This book was absolutely freaking amazing and I don’t even have words for it. I am not going to lie I even loved our mmc, Noah, as a jerk (I should slow down on reading those bully romances) the way his personality took a turn after the accident was something quite different and something I did love. Like a lot.

Lily, our FMC is so kind and awesome even though she’s bullied she doesn’t hesitate to support anyone. I love the way that the author developed the relationship between Noah and Lily through these moments.

Though a few points where I think the book could’ve been better are the way almost everyone is forgiven in the end. Some of the people who were forgiven I don’t think deserved that. But both Noah and Lily are great people so no wonder.

The book also goes in detail about how someone suffering from something that makes them different from others effects them and the people surrounding them. Noah’s aphasia (brain damage affecting the language part of the brain leading to speech problems) made such a big change in his lifestyle the way his accident caused a “starburst effect” in his life was shown and I just have to praise the author for not half-hearting the problem or just adding it for the sake of it.

I am a big softie and I do love when one character takes care of the other character (that trope >>>>>> ) and this whole book was based on that trope which made my heart melt.

Totally totally recommend everyone to read it!!!

“My accident gave me a new prescription on life. My friends ditching me showed me who I was, but you…” […] “You show me who I want to be. You make me better.”

3.5 ⭐

The Starburst Effect is a cute YA romance that explores several deeper topics, the most prominent one being traumatic brain injury. Though a bit messy, I liked the narration and how the book made me feel everything the main characters were going through.

I just wished certain parts of the story (the most interesting ones in my opinion) were explored even deeper and in more detail. But other than that, I enjoyed this read quite a bit and I finished it in a record time.

Perfect for any time you want to read about high school sweethearts going through some serious challenges and coming out of it stronger.

If you want to see my much more in depth review, you can check it out on my book blog NovelOnMyMind.

Thank you to Xpresso Book Tours and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of The Starburst Effect by Kelly Oram in exchange for an honest review.

I love Kelly Oram books and I was stoked to see this ARC become available via Netgalley as it's been a while since a new release came out.

An incredibly heart warming clean teen romance revolving around an average girl next door and the most popular guy in school who all but ruins her senior year with bullying. Then the unexpected journey for them both when he suffers a life altering injury and finds true friendship in the most unlikely of suspects.

The character development was beautiful, the emotions were intense, this book made me laugh, made me cry, broke my heart and put it back together.

I would have liked to see a little more effort put into the final resolutions, the ending felt abrupt to me. But overall an excellent book and a book I'm sure I will read again.


Excellent representation of traumatic brain injury. Handles bullying, divorce, peer pressure, and major life transitions.

Okay !! So 3/5. I don't know why i didn't felt much attached to the characters. The author wrote the story very nicely.
But i didn't felt much invested to the story. It was like i was forcing myself to read the story.

I absolutely loved this book. The cover is stunning and lovely. The writing style of the author could convince me immediately. She writes fluidly and emotionally. I could well put myself in the characters and empathize with their emotions. Especially Lily's story, the bullying at school and Noah's accident and everything that follows make the book special. It shows the effects of bullying and brain injuries very realistically and emotionally. The characters are well conceived.
I enjoyed and loved the book very much. It is a heartwarming, cute, but also serious story that will stay with me for a long time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves enemies to lovers and YA.

The Starburst Effect follows Lilly, the school outcast who gets bullied ad only has one friend. That is until her neighbour and main bully suffers a brain damaging injury which causes his to become a different person, in a sense. This book had everything you'd want. There is s enemies to lovers, friendship and talk about disability. And i think all of it was tackled beautifully. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who likes YA. Especially if you like romance. I pretty much finished it in one sitting, which shows you how much i loved it, and how much other people will too.

I first gave to admit that I only got 40.9% of the way through this book and made the decision not to finish it. I think the writing was quite good and I Loved how the author delves deeply into lilys character character and who she is as a person, the pressure that’s placed on her at school and home and how she wants to be there for her brother during the divorce. I’m not sure how I felt about Noah because I had a hard time getting past how he was this horrible person but everything is supposed to be ok now cause he isn’t anymore due to his brain injury. They don’t explain it or anything he just has become a better person cause of a brain injury. It’s an interesting take and It just didn’t vibe with me. I did start to feel sorry for him though and I also think that the author did a really good job in representing how people with cognitive difficulties struggle in their day to day life and how it can change their lives in an instant.
So far a good read but some of the storyline didn’t vibe with me and I couldn’t finish it.

