Book Review: The Avery Shaw Experiment - Kelly Oram

Title: The Avery Shaw Experiment (Science Squad #1)
Author: Kelly Oram
Genre: YA - Romance, Coming of Age

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 
When Avery Shaw’s heart is shattered by her life-long best friend, she chooses to deal with it the only way she knows how—scientifically.

The state science fair is coming up and Avery decides to use her broken heart as the topic of her experiment. She’s going to find the cure. By forcing herself to experience the seven stages of grief through a series of social tests, she believes she will be able to get over Aiden Kennedy and make herself ready to love again. But she can’t do this experiment alone, and her partner (ex partner!) is the one who broke her heart.

Avery finds the solution to her troubles in the form of Aiden’s older brother Grayson. The gorgeous womanizer is about to be kicked off the school basketball team for failing physics. He’s in need of a good tutor and some serious extra credit. But when Avery recruits the lovable Grayson to be her “objective outside observer,” she gets a whole lot more than she bargained for, because Grayson has a theory of his own: Avery doesn’t need to grieve. She needs to live. And if there’s one thing Grayson Kennedy is good at, it’s living life to the fullest.

My Review:

Knock another book off the TBR list!!!

So I might be on a little bit of a Kelly Oram kick, since right around the holidays she marked several of her books down to $.99.  Over the last couple years I've grown kind of fond of nerdy-love books....I'm pretty sure Cassie Mae is mostly to blame for this...seriously if you haven't checked out Cassie's How To series - get on that...now!  (I digress) So since I've been into the nerdy books lately (not nerdy books...books about nerds...you know what I mean...) when I was reviewing the books on my TBR, Avery Shaw seemed pretty appealing.

What I loved:  I don't know why I'm a sucker for "best friend romances" but I kind of am.  But I really loved that this one wasn't your typical best-friend romance.  This book was more about unrequited love, and who else to be the perfect love interest after heartbreak than the ever-handsome older brother?!  I have to admit, even while reading the beginning of this book, the pair didn't seem to be a great match, but of course Kelly Oram did not let me down.

I think what I'm finding I love about Kelly's writing is how she throws in bits of humor here and there.  I really need to start using the highlighting feature in my books so I can share a few - but she has more awesome one liners than most! 

Not So Much:  I'm not sure when this happened, but I'm beginning to not be a fan of the insta-love type scenario.  That isn't exactly what happens here, but I wasn't a huge fan of how quickly Grayson's head was turned by Avery.  I think, personally, I would have preferred a more gradual 'ah-ha' moment for both of them.  But, like I said, that's just me.

The Verdict:    

This is a solid YA book, clean and fun.  It makes you laugh, and gives you the "sigh" worthy ending. Oh, the ending was fantastic by the way, but that's all I'm going to say. :)