Overall:  Olive Smith is a PHD student in Biology at Stanford, studying pancreatic cancer.  She went on a couple dates with another student named Jeremy.  She was not into him, but she sees that her best friend, Anh is. So, to convince her best friend that she has moved-on to dating someone else, she randomly chooses a guy to kiss when her friend Anh is watching.  However, the guy she spontaneously chooses to lock-lips with is a hot, young, professor that everyone is scared of.  He is brutally and unflinchingly honest when reviewing his student’s work, and if it is not perfect, it is not acceptable.  All his students despise him for being so demanding.  Luckily, Olive is not one of his students.  Olive and Dr. Adam Carlsen meet later to discuss the kissing incident.  Once he hears why she did it, they mutually decide to start fake-dating because they both need something.  Olive needs her best friend Anh to stop worrying about “girl code” and know it’s ok to start dating Jeremy.  Adam needs the department to believe that he has no plans to leave for another institution.  They froze some of his research funds to try and ensure that he not leave Stanford.  If he had a girlfriend, it would help the department believe that he had a reason to stay put at Stanford, and they could release his funding.  So, the two of them agree to fake-date eachother to both accomplish their goals.  But, as we all know, fake-dating situations can lead to real romantic feelings becoming involved.  However, in this case, one or both of them might have already had some feelings for the other one, before the random kiss even happened!                                                                   

Ovations: I love that this book was about the science world, and smart women in STEM.  I like that it talked about what a dedicated and intelligent scientist Olive was, but that she still faced lots of issues due to it being a male dominated career area.  I also think that the lack of communications between Olive and Adam can
easily be explained by the fact that they are academics used to being alone and
focusing on their work.  In other rom-coms there are always misunderstands that you think, “why did they not just have a conversation about this and clear it up?”  But, in the world of science academia, they are not used to having to communicate their feeling about anything.  Feelings are not part of their science, data is.   Also, I have to add how much I loved Adam.  He is a wonderful book boyfriend…. tall, handsome, brilliant, humble, funny, sarcastic, perfectionistic, muscular, protective, loyal, sweet, caring, mysterious… you get the picture.   I also loved the witty banter between Olive and Adam.  It was very flirty and adorable how they teased eachother for their differences, but with absolute acceptance. 

Oh Well:  There are lots of things in this book that don’t seem all that realistic.  The very first being the Prologue, and what it has to do with the book.  I can’t explain more, because I don’t want to spoil things, but right from the start there are things that you kind of just have to go with as reasonable, that maybe are not.  Also, I do have to mention that while there is only one sex scene in the book, is sort of awkward, and weirdly written.

Opinion:  I love the academic setting of the book and that the main character is a smart, scientist female out to help rid the world of pancreatic cancer.  The storyline is entertaining, and the characters are well written.  I did like the relationship between Olive and Adam.  It was very sweet and romantic.  I enjoyed all their private-joke banter together.  But, there were some issues I had with some of the stuff being not too believable.  However, If you like rom-coms, you will like this book too.  Rating 7 out of 10