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Not My Kind of Girl Power
I love a good girl power vibe, but feel it is possible to do without berating men every turn. Also to have all these secret conversations in public yet nobody overhearing you is more unrealistic than fake dating. It was almost a DNF for me.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Not for me
Why does the protagonist have to be a 26-year-old who has never truly had sex? Everything falls into place way too conveniently—the sunscreen, the lap-sitting, the hotel stay, the recording. It felt forced. He’s your typical 'tall and broad-chested' yet for some reason, he drives a Prius. Why did he crush on her for years after just one bathroom encounter? The spice scenes were cringey and disturbing, and the characters felt flat. Unless you’re brand new to reading or the romance genre, avoid this one. There’s no plot, no twists—just disappointment.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
So good!
I love it! It's such a good book. I definitely recommend!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Women in STEM deserve romace too!
This book was so much fun. I love a good story about women in STEM, and I love a fake dating story. Olive and Adam have such great chemistry, and I love watching him start to open up as their fake dating progresses. Olive's friends are a hoot, and I loved how supportive and quirky they are.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
fantastic STEM romance
This is it: the blueprint of romances for me. I read this for the first time way back in 2021 when I was first discovering the romance genre (I knew I liked romances but didn't realize just how big the romance world was) and I DEVOURED this in one sitting. It's now 2025 and Ali has come out with so many other books but this will always be the OG for me, the one that will live in my heart as a favorite. Olive is such a wonderfully relatable character and Adam is the broodiest of grumps that we all love to love. This book introduced the unique setting of STEM romance settings and I still find myself surprised by how much my artistic/non scientist brain loves these. We also discuss some really heavy, yet realistic issues of sexual harassment and how it is to be a woman in a heavily male dominated field. Is this book cringy? Sure, I mean it's fake dating with some really silly scenarios we find our main characters in. But don't we all just want to escape to some silliness now and then? I credit this book as one of the ones that made me realize what types of books I want to read and for that, I'll always think of it as one of my favorites of all time.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Perfect!
5 ⭐️ When he gave her his granola bar and she noticed it was covered with chocolate. 🥹
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Reylo fanfic turned STEMinist novel? YES.
Third-year Ph.D. candidate and biologist Olive Smith has a hypothesis: if she can convince her best friend Ahn that she is currently dating and happy, Ahn will feel free to date Olive's last (very brief, very uninteresting) love interest and will find her own happiness, which she totally deserves. Of course, Olive chooses to test this hypothesis in the heat of the moment by kissing the first man she can randomly grab onto in the biology lab in front of Ahn - reigning lab tyrant and worst nightmare of students everywhere, Dr. Adam Carlson. To everyone's surprise, Olive's rash experiment has a significant result - she needs a fake boyfriend, and Adam has motives of his own, and the two find themselves thrust into the spotlight of the Stanford gossip train as they navigate the confusing waters of friendship, ultimate frisbee, attraction, Booktok's favorite romance tropes, pumpkin spice lattes, betrayals, and out-of-town science conferences that will change everything Olive has come to theorize about love and her place in it. There was never a universe in which this book wasn't going to get a 5-star review from me, which definitely feels like some sort of Jedi mind trick. It's got all the things that I specifically love - it's about scientists; it's a former Reylo fan fic (and Ali named the MMC ADAM LMAO); the FMC struggles with imposter syndrome; it centers women in STEM and the very real struggles they face; it's an entirely ridiculous premise in a way that is just this side of believable and so fun that I really didn't care anyway; the FMC struggles with her feelings about attraction and intimacy and isn't somehow a super smart scientist that wears ratty T-shirts and is also a siren in the sheets; the dedication the FMC and her friends have to each other and the value they place on adult friendships reminds me of my own life and made me want to sweep up all my friends in giant hugs; and the behind-the-scenes simping/genuine affection and attention the MMC shows towards the FMC has probably ruined men for me forever. This was a silly haha good time and also a call-out and if all of Ali Hazelwood's STEMinist books are like this, then I'm in trouble.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great start to this author's backlog!
I think this might have been a 5 star read for me if it hadn't been in third person. I didn't realize until after I'd picked this book up that it was, and the story was so good even after I realized I had to keep going so I do take responsibility for not doing my research and choosing to keep reading even though it was in a format I don't love. But aside from that I loved this book. I connected deeply with Olive our FMC in battling to be taken seriously as a woman in both academic and professional settings. I think this author did an amazing job of telling that story in a way that anyone can understand and empathize with. The forbidden romance tale between Olive and Adam was filled with delicious tension and longing and created a romance that I wanted more and more of. I also really appreciate that the author didn't trivialize the story into the overdone and oversexualized professor/student trope, but rather built the relationship on who the characters were. Excellent storytelling and writing. I didn't enjoy the third person aspect but really happy to see that the author has newer titles in first person POV and can't wait to read some of those titles!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com