Is there an audiobook of The Love Hypothesis?

Yes. The Love Hypothesis has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Callie Dalton and Teddy Hamilton.

How long is the The Love Hypothesis audiobook?

The The Love Hypothesis audiobook runs 11 hr 51 min.

Is The Love Hypothesis on Kindle Unlimited?

No. The Love Hypothesis was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 16, 2026.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood book cover for the Book of the Day romance book review

Our score

4.5/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to The Love Hypothesis free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

EDITION PUBLISHEDSeptember 2021

Genres

Fiction Romance Romantic Comedy

Themes

Fake relationships becoming real onesWomen navigating sexism in academiaVulnerability as the hardest hypothesis to testFound family among fellow grad students

The Love Hypothesis

Name: The Love Hypothesis
Price: 12.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood's academic rom-com pairs a prickly STEM heroine with a professor she can't stand, then makes their fake relationship the most honest thing in either of their lives.

The Review

Our take

Olive Smith needs a boyfriend for exactly one lie, and she needs him right now, which is how she ends up kissing a total stranger in a Stanford hallway to prove a point to her worried best friend. The stranger turns out to be Adam Carlsen, the biology department's resident hardass, a man third-years cross campus to avoid. He should throw her under the bus. Instead he agrees to keep playing along, and that's the hinge the whole book swings on: why would the coldest professor at Stanford volunteer for this?

Hazelwood writes chemistry the way a lab partner would notice it, in small, specific increments. Adam remembers how Olive takes her coffee. He starts leaving snacks in her desk drawer without a word about it. None of it reads as grand romantic gesture; it reads as a man paying closer attention than he's supposed to, and Olive spends a good stretch of the book refusing to see it for what it is because admitting it would mean admitting she wants something she told herself she'd sworn off. The fake-dating scaffolding is familiar, sure, but the specificity of two people who actually do science for a living, who talk in hypotheses and control variables even when they're falling apart, gives it a texture the trope doesn't usually get.

The payoff lands in a scene at a conference, when Adam's support for Olive stops being deniable as friendship and starts looking like the real thing, in front of people who could hurt her career for it. That's the moment I'd point a friend to if they asked what makes this one stick with you: the choice made right before the kiss, in public, at real professional cost. Hazelwood also doesn't flinch from the uglier realities of being a woman in a STEM PhD program, the casual dismissiveness, the harassment that gets waved off as normal, and folds it into Olive's arc without turning the book into an issues novel about it.

Why you should read

Enemies-to-fake-daters who actually like arguing
STEM-set romance with real workplace stakes
Grumpy hero, sunshine-adjacent heroine dynamics
Readers who want banter over brooding

What to expect

Fast, funny first-person narration from Olive
Fake dating that turns achingly real
Campus and conference settings, lab-coat realism
Low-angst until a genuinely tense public reveal

Is it a little predictable in its shape? Of course, that's the deal you make with this genre, and Hazelwood knows it. What she does with the shape is the whole show: sharp banter, a hero whose gruffness is a defense mechanism rather than a personality flaw, and an ending that feels less like a bow on the plot and more like two scientists finally agreeing on a result they'd both been afraid to publish.

Reviewed by Sloane · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.5/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to The Love Hypothesis free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of The Love Hypothesis?: Yes. The Love Hypothesis has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Callie Dalton and Teddy Hamilton.
Listen to The Love Hypothesis free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the The Love Hypothesis audiobook?: The The Love Hypothesis audiobook runs 11 hr 51 min.
Is The Love Hypothesis on Kindle Unlimited?: No. The Love Hypothesis was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 16, 2026.
How much does The Love Hypothesis cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $12.99, Paperback $8.97, Hardcover $29.49. Prices as of August 21, 2026 at 3:47 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underRomance Romantic Comedy Browse the archive →

CollectionsDebut & First Novels Browse collections →

Read-alikesLoved this one? We picked what to read next.Books like The Love Hypothesis →

More by Ali HazelwoodSee every Ali Hazelwood book we've reviewed, with our scores.All Ali Hazelwood books →

Common questions

What is The Love Hypothesis about?: Olive Smith needs a boyfriend for exactly one lie, and she needs him right now, which is how she ends up kissing a total stranger in a Stanford hallway to prove a point to her worried best friend. The stranger turns out to be Adam Carlsen, the biology department's resident hardass, a man…
Is The Love Hypothesis worth reading?: We scored The Love Hypothesis 4.5 out of 5. Ali Hazelwood's academic rom-com pairs a prickly STEM heroine with a professor she can't stand, then makes their fake relationship the most honest thing in either of their lives.