The Starburst Effect
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: YA Romance
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 6/20/22
Author: Kelly Oram
Publisher: Xpresso Book Tours
Pages: 304
Goodreads Rating: 4.38

TW ⚠️: Bullying

Thank you to NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for providing a digital advanced readers copy of the book for me to read for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Lily Rosemont lives next door to the biggest jerk in high school. Noah Trask has bullied Lily for years, and now he’s ruined her senior year by making her a target and turning the whole school against her. On top of that, her parents are getting divorced, and her world is falling apart around her. After an accident on the football field leaves Noah with a traumatic brain injury, shattering his life as he knew it and leaving him with a whole heap of new disabilities, and will need Lily’s help to graduate high school. While providing her help, she realizes that Noah is not the same, he is completely different, and she begins to soften to him. Can she forgive him? Can the two most unlikely people find friendship in adversity and help each other pick up the pieces of their broken lives?

My Thoughts: Some people do not like YA, but I love both YA Romance and YA thrillers. TBI is a very real thing. I had a friend that used to provide therapy to TBI patients before he passed and it is very challenging, but rewarding work. The author did a good job at the research of TBI, it would have been any better if the author was able to reach out to a doctor or therapist of TBI, but still pretty accurate research. The story is narrated from Lily from her own perspective,but you get a pretty good grasp of Noah and the supporting characters through her eyes. The characters were well developed and had layers of depth, personality, compassionate, and were brilliantly written. I fell in love with Lily and rooted for her happy ending the entire book. I have experienced some bullying with my children, so the range of emotions I felt was just like a rollercoaster. The author’s writing was complex, creative, intriguing, and just brilliant. I throughly enjoyed this book. I absolutely fell in love with this author and would definitely read other books by her.

I can't simply give a 5 stars review to this book. 5 stars are not enough. How about a starburst, instead? I loooooved The Starburst Effect. I can easily say it's one of my fav reads of the year so far!

The Starburst Effect is a really cute and moving enemies to friends to lovers story.
I am not gonna lie. At first, I was afraid I could not like this enemies to lovers story because, at the beginning of the story, the main male protagonist (Noah) is pretty hateful. He is a "mean, nasty, self-centered, uncaring, unfeeling bully" whose only purpose seems to be the one to make the main female character's (Lily) life miserable by treating her in a really horrible way. Ok, at the beginning of the story Noah is also described as an objectivly pretty hot guy, but I really could not stand the idea of Lily simply accepting him and forgiving him just because of this reason. Thankfully, this was not the case! As the story evolved, Noah's character did the same. The author did an amazing job in revealing Noah's vulnerability and making him likable and, most of all, worthy of Lily. To me, she excelled in making the reader understand why and how both the protagonists of the story change throughout the book and I honestly found myself rooting for them and shipping them as a couple pretty fastly while reading it.

The Starburst Effect is a beautifully written story about very important themes such as embracing disability and see past it, bullying, trying to remain sane despite the bullying, standing up to fake friends who are only trying to manipulate you, not giving up to being a kindhearted person even if it makes you unpopular, not fitting in but keeping on being your true self anyway, sorrounding yourself with few true friends who can be your anchor but who can also teach you how to stand up for yourself. In one word, this is a stoy about love in its purest form... and I adored it!

I have highlighted so many passages of this book! I'll leave you with one of my favourites (ok, give me some time to make up my mind... I swear it is so hard to just pick one! Ok, here it goes):
My heart aches for him, and I give him advice that I only wish I had the power to take myself when people laugh at me. "It doesn't matter. They don't matter. They don't know what it's like. You're here. You're back in school, despite your injury. You're stronger than a few mean kids."

Ps: I'd love a movie adaptation of this book!

