The Love Hypothesis

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-11

Chapters 12-13

Chapters 14-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapter 20-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Different Types of Intelligence

Through the representation of academia, Olive’s difficulty to parse her emotions, and the differences between Olive and Malcolm, The Love Hypothesis shows how there are different types of intelligence. Olive, Adam, and others within the Stanford community possess intelligence, as evidenced by the fact they work in academia. Many of Olive’s thoughts about her experiment show how she understands the material and is always seeking new information with which to supplement what she already believes. Tom’s insults in later chapters reveal just how intelligent Olive is. While Tom also possesses a level of intelligence to remain in the field, even if that intelligence is only enough for him to copy and add to the work of others, his jealousy and view of Olive as a threat shows just how intelligent her thought processes are.

While Olive possesses academic intelligence, she struggles with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage one’s own emotions, as well as understand the emotions of others. As shown through her frequent babbling and lengthy paragraphs of rambling thoughts, Olive doesn’t have a strong understanding of her emotions. She gets caught up in thinking about her research and studies that she lets other types of intelligence fall by the wayside. In Chapter 10, Anh observes that Olive and Adam are head-over-heels in love and have been for a while. Olive realizes Anh’s right about her own feelings and spirals into a panic because this truth “had been there, staring at Olive for the past few days, and she hadn’t noticed” (171). Faced with emotions Olive doesn’t understand, she chooses to distance herself from them and lie to cover them up, rather than approach and seek to understand them.

Unlike Olive, Malcolm is very in touch with his emotions. He understands Olive’s feelings for Adam far easier than Olive does and offers solutions, many of which Olive rejects because they are too much for her to consider. Malcolm easily falls into a relationship with Holden because he is comfortable with himself and can easily parse Holden’s emotions. Where it takes the entire book for Olive to truly come to terms with how she feels about Adam, Malcolm and Holden find one another in a few chapters.

Academia, Olive’s struggles with her emotions, and Malcolm’s relationship with Holden show how different people excel at different types of intelligence. No type of intelligence is better or worse than another. Academic intelligence and emotional intelligence are equally important. Not everyone will be good at both, and that’s all right because everyone learns things at different speeds.

Professional Identity Versus Personal Identity

Throughout The Love Hypothesis, Olive makes references to how much time and energy graduate school takes. Sometimes she jokes and sometimes she’s serious, but the references speak to little personal time, not getting enough sleep or food, and being paid little. Through the reactions of Olive’s classmates to their research, Olive’s own research, and the outcome of Olive and Adam’s relationship, The Love Hypothesis argues that people are more than their job.

When Greg is upset, Olive jokingly thinks it’s likely one of the normal reasons grad students are upset, such as “my self-worth is unbreakably tied to my academic performance” (113). While this is amusing, it’s not far from the truth. Greg is upset because Adam’s feedback on his thesis will set him back, forcing him to redo months of work and dedicate even more of his time to school. Below this frustration, though, is the fear of not graduating on time and being unable to find a post-doc position in the same place as his wife. Greg has a life outside of academia. Just because the challenges of grad school can push those other concerns to the side doesn’t mean they aren’t just as real and valid as the degree.

Olive’s research overtakes much of her life. She spends sleepless nights working in the lab and substitutes bags of chips for real meals, all in the name of her research. She prioritizes graduating on time so she can find a post-doc program and go through the same hardships again, if at a slightly higher pay grade. She doesn’t want to attend the biology department picnic, partly because Adam will be there but also partly because it will take her away from her work. Despite her concerns, she ends up having a good time, showing she does appreciate having a life away from work and that she’s more than her degree program.

Olive and Adam’s relationship allows them to escape their labs for a few minutes every week and eventually leads to them finding who they are away from science. Olive has dedicated so much of herself to her research because of her mom that it’s difficult for her to pull herself away. As a world-renowned researcher, Adam has pressures that require his full attention. Both situations make it easy for work to bombard their lives. Through falling in love, they learn who they are and who the other person is away from the lab.

Family, relationship, and general living concerns force Olive, Adam, and others to step away from their labs and work. The rigors of academia don’t allow for much free time, but if one works hard enough, they can carve out space while still pursuing the research they love. Academia is undoubtedly a huge part of the characters’ lives, but it isn’t the only part.

The Destructive Power of Privilege, Jealousy, and Fear

Olive, Adam, and Anh experience systemic struggles both through academia and society. At the heart of their trials, someone, somewhere is either jealous of their work or fearful of what would happen if they were allowed to be equal. Through the challenges each character faces in the novel and its backstory, The Love Hypothesis explores how fear and jealousy are destructive forces.

Olive faced struggles being accepted to graduate school. As a young woman from Canada, she had neither the money nor connections to be afforded an easy admission into Stanford’s program. Her confrontations with Tom show how privilege begets an overdeveloped sense of power. Tom is jealous of Olive’s work and fears what would happen if she was allowed to publish, possibly unseating his cushy position at Harvard. Jealousy and fear render him desperate, and he uses his status to abuse and exploit Olive, placing her into an impossible situation. Without the recorded proof of his behavior, any accusations Olive made may have been pushed aside as false, and Tom might have been able to make Olive look like the one behaving poorly. Tom’s jealousy and fear could have stalled Olive’s research and had her removed from academia.

During his graduate school years, Adam experienced similar abuse from his advisor. His advisor was a well-known name in the subject who was likely afraid of losing his status to someone young and talented like Adam. Tom had a hand in Adam’s hardship, but that doesn’t change how poorly Adam’s advisor treated his students. It also highlights the cutthroat behaviors encouraged in male-dominated fields with little accountability and a high threshold for targeting the weakest links.

Anh faces discrimination in the department as well as a Vietnamese woman. While the result of that discrimination is not shown having an impact on Anh, it is implied through her dogged pursuit for equality in STEM. Anh leads a group for BIPOC women and makes great strides toward equality over the course of the book, refusing to let naysayers stop her. She faced barriers applying and being accepted to graduate school, likely from people who were jealous of her intelligence and talent or fearful of the change she might bring to academia and the privilege within it.

Privilege can lead to someone thinking they are above reproach and don’t have to do the same work other people do. When privileged people who think this way are elevated to positions of power, they fear being exposed for any flaw and act poorly toward others to cover up their own fears and insecurities. Jealousy and fear can destroy the lives of people who aren’t in a position of privilege while the inner workings of self-doubt eat away at the confidence and stability of the privileged.