Review: Over You by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

Title: Over You
Author: Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Publisher: HarperTeen
Age Group: Young Adult
Category:  Contemporary Romance
Release date: August 21st, 2012
Pages: 304 (ARC)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Source: Gifted
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After the grand explosion of her relationship, seventeen-year-old Max Scott developed what every girl in the history of the world has been waiting for: a way to get over being dumped. Now Max is the go-to guru for heartbroken high-school girls all over NYC. But when her ex unexpectedly shows up in her neighborhood, Max’s carefully controlled world starts to unravel. With her clients’ hearts hanging in the balance, Max will have to do the seemingly impossible: get over him once and for all.

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when you're put in a situation where you're forced to see your former beau every day. Max has devised a foolproof method for broken-hearted teenage girls on how to get over their exes.  I honestly wish that I had someone like Max to scrape me off of the floor and put me back together again when I had my first break up.  She's right where she belongs, doing something she loves and living happily ever after...until she unexpectedly runs into the boy that broke her own heart.  Now she'll have to trust that her advice will not only help her move on, but make her realize that she's much better without him.

While this story wasn't  filled with much substance, it was surely entertaining.  The dialogue was witty and although Max was a difficult character for me to relate to, I still admired her.  She had a likable personality and intuition, which made her perfect for the role of heroine-in-disguise.  No one but she, her clients and her assistants knew anything about the business she was running, cleverly named Ex, Inc.

When Max is dealing with her clients, the reader will see how much she truly cares.  She spends so much time being the friend that they need, but when she begins to relapse and fall head-over-heels for her less-than-deserving ex, she fails to take the advice she had no problem dishing out to others.  Along the way she meets another completely sweet guy named Ben and her vision becomes a little less blurred.  She realizes her worth and that she's important; much more important than that jerk, Hugo, ever acknowledged.

Overall, I found Over You  to be unique and heart-warming.  The fact that a teenage girl could come up with such a successful business dedicated to helping other girls her age is what made it such an entertaining story.  Everyone should be able to relate to something in this book, and because of that, I think it's worth a read.