Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smith

 

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it. 

A Long Story Short:

This book is for plane rides, road trips or other activities during which you don't have time to read a whole lot and just need a book for the case that there actually is a free minute when you'd like to read something. If you want to completely sink into a romantic love story that will tear your heart into pieces, this is probably not the right thing for you. I found that the story was not half as unique as I hoped it would be and - apart from that - this book was highly predictable.

RATING: 1/3 Smarties

Review for You:

If I'd been on a trip to say...France or Spain with my girls, completely occupied by hot sun and just as hot boys and sunbathing on the beach all day, too lazy to get up and move or busy my mind with strange activities like...thinking too much, then yes, I might have enjoyed TSPoLaFS a lot more than I did. Because, as it is, I was just at home, desperate to flee from studying and occasional exam - panic into a story that would swallow me whole and let me forget my real life.

This, as a matter of fact, did not happen. Instead, this book was predictable, cute in all the right - but also all the wrong ways - and just simply not enough to actually make me care.

Our two main characters felt to me like their personalities were created by the "random" button in Create-a-Sim mode - just a whole entire lot of character traits mixed together. True, this way, stereotypes can definitely be avoided. The problem is, though, that Hadley and Oliver, yes, were anything but stereotypes. But to me, they didn't feel realistic, either.

The plot? Well, I guess this is what you have to expect when reading a book with a title like that. And just to make that clear - I was prepared for a ton of romantic cheesiness. Frankly, that was what I craved!

However, I wanted the story to stick with me, I wanted to care about the characters and feel their emotions. All of that - and a lot of other things- I didn't feel.

The result of all this? The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is not a bad book. If you're looking for something that you can just read occasionally, something you take with you on, say, a vacation or road trip or to read during your brother's totally lame soccer game to keep your mind entertained - it's great. A very light, fluffy story. But if it's the only book you read at a time, it has a very high potential of turning boring and the uniqueness you feel at the beginning might begin to fade away pretty quickly.