Mays, Ashley. The Great Date Experiment. Cumberland, MD: WhiteSpark Publishing, 2022.

Guide to categories: YA Review – review of books for teens

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Summary

When seventeen-year-old Callie Christianson answers the doorbell, she never expects to find her ex-best friend, Egan Pasko, there with flowers. Their childhood friendship ended their freshman year when he shut her in a locker and walked away. But now he’s sorry and he’d like to take her on twenty-one dates to prove it. It’s an experiment, he says, to see if two people who used to be “just friends” can fall in love. And, of course, they’ll record the whole thing and put it online to see how many views they can wrangle out of it.

Callie’s ready to tell him to get lost. Until she realizes Egan’s crazy, stupid idea could help her gain the followers she needs to earn the mentorship opportunity that will launch her baking career. So the dates begin. And, even though nothing goes according to Callie’s plan, all the time spent with Egan is reminding her of everything she used to love about him.

The only problem is their viewers aren’t falling in love with her. The haters come out in droves to tell her exactly how terrible they think she is. The only thing keeping Callie in the experiment is Egan’s hints that he might be starting to fall for her. Except she can’t be sure he’s not playing it up for the sake of the camera.

Then Egan shares the most vulnerable parts of Callie’s life story online without her permission, stunning her into a shame spiral and leaving her to fend for herself in the comments. With their friendship once again at stake, will Callie walk away for good? Or is her heart too involved to let Egan go?

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My YA Review

I’ll admit, when I started this book I really was expecting something superficial without much depth – it’s about teen dating after all, right? But it is so much more and I was soon pulled into a really good storyline. Ashley Mays really seems to understand teens and what they are feeling deep down. 

Egan and Callie were best friends. Then Egan did something dumb, unforgivable, a 15-year-old boy prank. Callie couldn’t forgive him. It’s been two years and Egan shows up at her house wanting to be friends again. He and his brother have this competition to see who can reach 1000 social views first. Egan comes up with the Great Date Experiment and wants Callie to help him with it. Don’t want to give away any spoilers but he has an ulterior motive. Turns out Callie does too when she agrees. 

Both Callie and Egan are works in progress – but who isn’t, especially in the teen years. Callie is still working through being adopted by her grandparents 15 years ago when her parents didn’t want her. Egan has his own issues which come out as the story progresses. 

Just when it seems the Great Date Experiment is going to flop, things turn around for the good – just like difficulties in our life when God uses them for good. 

Readers will laugh and cry with Callie and Egan over the things they experience. There is a lot of really good relationship advice hidden in the events of the story. 

The Great Date Experiment would make a great addition to tha K-12 Christian school library. It is appropriate for older middle schoolers and up. 

I received a complimentary copy of The Great Date Experiment. This is my honest review. 

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