at first i was really hesitant to read this book as with the spanish love deception because these are two really popular romcom-esque books that got a lot of flack for being corny, cringy etc. however, i appreciate the love hypothesis so much because not only is the romance sweetly and prettily written (at least in my opinion), the themes explored really resonated well with me,
i’m a STEM major and just obtained my bachelor’s and have started my orientation week for the honours programme i was selected for (and it just so happens to be the stream i’m doing is really similar to olive’s). in the past and now, i have always suffered with great feelings of inadequacy and just the overwhelming feeling that nothing i ever do, research-wise, is ever going to have a positive impact on the science field. the discussion on what it means to be good enough and your reasoning for choosing science in the novel really touched me, and i related to olive so much that it shocked me. although adam is a d1ck (and he admits it), a lot of his explanations for his tough-love or perhaps even cold and blunt approach to being an adviser made sense, and was somehow comforting?? i don’t know if that even makes sense. all in all, i found a lot of the things that olive said really profound simply because it spoke to me as a woman in STEM.
as a sidenote, even though it is very relevant but sort of just an add-on to the main point i wanted to make: the way tom treated her in this book was appalling and it made my skin crawl to think that male scientists harrass and abuse female scientists like this, especially ones in “lower” positions. this plot point reminded me of a documentary i watched called “Picture a scientist”, and while reading *that* scene, i really flinched and it made my skin crawl.
anyway, i hope this isn’t just a bunch of nonsense because it’s been a long, trying and emotional day and i’m exhausted from doing 12k steps all over campus lol.
i’m reading this over before i post it and it just sounds like a long-ass review. if you’ve read everything, thank you for taking the time 🙂
by moonmoon713
1 Comment
I’m glad you found something to like about it OP. I am in academia and do research, so it was amusing to read because while there are some stuff it gets very right (a lot of what you pointed out) there are also things it gets very wrong: the whole premise of the book, a professor dating a student in the same department would be an enormous red flag to basically all of their colleagues and administrators. Stanford in particular would throw a fit.
Maybe I fixate on that because I’m on the other side of things now, being more senior. The #METOO movement has caused the entire field to take harassment, coercion, and inappropriate relationships between trainees (usually undergrads and grad students) and their superiors (PIs, post-docs, and sometimes other grad students) much more seriously.
I (and many of my coworkers) can still appreciate the book for what it is, of course. Its a romance book (it isn’t supposed to make perfect sense) and its sort of interesting to have someone write a book about “us” for a change. It certainly makes an interesting backdrop.