Over You

by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

"When seventeen-year-old Max got her heart broken, she made it her mission to help other girls get over being dumped, but did she ever really get over her own heartbreak?"--Provided by publisher.

• ISBN10: 0061720453
• ISBN13: 9780061720451
• Publish Date: 30 July 2013 (first published 21 August 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[Rowena]

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by these authors before but I was pretty excited to read this one. The blurb sounded like something I would enjoy and while I did enjoy a lot of the book, there were a few things that got on my hot damn nerves.

So this story is about Max Scott, a young girl who drops out of high school (after heated fights with her mother) and goes into the business of helping young girls over their heartbreaks. It started off when she was in boarding school and she meets a boy named Hugo who becomes her world. She falls in love and then he dumps her and she’s devastated..and embarrassed. She flees from school to New York, where her mother has decided to stick around and she creates a new life for her there with her best friend, Zach.

She starts Ex, Inc. which is a business of mending broken hearts. Her clients come to her to help them get over their ex and get their confidence back. She has proven methods and programs that work and she’s really good at this….until Hugo comes back into the picture. By the time Hugo comes back into the picture, Max has already met Ben Cooper and they’re starting up a friendship that Ben is really keen on building on. He’s nothing but good to her and she’s starting to think about him a lot but because she’s got this business that keeps her busy all of the time, the relationship is kind of stalled for the moment.

There are other complications of course, one being that Ben’s best friend is the ex-boyfriend of one of Max’s clients and it’s her job to help her get over that guy which means that she’s pretty much erasing Taylor from Bridget’s life. Taylor is Ben’s best friend and Bridget is Max’s client. Can you see the complication?

The thing that I liked about this book was the same thing that Zach and Phoebe liked about Max. How strong she was. She was unbreakable and she was tenacious when it came to helping her clients get over their exes but when her ex came into the picture, she forgot everything that she’s been drilling into her clients heads and falls epically. I get that it would be hard but the way that she wouldn’t let anyone be there for her, especially her best friends. It made sense that she kept things close to her chest, considering the way that she was brought up but it still got on my nerves that she didn’t take her own advice when it came to dealing with her ex. While she’s ripping these guys out of her client’s lives, she’s not doing the same thing for herself. I guess that’s where her age comes into the picture because it’s something that someone so young would do but it didn’t make me feel any better about Max.

SPOILER ALERT!!! HIGHLIGHT TO READ ON!!!

While she’s trying to get her closure and royally screwing that up, she hurts Ben and I hated that. I hated that she was so excited about her date with Ben and then ends up with Hugo instead. I didn’t like her when she went home with Hugo and spent the night with him and was making plans with him and going to lunch with his mother. I also hated that Ben forgave her so soon. I wish he would have made her squirm a little for being a douche with Hugo.

So aside from that madness, I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the secondary characters, the story and Ben. I would have been happy with more Ben but he was in it enough to become a lovable character.

[Raven]

Review also posted at my blog

Max decides that there has to be more to life for girls than pining for their exes after they are dumped. There has to be a way to get over them faster and get on with their lives. Energized with the idea of getting over an ex after her own dumping, she sets out to create Ex Inc. Now she is the go-to for helping girls get over their exes and give them back the confidence they deserve. But when her own ex, Hugo, shows up in her neighborhood, she learns that she isn't as over him as she thought. With so many girls depending on her services, she might have to become her own client and get over Hugo for good.

I love cute little love stories like this. This story was really nice. I love the idea behind Ex Inc. It's one of those things that would be brilliant if it really existed. I can see how the Moments would be troublesome. Sure, they give the girls the confidence and knowledge that they are over the guys, but why trash the guys like that?

The characters are all enjoyable. They are all pretty well-rounded. Hugo was a jerk, plain and simple. I just loved watching the emotions the characters displayed. Watching them figure each other out as they went was really nice.

It's hard to say much about this without giving away spoilers, but just know that it was really cute and fluffy. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I laughed my way through it and didn't want to put it down.

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

Over You was such a fun, light-hearted, fast read that was incredibly relatable from the start. It's a wonderful go-to summer read, when you're just lounging around and wanting something that isn't heavy handed and is equal parts engaging and entertaining. This book quenches all those thirsts for cute charming reads. It's the perfect post-break-up book, with all of Max's advice on how to get over the guys that break your heart. The characters are likable and easy to connect with, the plot is entertaining, and there's a lightness to it that makes it kind of hard to put down.

Max is such a sassy heroine with a lot of personality and oodles of original creativity. It was super easy to connect with her, in such a relatable way. She's bright, incredibly caring, and always willing to help anyone out with as much advice as she can dispense to them. Unfortunately, when it comes to taking her own advice, she finds it's a bit more difficult than sharing it with other's. She's in love with Hugo. Perfect Hugo, except in reality, he's not perfect by any means. He's not even that likable at all, really. The best thing that he could have done for Max was probably breaking up with her, even though it hurt her enough to cause her to drop out of her old school and move to a new city.

There she starts up her own business helping other's to get over their exes, meets Ben, and starts realizing things about herself that she hadn't noticed before. The only thing that niggles at me, is the fact that Max thought she had to move to a new city in order to get away from the guy who broke her heart. Overall, I absolutely loved the positive girl power spin that Emma McLaughlin manage to write. It was such a wonderfully written story full of friendship, self-discovery, heartbreak, and love. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys young adult contemporary's that will pull and tug at your heart the way this one did mine.