Romance genre - book annotation #2

Romance genre book annotation 

Author:  Ali Hazelwood

Title: The Love Hypothesis

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publication Date: Sept., 2021

Number of Pages: 352

Geographical Setting: Stanford, California, USA

Time Period: present day

Series (If applicable): N/A

Plot Summary:

Olive Smith is a Ph.D. student in a biomedical research program at Stanford University. In an attempt to convince her best friend to go out with a guy Olive had dated but didn’t care for, Olive decides to pretend to date someone else. She randomly kisses a man in the hallway late one night when her friend is watching, and thus the saga begins. The man she has just kissed is none other than Adam Carlson, a professor in the program and one who frequently intimidates graduate students by his hard evaluation of their work. For some reason he agrees to pretend date Olive. Through a series of amusing events their relationship develops into something more.

The novel illustrates graduate school in a realistic yet light-hearted way, and also brings to life some more difficult issues that professional women face.

 

Subject Headings:

Romance -- Fiction

Women in STEM -- Fiction

Graduate school in STEM -- Fiction

 

Appeal:

Tone: “The overarching feeling is one of togetherness, support, and deep bonding.” (Wyatt & Saricks, 2019, p. 217).

While Olive’s mother has died, they clearly were close, and that relationship informs Olive’s career choice. Olive makes close friends who play an important role in the novel. For example, her relationship with Adam begins because of her desire to make her best friend (Anh) happy. This move also causes her friend to embark on a relationship, though we only hear of it tangentially.

Characterization: “Romance is a character-driven genre. Novels turn on the relationship between the two central characters. They must come to understand themselves and each other in intimate, revealing ways” (Wyatt & Saricks, 2019, p. 217).

Olive’s relationship with Adam helps her to understand herself and her ambitions. We learn that she has many self-doubts and worries about her ability to succeed in her career. Olive (and the reader) also learns that Adam is deeper than initially portrayed. His experiences in his graduate years have informed how he interacts with current graduate students and with Olive. Watching their characters develop is one of the best parts of the novel.

Setting: “Readers appreciate the emphasis on heroines in their professional lives in Contemporary Romance” (Wyatt & Saricks, 2019, p. 219).

The setting is graduate school in the biomedical sciences. Since I was also a graduate student in that area years ago, this was a wonderful setting for me. Anyone interested in learning a little bit about the graduate school life of a professional woman in STEM would enjoy that aspect of this novel. Hazelwood does not bog the story down with details, but lightly peppers the romance with these elements so that the story has more depth and context. She may have slightly overdone this when talking about Anh and her work for women in science (one gets the feeling that Anh does nothing but work in this area, and I’m sure that’s not the case). But this is where Hazelwood takes the opportunity to make some social points about women in STEM, which is an added bonus in some Romance novels, while never taking away from the story of the relationship (Wyatt & Saricks, 2019).

3 terms that best describe this book:  

witty, upbeat, steamy romance

Similar Authors and Works:

The Chemistry of Love, by Sariah Wilson

A fake relationship that develops into something more as Anna Ellis uses competition to attract the man she really is after. This novel is more chaste than The Love Hypothesis. 

Common appeal: women in STEM, romantic comedy, fake relationship

Some Kind of Magic, by Mary Ann Marlowe.

Biochemist unknowingly tests a scent that was developed to increase sexual attraction. It works, and relationship issues ensue. Steamier than The Love Hypothesis.

Common appeal: engaging writing, women in STEM (biochemist), steamy romance, amusing

Loathe at First Sight, by Suzanne Park

A video game developer falls for her intern. Her work life is full of challenges related to gender discrimination.

Common appeal: Women in STEM (computer science), romantic comedy, workplace romance

 

3 Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors

The exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science, by Kate Zernike

This is the story of Nancy Hopkins, who with 15 other female scientists made public the way MIT had been discriminating against women for years. 

Common appeal: Engaging writing style, women facing discrimination in STEM

Brave the wild river: the untold story of two women who mapped the botany of the Grand Canyon, by Melissa L. Sevigny

Two women and four men embark on a rafting trip down the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, surveying and collecting the plant life along the river.

Common appeal: women scientists, engaging writing style, workplace sexism

Bright galaxies, dark matter, and beyond: the life of astronomer Vera Rubin, by Ashley Jean Yaeger

The biography of Vera Rubin, a pioneering woman astronomer who helped discover dark matter, but was never awarded a Nobel Prize.

Common appeal: accessible and compelling writing style, women in science, discrimination.

 

3 Relevant Fiction Works and Authors (not Romance genre)

Sourdough, by Robin Sloan

The genre is magical realism/fantasy rather than romance, but the main character is a software engineer who ends up developing a sourdough startup company.

Common appeal: Likeable character, witty and engaging writing style, women in science

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, by Theodora Goss

This historical fantasy includes strong female characters. It includes a number of fictional characters from classic novels in an amusing and engaging mystery.

Common appeal: Amusing tone, likeable, strong female characters, engaging and witty writing style

No One Lives Twice, by Julie Moffett

Lexi Carmichael works for the NSA foiling computer hackers. She becomes involved in an investigation to find her best friend who has disappeared. Romance and adventure ensue. Mystery genre.

Common appeal: women in science (computer science), romantic appeal, likeable character

 

References

 

Wyatt, N.  & Saricks, J. G. (2019). The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (3rd ed.). ALA Editions.