The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
I feel like I’ve been hyping up Ali Hazelwood a lot recently but it’s something I’m more than happy to do. This wasn’t the first book I read of hers, but it is still my absolute favourite. I don’t even care that it’s Reylo fanfic, I absolutely love Reylo so if anything, that makes it even better. I’ve just realised I made a similar comment in my review, which has made me laugh a little bit “It didn’t even bother me to know that this was Reylo fanfic, if anything I enjoyed it more for this reason. Every time Olive thought ‘omg this guy is huge’ I thought of that moment from The Last Jedi where Adam Driver is shirtless and it made me laugh – no hate to shirtless Adam Driver, I love him.”
I can see myself wanting to re-read this book in the future – probably once I’ve read all of Ali Hazelwood’s books (I still have Bride, Mate, Deep End, Problematic Summer Romance, Not in Love and the Under One Roof novellas to read). It’s actually crazy to think about how many books she’s published now.
Synopsis: When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman’s carefully calculated theories on love into chaos
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. And 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.
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
This book is now 14 years old, which is actually crazy to me. I didn’t read it when it first came out, but I was fairly young so this is one of those books that really defined my teens years. It’s probably what started my love for fairytale retellings. It never gave me a love for sci-fi, as that’s a genre I basically never pick up, but if you’d asked me back in the 2010s what my favourite book series is, I would have said The Lunar Chronicles.
Looking back at Cinder is what made me want to re-read my favourite books and actually review them. A younger me loved to give five stars to almost everything I read. When you don’t think about books critically it’s so easy to say “I liked this, five stars”, so reading this again in 2023 was interesting. I did still rate it highly, but my five star rating in 2015 was a little too generous.
I do still think this is an incredible debut though. The world building alone is impressive, but I will always love this spin on the classic Cinderella story. A cyborg Cinderella will always be cool.
I’m now thinking about continuing my re-read of this series (three years later in classic me style).
Synopsis: The prince straightened, forcing her gaze to follow him. “You’re not quite what I was expecting.”
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
With high-stakes action and a smart, resourceful heroine, Cinder is a Cinderella retelling that is at once classic and strikingly original.
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