Olive’s area of focus is early detection for pancreatic cancer. The two decide to pretend they’re dating for a month in hopes their fake relationship will be mutually beneficial.

Olive wants to keep up the charade until her friends are solidly together, and Adam needs to convince Stanford he’s not leaving to get his research funds unfrozen. Before Olive can spin an explanation, Adam arrives and acts warmly toward her, which convinces Olive’s friend their relationship is genuine. Olive haltingly explains her situation, apologizes for the kiss, and runs away, hoping she never sees him again.Ī few days later, Olive’s friend corners her in the lab. Adam has a reputation for being mean and terrifying, and he demands an explanation. Desperate to appear on a date, Olive kisses the first man she sees, who turns out to be Adam. Olive is working in the lab on a night she said she’d be on a date when she sees her friend walk by. His wise words convince Olive that grad school is the right path, and two weeks later, she accepts an offer to study at Stanford.Īlmost three years later, Olive is trying to convince her best friend that she’s over her ex-boyfriend so her friend, who is interested in her ex-boyfriend, will date him.

While she waits in the bathroom for her eyes to stop watering, she meets Adam Carlsen, one of the foremost biology researchers in the world-though she doesn’t learn it was him until the end of the book.

Two years before the main events of the story, Olive’s expired contacts act up right before her interview for Ph.D. Olive’s research focuses on pancreatic cancer, but each chapter begins with a hypothesis about Olive’s love life or choices as is relevant to the chapter’s contents. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.The Love Hypothesis is set in modern-day America and follows Olive Smith, a 26-year-old graduate student of biology at Stanford University. Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion.

But 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. 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. That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor-and well-known ass. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees. 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. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships-but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation.

Illumicrate the love hypothesis