In order to convince her best friend Anh that she is over the ex Anh wants to get with, Olive Smith, PhD candidate at Stanford, kisses a random man in the hallway to put on a ruse. It just so happens that that man is not only one of the department’s best researchers, but is also one who is rude, moody, and notorious for treating his students like trash. Yet, rather than filing a Title IX complaint, Dr. Adam Carlsen agrees to fake-date Olive for the time being so her plan could work. Shocked by his agreement, Olive goes on fake dates with him only to find the dates are feeling more and more real each time.

Overall, the book was a joy to read. There were no slow parts, everything that happened was needed for the plot one way or another, and the slow burn romance was paced well. As a woman in STEM myself, also a grad student studying biology, it was fun to really find myself in the main character’s shoes. The author properly addresses a lot of common issues in the field and includes lots of relevant, albeit cheesy, science mentions to really sell the likable nerd trope. It made sense when I later learned that the author is a scientist herself.

While definitely diverting and hard to put down (I read it in under two days and would have read it one sitting if it were not for the fact I had an early morning class to TA), there were so many impossible and frustrating things that happened. Kissing a stranger in an academic setting like that is grounds for expulsion, and two adult professionals would not enter a strange fake-dating situationship for such insignificant reasons. I also was baffled how such a brilliant scientist such as Olive couldn’t figure out for nearly the entire book that Adam was the man from the prologue, nor just ask him if she was unsure. It’s not like it is an invasive question, either. “Hey, years ago when I was here for interviews, I went to the bathroom because my contacts were bothering me and I had a really uplifting conversation with someone. It really inspired me to pursue research. Was that by chance you?” This was not the only time asking a simple question would have solved all her problems. On a different note, her personality was rather bland. All her and Adam really joked about was their equally atrocious culinary decisions. It made it really hard to see why Olive was falling in love, unless it was just that he was tall and moody and had muscles.

My other disappointment was the ace representation. Olive briefly toys with the idea of asexuality, that she’s never had interest in sexual partners, yet magically is sexually attracted to Adam. She just had to wait for the right person, as everyone says! Although she probably is actually demisexual or is maybe holding onto some trauma, I still didn’t like the author’s way about this. In all honesty, when it was first mentioned I assumed she, and possibly Adam given his lack of a partner and the way he was portrayed, were both going to be asexual and only develop a romantic bond. To have such a sudden shift and BOOM a sex scene really caught me off guard. Although I’m ace, I admit that sex scenes are usually a lot of fun to read, as counter-intuitive as that sounds, but this one in particular was just not for me and soured the story a little bit.

Yes, I had to address my issues with the book, but again, that is not to say it is poorly written. It’s a romance novel, and sometimes that means they are going to play into people’s fantasies. Myself and many others included would love to have a super smart, super beautiful, ride-or-die scientist partner who is madly in love with us. I just find myself a bit vexed when I am seeing sexual harassment complaints where spur of the moment romance should be. Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for being a delight, with the one missing star because I was yelling “what are you doing?!” at the main character too often.

Happy reading,
-Beppa