Quirky and cute, this is a lighthearted read with some real heart. ( )

This was a really fun fast read. Max is a great and interesting character. Ex, Inc. sounds like a fantastic business, I know I could have used some help after being dumped in high school (and after). ( )

I enjoyed reading this book. The characters were cute and likeable. I laughed over the antics while completely relating to Max's feelings. I'm fairly certain that at some point in everyone's life we've done something absolutely ridiculous which at the time seemed perfectly acceptable but looking back we groan and mutter to ourselves, why oh why did I do that? With age comes experience and Max was lucky enough to have friends that stuck by her. A light read that was amusing with a satisfying ending. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: Fun, light hearted read with a cute protagonist and a fun premise. It was a little too predictable but over all an enjoyable read.

Opening Sentence: An early leaf loosens from a tree and blows into Max’s jacket, fluttering down and getting crushed beneath the toe of her platform pump as she strides down the sidewalk purposefully to her next case.

The Review:

Max is 17 years old and she runs a very successful business helping girls get over their ex’s. Max went through a terrible experience — her junior year in high school she got dumped. Afterwards she left school and decided to get her GED. She was so heartbroken and depressed she didn’t know how to cope with it all. Then she came up with a brilliant idea she would make a program for girls that have gotten dumped and help them get over it as quickly as possible. She works by referral only and the program has been very successful. She has decided to go to college and major in psychology. She plans to present her work to the head of the department and hopes that her research will help women all over the country.

Things couldn’t get any better for Max, she is doing something she loves and helping others at the same time. Then she runs into the one person she never expected to see again, her ex-boyfriend. He’s in town helping with his family business and he plans to be around for a while. Max soon realizes that she is not even close to being over her ex. How can she expect to help heal others if she doesn’t even know how to heal her own heart? Max now has a new mission: to get over her ex and fast.

Max is a really likeable character. She is really sweet and obliviously she really cares about helping others. She is gorgeous, funny, confidant, and nice. But underneath all of that she is just as insecure as every other girl out there. She deals with everyone else’s problems so she can avoid her own. It was fun to watch her grow and develop as a person. Her emotions and experiences are something pretty much every teenage girl has gone through. Because of that she was very easy to connect with. She had her flaws and some were a little irritating at times, but overall, I really liked her.

This was a fun, light, and really fast read. I enjoyed the romance, it was sweet and very cute. My biggest issue with this story was that the story didn’t quite fit the characters for me. I felt that the premise of the story fit better for younger girls and not someone that has the maturity level that Max was at. She is 17 years old and getting ready to apply to college, but the way she came across, I kept thinking that she was much younger than she really was. But with that being said, I still really enjoyed this book. I found Max refreshing and a fun character to get to know. It was funny and quirky with lots of drama. The writing was engaging and the booked flowed very well. I would recommend this to anyone that is looking for a fun light contemporary read.

Notable Scene:

Max’s eye lingers on the guy’s arm circling round the girl’s waist, torquing her frame into his. Max does allow herself to feel a brief pang of nostalgia, same as when she catches a few seconds on The Notebook on cable, when she lets herself remember what it felt like to be kissed that hard. A trio of guys walk in front of the couple, obscuring Max’s perving. One step closer to the curb, his blazer collar upturned against the breeze. Suddenly Max feels a cold drop beneath her ribs, like her plane just lost altitude. The stoplight changes, the cab jerks forward, and Max twists to see that, yes—the blonde hair—the confident grin—it can’t be, it can’t be.

But it is.

After so many months of trailing and defusing and humbling other girls’ exes, Max has just laid eyes on her own.

FTC Advisory: Harper Teen provided me with a copy of Over You. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Hmph. This book basically pissed me the heck off, which sucks because I thought I was off my recent streak of bad book. I had so been looking forward to this book, and I bought it the day it came out, but within the first 8 pages, I disliked this book.
My Issues:
1: The book is in third person. This wouldn't be such an issue if it didn't keep CHANGING characters without any warning. One minute it'll be Max, then the next Taylor, then Ben, and then whoever else the McLaughlin felt like throwing in there. It was confusing and aggravating and it made things much more difficult than they needed to be.
2: The instalove. Ben meets Max and within 5 minutes, he's fallen in love with her. Really, McLaughlin? Really?
3: How unrealistic everything is. Max has this huge couture wardrobe and is permitted to run around New York at all hours of the night. Her parents have no idea what she's doing, and they don't really care enough to ask. The part about her wardrobe really annoyed me. Basically Max's mother works for a newspaper or a magazine, and Teen Vogue happens to be in the same building. So when Max drops her mom off at work, she also sneaks onto the Teen Vogue floor and steals borrows clothing. It's even more annoying because McLaughlin just brushes it off like it's no big deal. Not only is Max breaking and entering, she's STEALING. That is a VERY big deal.
4: How is Max able to afford all the things that she does in the book? Kickboxing lessons? Spinning lessons? Other miscellaneous items that she buys for her clients? From what I gathered, she doesn't charge her clients, so how exactly is she funding her business?
5: Max. The story starts off talking about how Max dropped out of school because her boyfriend dumped her. Really? Where were her parents for this? What parent would let their child drop out of high school because their boyfriend broke up with them? Max came off as this know it all who had all the answers, and she's sitting there advising all of her clients on how to get over a break up, when she can't even handle hers. Fast forward to when she see's her ex-boyfriend in New York and decides that she needs to have her "moment" in order to get over him. Can anyone guess how her "moment" ends? If you guessed "With Max kissing the guy and going home with him," you are correct! So basically, Max preached to all of her clients that no matter how much an ex apologizes, you should never ever go back to them because they are scum, but when her ex apologizes, she falls into his arms and forgets that he dumped her like she was last weeks trash. She only stands up for herself when she realizes that she was his back-up booty call. After she realized this, she had her "moment" and left him standing there. It's all just so.. unrealistic. Max is basically the biggest hypocrite ever, but everyone in this book seems willing to ignore every lie she tells and everything she does to contradict what she says. Max is all about telling her clients what she "stands for," but she doesn't stand for anything. I wouldn't have minded Max or any of the things she and her friends did, if there had been any kind of message behind the book. But there wasn't. It was just Max running around with unlimited funds doing whatever she wanted to with total disregard for anyone else's feelings.

I would NOT recommend this book to anyone, because the message it does send out isn't a good one. The only thing this book taught me, is that it's okay to hurt and lie to people as long as you *kind of* apologize for it afterwards. ( )