So Over You by Gwen Hayes

Title: So Over You
Author: Gwen Hayes
Date Published: April 25, 2010
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Layney Logan, girl reporter. 

That’s all she’s ever wanted to be. This year, her senior year, not only does she have to share the coveted Senior Editor position with her arch nemesis, Jimmy Foster, she also has to figure out how to keep the school paper alive. With the local paper closing and the school cutting Journalism from the budget, it’s a long shot. Working side-by-side with Foster, the guy she likes to call Lucifer, makes it even worse.

The only thing Layney dislikes more than swimming in the high school dating pool is Jimmy Foster thinking he got the best of her, so she takes
his ridiculous newspaper assignment–to go on twelve blind dates–to prove his powers of darkness won’t work on her. The trouble is, the more she learns about herself on her journey of bad blind dates, the more she wonders if maybe Foster has known her better than she knows herself all this time. 

And maybe she should have trusted him with the secret she’s kept for four years—the secret that broke them up to begin with.

(this may or may not contain spoilers depending on how you look at it)

It’s rare that one finds a chic lit thats actually different. No not completely different otherwise it wouldn’t be a chic lit. But there are certain elements of a chic lit that you would expect. For starters a female lead you may want to slap from time to time. I actually LOVED Layne. I have a total girl crush on her. It’s because of her personality. She reminds me of myself (a bit). She isn’t a stupid ice queen nor is she a popular person or anything else. She has issues so she separates herself from the rest of the crowd but unlike other females that have had the same issue (in YA), she doesn’t avoid humanity. She sticks around, talks to them, she isn’t mean to anyone nor does she ignore them. She just isn’t chummy with them.

Yes she has been raped. But I like the way she deals with it. I’ve read about 5 books that have character that have been raped, they have all had different reactions to this, some have become ice queens and closed off of humanity, for some there isn’t much of a visible difference. Yet here you can see it has effected her in some ways. BUT she doesn’t take it out on the rest of the human population. She is funny and she is also dedicated to her work.

One of the other things that make her different from the other girls in YA is that she doesn't just completely forget this issue she has been dealing with when a boy comes around like so many other girls have done. I mean they have their issues but it seems like the author is trying to shove it up our faces and not actually make it a part of the girl’s character but that doesn't happen with Layney.

Here the guy happens to be her ex. She doesn’t get swoony as soon as he comes. In fact she is annoyed with him most of the time. Although I think it is quite obvious in which direction this is headed.

Although this book isn’t about how someone deals with rape I love how the author weaves it in. The reaction seems so much more realistic. She even shows a bit of the psychological side of it.

“When something bad happens to us, especially when we are young, our brains will sometimes protect us from it until we are strong enough to deal with the issue. It’s not uncommon for people to completely black out an experience for years and revisit it only when they feel safe enough to face it.” 

Now over to Jimmy. OMG THIS GUY IS SO AWESOME! I mean everything he does, Layne thinks that he is trying to make her life hell but we as the readers can clearly see this is not the case and we can see he still hurts from what she did to him 4 years ago. So he may be a bit of a jerk but can you blame him? She used a bad excuse to break up with him and didn't bother to listen to his side of the story.

But Jimmy, I really do love the person he is at the end of the book and what he does. I cannot say anything about him. I forgot everything that makes him awesome because there is too much awesome in him to remember it all.

I think the romance in the book is also great, there isn’t much of it but it’s SO GOOD! It’s between two ex’s yet you can see the development, they don’t start jumping each other as soon as they realize the mistakes they made. THANK GOD FOR THAT! Something different about this book ONCE AGAIN.

Some random quotes because I am cool:
“I’m good at bending rules. Here’s the thing—I’ve decided that you are going to be the closest thing to a BFF I’ll allow myself to have. Whether you like it or not, we’re buddies now.”
“Okay, psycho girl. But if you start wearing your hair like mine and pilfering my clothes like that Single White Female movie, we’re breaking up.”

“I’d like to make it clear from the start that I am gay, gay, gay. Like, when I come out of the closet, I’m usually wearing my sister’s prom dress kind of gay.”
I looked at Mr. September across the bench and said the first thing that came to mind. “God, you’re so lucky.”