48 pages • 1 hour read
Ali HazelwoodA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Adam rips his shirt off and pulls Olive to him, kissing her and running his hands over her body. The touches spark a range of sensations Olive’s never felt before, making her squirm. Adam tries to slide one finger inside her, but her tightness makes it difficult. She admits to having sex only a few times in college, which makes Adam recoil because she’s practically a virgin. She babbles on about how virginity works, which makes him laugh and draw her in for another kiss. Less flustered, Olive explains that she doesn’t “feel any sexual attraction unless I actually get to trust and like a person” (267), and he’s the first person she’s gotten close enough with to want sex.
Since Olive is inexperienced and tight, Adam starts by giving her oral sex until she orgasms. It takes some more work to get her open enough for intercourse, but once she is, they make fast, desperate love. Adam climaxes while muttering about how long he had wanted this and how he can never let Olive go. Olive climaxes right behind him, shivering with pleasure.
Olive drifts off for about a half hour. When she wakes, Adam offers her a glass of water, and Olive takes it, feeling a bit awkward. She wonders if Adam wants space after sex and suggests moving to the other bed. Adam shakes his head “no” with “an intensity that suggested that he didn’t want her to go, not anywhere, not ever” (277). Olive brings him to orgasm with oral sex, and they manage to get a little sleep.
Later, Olive and Adam share stories from their childhoods. As the child of busy parents, Adam basically grew up alone, and Olive had her mom as company until she died from the cancer. Olive misses snow. Adam reassures her there will be snow in Boston and offers to show her hiking trails. Olive argues he’ll be in California, and Adam is quiet for too long, tipping Olive off that the reason he won’t be at the conference hotel this week is because he’s interviewing at Harvard for a job. Olive feels her heart breaking at the idea of Adam moving to Boston now that she’s decided not to join Tom’s lab. She curls up against him. She’s determined not to sleep at all because this will be “their perfect night. And their last” (290).
The next morning, Adam is gone, and Olive wakes to over 100 missed text messages from Anh and Malcolm. They come to her room and tell her Malcolm hooked up with Holden, which Malcolm is thrilled about. They wonder if Olive and Adam celebrated last night because Adam’s funds were released, which stops Olive short. She realizes today is September 29 and makes plans to see Adam that night to break things off with him for good.
Olive goes to Adam’s new hotel. After talking about Malcolm, the conversation gets around to Olive’s reason for seeing Adam. Though it kills her inside, she ends things, not mentioning Tom or any of the real reasons for needing their relationship to end. They kiss a final time, both barely able to pull away. Finally, Olive leaves, and the door closing behind her feels “like falling from a great height” (305).
Olive spends the following day in her room, alternatively crying and sleeping. The day after, she’s numb to everything and comes to terms with her situation. She’s sad but feels she did the right thing for Adam. She can let that decision lie but refuses to let “Tom Fucking Benton take credit for a project she had worked on for years” (307). She asks Dr. Aslan to follow up with other cancer researchers and educates herself about plagiarism and ethics, forming a plan to make sure her work is credited to her.
Halfway through day two, Anh and Malcolm come to Olive’s hotel room. They want to do something together. Olive reluctantly agrees, but she first needs to send Dr. Aslan an email with her list of researchers and lecture recording. She accidentally left her phone on record for hours after her talk and works on cutting it while Anh and Malcolm talk about his date with Holden. In the middle of Malcolm’s retelling, the recording plays part of Tom’s insults. Concerned, Anh and Malcolm ask what happened, but Olive only bursts into tears.
When she stops, she goes into the bathroom while Malcolm and Anh listen to the recording. Anh is adamant Olive needs to tell Adam and report Tom. Olive hesitates, prompting Anh to insist, and the entire fake-dating story comes out. Anh understands and appreciates everything Olive did for her happiness, but she still insists Olive do something about Tom. The group decides to ask Holden for advice about what to do and how to handle the situation with Adam.
Holden doesn’t really hate Tom. Rather, he’s suspicious because of the pattern of abuse in grad school. It always seemed like Tom would report Adam’s mistakes to their advisor, who would then belittle Adam, and Tom would step in at the precise moment to defend Adam’s actions. Holden presented the coincidences to Adam, who shrugged them off because he was loyal to Tom. Olive asks Holden if he would tell Adam about Tom if he had proof of how Tom really is. Holden replies with three things for Olive to consider: use good science and consider all evidence; Tom is replaceable on the research he and Adam are doing; Adam only agreed to interview at Harvard after Olive decided to work there. With this, Holden leaves, telling Olive to “make of that what you will” (320).
Chapters 16 and 17 contain Adam and Olive’s lovemaking. The romance industry has five levels of heat for categorizing books by their sex scenes, ranging from no sex on the page to erotica (which may include explicit language, BDSM, and multiple partners). The Love Hypothesis falls in the middle. The sex is spicy but not explicit. Body parts and actions are described, but the focus is on the development of Olive and Adam’s relationship, rather than the physicality of the sex itself.
Olive struggles to become fully aroused and with wanting to have sex, even though she trusts Adam. It is never said but is inferred that Olive is demisexual, a sexual orientation along the asexual spectrum where a person only experiences sexual attraction once an emotional bond is formed. This is shown by Olive’s experience with it taking longer for her to fully engage with sex and her anxiety about being different than other people in terms of arousal.
Chapters 18 and 19 show Olive’s world falling apart before it is put back together in the final chapters. She breaks things off with Adam, which is a key element of the dark moment in a romance novel. She also can no longer lie, either to herself or to her friends. Tom’s recording forces her to confront her feelings and explain the fake-dating plan to Anh. Her conversation with Holden shows Olive gathering information to expose Tom. She is moving past the hurt and taking control of the situation now that she’s released her emotions.
By Ali Hazelwood
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