The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

I’m going to be completely honest: this is really not my type of book. Romance-centric novels aren’t ones I tend to seek out, especially ones that take place over a short period of time. I don’t personally believe in love at first sight, so stories like that tend to be wasted on me. However, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight could not have come at a better time for me, and it was seriously just what I needed. This book is cute, fluffy, adorable, and surprisingly heartfelt. Not, perhaps, my favorite book of all time, but very welcome and definitely well-worth reading.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is about Hadley, who’s on a flight to London to attend her father’s wedding. Understandably, she’s a bit bitter at him, since he seems to have moved on and found more happiness with future wife than he did before. At the airport, she meets Oliver, and through a series of movie-like coincidences, they spend several hours together and forge a sort of bond that, hopefully, is more long-lasting than either of them expects.

I would like to point out that the title (while relevant to the story) is a bit of a misrepresentation. The connection that Hadley finds with Oliver is never labeled as “love”, nor is it love in actuality. That is not to say that, given time, it could become real love—I can actually see the two of them making a very successful relationship back in the US once things calm down with their families and such. I think this book’s title is unfortunate, though, because I outright rejected it back when it first came out because, as I mentioned, I don’t believe in love at first sight (especially since it often comes in the form of instalove, a dangerous and disturbing phenomenon in YA fiction).

Anyway.

For me, this book was charming and endearing but not particularly heavy or serious-minded. I think some emotional, realistic issues were brought up, and they were handled in a way that was very touching. At the same time, I thought this read very much like a movie, and though I don’t think that would have worked for me usually, it did here. With a final tally of just over 200 pages, this book is rather short, and I breezed through it in a few hours. Obviously, there wasn’t much time for deep emotional explorations or whatnot, but I think it worked for Jennifer E. Smith here, as I didn’t find this book to be incomplete or lacking particularly.

So while The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight isn’t my favorite book ever, it’s most certainly a very enjoyable one. Well worth reading multiple times, and it had a lovely film-like quality that was utterly addicting. I also appreciated the realistic “love at first sight” scenario, because anything other than what actually happened would have caused me to pitch a massive fit. Also: woohoo, family dynamics in YA lit!

Awesome book! One of my favorites!

Can I pretty please just hug this book right now?

For reals, I adored The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. I love everything from the fact that Oliver is adorably British to the title being an inside joke from the story.

For some reason, I was under the impression that this whole story took place in an airport and on a plane. Don’t ask me where the idea came from since now that I think about it it makes no sense that 24 whole hours would be spent between those two places. I think it was probably for that reason that the airport and plane were my favorite parts of the story, but I still really enjoyed the other parts as well.

I also love that fact that everything that happens is a little unlikely, but the title of the story already tells you that. Yes, it’s unlikely that you’ll meet a super cute British guy at the airport and end up next to him on the same flight, but it’s still possible and that’s the important part.

Speaking of cute British guys…yeah, Oliver is basically awesome. He’s funny and cute and…British! Yay for accents ;] Plus, he has green eyes and I’ve always been a sucker for those.

If you’ve read a review about this book you’ve probably heard about how it’s not just a love story. How it’s also about Hadley’s relationship with her dad. And I’m sure, like me, you kept thinking “yeah, but what about the kissing?!?” But really, the kissing is awesome and important, but so is the father-daughter relationship. Though I’d never gone through a parents’ divorce I still felt I could relate to Hadley and her thoughts.

The Nutshell: There is kissing and it’s awesome. There is a confused teen girl and she’s easy to relate with. There’s a father-daughter that needs some working through and it’s interesting to see. There’s unbelievable chance meetings and it’s swoon-making and fantastic. If those things don’t convince you then don’t forget there’s a cute British guy ;]

I know what you’re thinking, two people meet and fall in love within 24 hours?! That’s so unrealistic and cliched. But Jennifer does an amazing job at creating Hadley and Oliver’s love story, you can’t help but fall for them. They definitely didn’t fall in love instantly, although there was the initial physical attraction. I love that Jennifer plays the minutes within 24 hours so well, you can see easily see and appreciate how these two complete strangers could fall in love. A random mistake here, a kind gesture there, and hours of conversation and key moments sparked a true connection.

You should know that the story isn’t all about Hadley and Oliver. Jennifer delves into Hadley’s background a lot and talks about the disaster of her parent’s divorce, her relationship with her father, and how Hadley has to come to grips with the fact that everyone is better off now. Her relationship with her father plays a key role in Hadley’s ability to believe in love and Jennifer incorporates that into the story well. This isn’t just a story about a guy and a girl falling in love, it’s about a girl learning to believe in love and marriage and understanding the importance of relationships and people in her life, whether its family, friends, or lovers. There are a lot of flashbacks into Hadley’s past as she tries to make sense of how her father could just leave her and her mother and fall in love with someone else. But you also get to learn a bit about Oliver too, which isn’t at all what I expected. The secondary characters were great too. I especially loved this woman named Victoria who, although doesn’t play a key role, was still very funny and memorable.

Jennifer paints a delightful and adorable picture of love and relationships in this story and it’s such a quick read too. I easily finished it in one sitting and didn’t find a dull moment in it at all. Although not an epic love story by any means, it plays with the idea of fate and romance that we all like to believe in and I enjoyed reading this book so much. Definitely pick it up when you get the chance!

I absolutely loved Oliver! I loved his stories and that he was a gentlemen and that he helped her get through her claustrophobia!

Was sad when the story was over i still wanted more.

I found this story a great and enjoyable read. It reads very fast, and I look forward to seeing anything else Jennifer Smith comes out with. Highly recommended!

