Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O'clover

By Lean and Love �� - March 13, 2023

Tittle      : Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
Author        : Ellen O'clover
Pub Date : January 17, 2023
Pages         : 320
My Rating : ★★★★

The Summary

Your destiny can be foreseen by Ro Devereux. Or, at the very least, her senior project's software can.

Working with her retired friend who was a behavioral scientist, Ro developed the 93% accurate MASH app, which is based on the popular game Mansion Apartment Shack House. Even soulmates will be found for users by the program. Even though MASH was only meant to be a class project, it rapidly gains traction and attracts the interest of tech investors.

Ro wants to work in Silicon Valley and will stop at nothing to show her new sponsoring business and the rest of the world that the app is functional. So it comes as a major jolt when the app tells her that Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-ending argument three years prior, is actually her soulmate.

Ro and Miller are now put into a fake dating situation and must deal with their past hurts if they are to have any chance of reaching their goals. And as the app develops a life of its own, Ro notices that it's having an impact on people in ways she never anticipated. If she can't recover control, it may also destroy her and everything she stands for.

My Review

A pretty amazing YA book with a cute enemies to lovers storyline. This book has a lot to commend it, from the relationships between friends and family to the romance, the candid self-examination, and character growth.

An app that "predicts the future" was developed by Ro Devereux, a high school pupil, and was motivated by the MASH video game. The use is entirely scientific. The app was initially her senior project for school, but after it quickly attracted the interest of a major tech company, things started to spiral out of control.

The story wasn't too convoluted, and while I expected the majority of the turns and twists, there were still a few that managed to catch me off guard. The author addressed a lot of interesting topics, including women in science and the positive and negative effects of popular culture and social media on people's lives, particularly those of younger audiences.

Ro is exactly the kind of powerful, intelligent, and painfully relatable female protagonist that we enjoy watching. Although Ro occasionally made snap decisions that I knew would be disastrous, I did enjoy seeing how she changed throughout the story. Even though she was making these difficult decisions, it was easy to back her. She openly acknowledged her errors and made an effort to atone, even when it seemed impossible. It was incredibly gratifying to witness this.

Oh, and let's talk about the cliche "friends to enemies to lovers" as well. Miller is the young man who feels too much, and Ro is the young child who is unsure of her feelings. And Miller is one of those characters that, in my view, stirs up a lot of strong feelings in the reader. Everything about their interactions was perfect. Apart from that, it wasn't the usual YA romance that was settled in a few chapters. On the other hand, Miller and Ro don't begin to connect until about halfway through the book.

The writing is so exquisitely clear and delectable, the romance builds and burns at the perfect speed, the tension and the angst, it was all so great that I'm actually surprised that it's a debut. O'Clover meticulously described each situation without becoming tedious to create a slow-burn romance that is both meaningful and sweet.

The remaining characters were excellently written and very intriguing. Even though many of them weren't given as much attention as Ro's character, I still felt that they were all fantastic supporting characters who greatly enhanced the story! They all have enough appeal to pique your interest in finding out more about them, and each of them provides something new.

Overall, I thought everything in this book was so well thought out and so well written. This book is certainly worth reading if you're a younger reader or someone who enjoys lighthearted stories!

My ratings score:

★★★★★ Fantastic! Made me go through a lot of emotions & the entire book is incredibly beautifully done!

★★★★ Memorable! Despite its shortcomings, this book was incredible and taught us a lot.