The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
I’ve definitely talked about this book way too recently to mention it again, but I just love Ali Hazelwood’s books. I’m yet to rate one lower than five stars, which is not something I ever expected. I don’t rate contemporary romances five stars very often, so just know if you see me giving such high praise to a romance book, it’s pretty special.
Whenever I think about this book it still makes me feel a little giddy with happiness and that’s how you know I truly enjoyed it. There are a lot of things a lot of people probably won’t like about this book – mostly that it was definitely a Reylo fanfic before it was published. But personally, I love that about it. Makes everything a lot more funny if you imagine that Adam is actually Kylo Ren (who is played by Adam Driver) which makes the connection even more apparent.
This isn’t the spiciest of Ali Hazelwood’s books but I actually loved how thoughtful both characters were about sex. They needed a real connection and trust to be even slightly interested in each other and I really appreciated that. I feel like romance books have become a little hypersexualised and it’s nice to see so much care and thought going into those types of scenes. It felt important for the plot and character development rather than ‘I’m just going to put yet another sex scene in here because that’s why people read romance’. No judgement towards people who love to read or write those types of books, we all have different preferences and that’s okay!
We all know I also loved this book because it has a fake dating plot line. I love this trope in all forms and when it’s paired with grumpy x sunshine, it’s even better.
Synopsis: 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.
Beach Read by Emily Henry
I’ve just said I don’t give contemporaries five stars very often but this post has included two. It is genuinely quite a rare thing for me to do. This does have a mix of a few genres though. It gets a little dark sometimes, mostly when they’re doing research for their books, and these were some of my favourite parts of Beach Read.
I’m not sure how true this is for Emily Henry’s other books, as this is still the only one I’ve read, but the cover is quite deceptive. It looks like a feel good romance with summer vibes, but that’s not entirely true. There is quite a lot of romance but it’s not the whole point of the book. There are so many deep and complex character relationships that are non-romantic that really shape the narrative of this book. The romance is pretty sappy and cliched, but I’d expect nothing less from a book about an author that writes romance books.
I went into this expecting a cute romance and while that is part of what I got, I loved that my expectations were wrong. There’s a lot of depth and the characters are just genuinely great.
Synopsis: A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.
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Like this post? Why not read this one too: ARC Review: Run Like a Girl by Amaka Egbe