questionable framing is... not ideal.
I would forgive that in fanfiction, but once it's actually published as a novel, there's another level of expectations, y'know? *shrugs* - again, I haven't read it, so I'm just going by what you said here :)
For sure! Thanks for your insight. Firstly, I didn't notice the Adam connection until you mentioned it. Considering Adam Driver's privacy I feel like that is walking on thin ice lol.
DeleteAnd yeah... I'm sure there are Ace ppl that love this book (in fact I know there are based on what I see on Tik Tok). But I do agree that there are expectations in published books. I'm not sure if this book lived up to its potential as a romance with an Ace mc.