Thank you NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Overall, I enjoyed this a lot. I read it in less than a day because I couldn't put it down. Noah and Lily's story was both heartwarming and cute, and many moments had me smiling.

One caveat that I'll add is that while I love books with disability representation, I'm always a little hesitant about books by authors that don't have that disability or don't have at minimum a personal connection to that disability.

I don't personally know anyone who has a connection to someone with a TBI, and in the acknowledgements Oram noted that she didn't interact with anyone with a TBI directly during her research. It does seem like she interviewed people who knew someone with a TBI, which is still good but not quite the same as interviewing those directly impacted by a TBI. Because of this, I'm not sure how accurate the portrayal of Noah's disability was.

That being said, I do think Oram portrayed Noah's situation with nuance and in a way that wasn't overly positive or "inspirational," and nothing stood out to me as glaringly problematic. I'd be very interested in seeing what others think about the TBI representation.

The Starburst Effect was a roller coaster of emotions and high school drama. I was very invested in how this novel turned out and was satisfied with the ending, even if it was just this side of too perfect.

There will be spoilers ahead!!

Our main character is Lily, a high school senior who is having a rough time. Her parents are always fighting, her neighbour , Noah, is the most popular kid at school and bullies her relentlessly and she just wants to finish the year and go to college. Lily is a reporter for the school paper and, after a humiliating confrontation Noah and his friends, attends a game so she can report on it. Noah is the star player and winds up with a vicious head injury. He winds up in a coma and wakes up with brain trauma and is a completely different person.

My heart felt like it was continually breaking for Lily. I was so invested because I just wanted her to be happy SO BADLY. Lily’s parents do divorce, but then she gets stuck taking care of her younger brother as neither parent really steps up to the plate. She deals with this with relatively good maturity all while dealing with the continual bullying at school and the eventual breakdown of her relationship with her best friend. Everything works out for her in the end, even if she had to compromise on what she initially wanted for her future.

I was NOT a fan of Zoey or of her parents. Zoey was the epitome of a fair weather friend and I wish that Lily didn’t apologize to her/take the blame as much as she did. Zoey was so concerned about being popular/fitting in that she pushed Lily into situations that made her uncomfortable and dropped her like a hot potato when she started dating Noah. Her parents were both so absorbed in themselves that they didn’t see how their children were suffering.

Noah, while an absolute jerk at the beginning, won me over after his accident. He was genuinely remorseful for what he’d put Lily through and wound up getting a taste of it himself. I admired his ‘water off a ducks back’ mentality, however. He came out of his accident with a mature mind frame and didn’t seem to give things like popularity or others opinions much credence because he had other things to worry about. I found myself rooting for him.

This book was heartfelt, well written and interesting. I felt like I was back in high school and I felt for the characters. The book was not cringey at all. My only critique is that I feel like everything wrapped up a bit too nicely in the last chapter. Smiley parents, best friends again, Noah and Lily back together. It all just seemed a bit much. But it made for a happy ending and Lily deserves all the happiness in the world at this point. I’d definitely recommend this book to others who are looking for a good high school drama with and enemies to lovers flavour.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Oh how i adore and enjoyed this book. It was so wholesome especially the friendship and romance between Lily and Noah. Lily is so relatable in a way that she also struggles with school as well as her parents getting divorced. Also, the character development of Noah made me soft.

If you like redemption arcs and second chances, I really really recommend this book

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC in exchange of my honest review.

no love story better than this one ..honestly we need more people like her.Who love with no judgement who listen to their hearts .There was no room for the doubters and for negativity in their love but care and compassion for the other.If people could be like that.Thank you to the author and her team honestly this book i love it .It gives me hope and am happy the ending absolutely love this book

*thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for an earc in exchange for an honest review.
.
This was one of the best YA romances I've read in a while. I loved how kind and understanding lily was and how she was there for Noah even though he wasn't always the kindest [person to her.
.
This book showed high school in such a realistic way. it was relatable and emotional all at the same time.
.
I will definitely be reading anything that kelly oram releases in the future.

Kelly Oram never fails to deliver a fun, sweet, romantic novel and this one is no exception. Fast, fun read!