So I’m not the biggest fan of “insta-love” but I have to say even though the entire book takes place over 24 hours I really didn’t get that feeling while I was reading it, I really enjoyed how it was paced and the rate at which they started to like each other.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight can be described in one word. Adorable. I loved it! Hadley and Oliver were great and I want to have a romance like theirs. Now before you go and think that this book is just full of fluff let me stop you. It is so much more than that, it is about love, loss, and forgiveness. It is about taking risks even when you are scared to, and accepting what you cannot change.

Jennifer E. Smith has created a real gem. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is heartfelt and wonderful. It made me happy and fulfilled after reading it. I cannot express how it was sweet but, yet it deals with some heavy issues. I think you should just go read it so you can see what I mean.
The thing about the title is while it is a mouthful, once you find it in the book you feel like you are part of an inside joke between Hadley and Oliver which to me just makes it that much more special.

This is a perfect book for fans of Sarah Dessen and Stephanie Perkins.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON http://shelversanon.blogspot.com

Let me get this out of the way: Divorce sucks. It's sucks, and it's crap, and I hate it. Believe what you want, but anything that normalizes divorce really grinds my gears. This is a book that portrays love as something that comes and goes, like a that really cute dress that was great for you in high school but really doesn't work any more now that you're a college graduate, rather than something that takes work. I knew I was going to get a lot of that crap going into the book, and even though I knew it, reading about how a grown man can ditch his family over "love at first sight" with some leggy British chick still made me furious. (Do you think it was "love at first sight" with his FIRST wife, too? Hmmmmm?)

Okay, that's the end of my rant. I promise, that's the last of it. Maybe it wasn't my place as a reviewer, but I'm new to this gig, and I felt that if I said nothing that I was being dishonest somehow. But the rant is out of the way, and you can do with it what you wish. Now for the rest of my review.

The story itself was surprisingly charming in its own simplistic way. Hadley is seventeen and late for her father's wedding. She missed her flight by four whole minutes, so now she's stuck by herself in an airport and might not make it to London in time. Not that she cares. She didn't want to go to her father's wedding anyways, and her dress is probably a wrinkled mess. In the midst of Hadley's impressive internal snit comes Oliver, a charming British boy who steps in to help her with her luggage. They hit it off... and keep hitting it off, all the way across the Atlantic.

Smith starts each chapter with the time (EST and Greenwich Mean) to chart how long Hadley and Oliver have known each other and how much time they have left. A cute idea, but I can't say I ever really paid attention to the headers. I was more interested in how she utilized time within the chapters themselves. Smith chose to make the narrative present tense, a choice that works very well when the work is rife with immediacy and action (see: Hunger Games). However, unless the plane is crashing or there's a terrorist on board, a flight over the Atlantic doesn't exactly brim with immediacy and action. Only during carefully interspersed flashbacks to Hadley's interactions with her parents does the tense change from present to past. Of course, this is precisely when I felt the most comfortable with the story.

Through the flashbacks, we learn how Hadley learned of her parents' separation, divorce, and respective new relationships. It's a rough road. Not in a HBO kind of way with screaming and shattered plates (Hadley's parents are remarkably civil), but just in the common, realistic, emotionally draining path that most kids slog through when their worlds fall apart.

Love, marriage, and all that stuff is what drives the novel. Hadley tries to figure out what happened to her parents even as she tries to reconcile their two new relationships (Dad with fiancee Charlotte, and Mom with her dentist) and her own interest in Oliver. Oliver is working out some questions of his own, but I can't really get into that without spoilers. (Basically, at the end, he gets to play Author's Advocate, which is a little like being Devil's Advocate except it's way preachier.)

The book isn't terribly surprising in any way. The "evil" stepmother-to-be is, of course, a delightful human being. Father is dreadfully awkward and sad, but hey, he was just following his heart! Cute British boy is cute and British and gets to be the author's sensible mouthpiece through most of the book. There's even a slightly wacky, proto-cool bridesmaid that plays the "My dad did the same thing when I was your age" bit and an overly possessive ex-girlfriend. If that was all, I would say skip the book. It's just another fluff piece, save your money and your time.

Except Hadley felt real. She felt like a living, breathing person, and she managed to radiate with pain in scenes without devolving into a hideous, emo stereotype. She's a real girl dealing with an incredibly real situation. Her family split in two. Her dad left her mom for another woman and it totally sucks because he's turned her world upside-down and she can't figure out what went wrong. My parents have never put me through anything like Hadley's situation, but I have a very close friend who went through the nearly exact same situation, and reading this story was like listening to her story all over again. To be honest, I straight up cried in a few places.

Like it or not, divorce is a very real, very prevalent feature in many teens' lives. While I don't agree with Smith's "divorce is for the best" spin, I do think this book is good for those struggling with a divorce in the family, struggling with forgiveness, struggling with how to move on. So, for me, this book earns my respect.

***Points Added For: Airport Nazi ladies (they exist!), throat-clenching emotion, resilient mothers, cute British boys, bookish fathers, adorable cover.

***Points Subtracted For: Unnecessary present tense, stereotypes, predictability, really unnecessary prologue.

***Good For Fans Of: ... Books that I don't normally read, so I'm not much help (Amazon suggests The Fault in Our Stars.)

***Notes For Parents: Mild profanity, underage drinking.

I loved this book from beginning to end. I have a weakness for British guys and this book played right into that weakness. While reading the conversations between Hadley and Oliver I kept hearing Oliver's voice in my head with that amazing accent! They meet in an airport when Hadley misses her flight by four minutes. Hadley is traveling to London to attend her Father's wedding which she does not want to go to and Oliver is traveling back to London to also attend an event that he would rather not be at. Is love at first sight real? Can four minutes really change your life? You will have to read the book to find out. I would highly recommend you pick up this novel and give it a go you won't be sorry. It is a sweet, fun, heartbreaking fast read.