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘌𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 is the story of two teens in their last year of high school, navigating the complications of TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) which, in the story, entails cognitive difficulties, memory lapses and long term impairments and also the aftereffects of a dysfunctional divorce and the consequences of being bullied.

- ~ -

Lily and Noah had a chemistry as sweet as sugar.
I was genuinely confused how the relationship between Lily and Noah could ever be rectified but
Lily was willing to forgive Noah for his behaviour towards her in the past and accept the new version of him who's ever so thoughtful and caring. So overall a job well done.

To be fair, all the characters portrayed in the story were wise beyong their ages. They handled the situations they were given with great understanding and maturity, especially Lily's nine year old brother who's most definitely not a sweet little guy :)

And honestly, I'm sad to have to bid these characters farewell so while I'm fully aware the story is fictious, I hope they'll rise up to the many obstacles they'll face in life and considering how well they've progressed, I think they'll be more than okay.

- ~ -

4.13 / 5✩

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘟𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘛𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 & 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘐 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 & 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘥. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.

What happens when the school’s quarterback and biggest bully is shunned by the in-crowd and made fun of after a football injury? What happens if the girl next door was his biggest bullying target, but everything changes after his injury? Dig into this well-written YA Contemporary to find out!

The Starburst Effect is both the title of the book, and another way to say concussion, or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Noah, the love interest, was the captain and quarterback of his high school football team until he got knocked down really hard during a game, resulting in a concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury. Author Kelly Oram does a great job showing how serious the TBI is and the many ways it creates challenges in Noah’s daily life. The concussion is handled realistically and it respects the fact that Noah has retained his knowledge, it’s just being accessed differently.

The TBI, and all its cognitive and psychological challenges, give Noah a new perspective on everything in his life, and he doesn’t mind that his former friends turn on him. The in-crowd and top bullies in the school, his ex-girlfriend and fellow football teammates, now laugh at his expense, at how different he seems. But it doesn’t bother him. It’s when Noah gets close to Lily, the girl living next door to him, that the bullying bothers him – because his former friends are bullying her.

Lily has never done anything to the high school jock living next to her; she has no idea what won his attention and contempt. It seems that being neighbors put her at the disadvantage of being nearby when the school’s most popular crowd comes and goes from Noah’s house, and Noah himself starts the most vicious of all the bullying – right before getting injured on the football field.

Lily is facing multiple challenges all at once, she’s losing friends due to the bullying and she’s taking care of her younger brother, all while trying to pretend that her parents deciding to get divorced doesn’t bother her so much. She may even be losing scholarship opportunities for college because she’s closed herself off in order to cope with it all. She desperately wants to go away for college and escape all the bad things happening all around her, so she joins forces with Noah in a school sanctioned Independent Study, to help him write a book about his TBI experience.

As Lily gets to know post-accident Noah, she realizes that his values and priorities have truly changed. Despite her best efforts, sparks fly between the two of them, and the PG romance that follows is sweet and heartwarming.

Oh my word I cannot stop thinking about this book. It made me happy, it made me cry and it made me love the characters so much that I didn't want to leave them after I was done.

The book follows Lily who lives next door to Noah the most popular guy in school and her worst nightmare . To top of that her parents are getting divorced so her life is a mess. However things take a turn when Noah has a football accident that leaves him with a brain injury that leaves him with memory gaps. Noah finds himself relying on Lily and how things have changed. Oh mayn loved this book. Read it! I loved how the book tackled injury,mental health and bullying. Recommend it.

A huge thanks to the author and publisher for my complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are entirely my own

I always love an enemies to lovers.
The main event of TBI was interesting and kept me engaged to see where it would lead, and honestly there wasn't much change throughout the book, although it is mentioned a few times that he was improving.
Through out there were realistic points being made about divorce, parents relying on the oldest sibling as childcare and the horrors of high school.
There was something missing between the two MC that i can only describe as spark. Chemistry. I love you so much i would dive in front of a bullet for you. I didn't feel it and that's why ultimately i took one star off.

DNF

This one just didn’t work for me.

I feel like it would better suited for a younger audience!

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for allowing me to receive this arc in exchange for honest review.