Title/Author: Flat Out Love - By: Jessica Park
Summary:
When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side...and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.
And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.
To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that...well...doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.
My Thoughts:
Let's start with the fact that the MC is a college student. Kudos to Jessica Park! As a college student myself, I am constantly looking for a good book with characters my own age. I have come to find that many of the really good books with college students are often from self-publishing authors, like Park. I have also found that because many are self-publishing, most books are only available as E-books. Don't let this deter you. In the past, I had the idea that electronic books had no place in the world, as they were slowly taking over the art of printed literature. However, I finally broke down and downloaded the Kindle app for my laptop. Now that I have, I am not sorry because I would not have been able to read a number of AMAZING books without it. Even though I would rather read an old fashioned book with paper and ink, I cannot deny myself a trully good story if it is only available electronically.
I was expecting a quick, light read, but this is not what I recieved with this book. I actually found it kind of odd while reading the summary that the romance aspect of the story would be mostly based on emails and texts, but the story turned out to be so much more. The only reason I really even picked up this book was because of the many positive reviews on Goodreads. During the first 3/4 of Flat Out Love, I was still thinking that it was a light, summer read, but the last 1/4 of the book turned me into an emotional puddle of goo. I won't go into any details to prevent spoiling the story though. Even if you figure out the secret early on (like I did) you can still easily enjoy the story.
I had my moments with Julie. Most of the time, I really liked her. She is a strong, motivated young woman, and let's face it...overly curious. She was definitely easy to relate to. Her sense of humor was right up my alley. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Once everything came out during the last 1/4 of Flat Out Love, however, she just plain pissed me off. She completely misdirects her love, unknowingly, and refuses to accept the truth about the situation. She did return to my good side before the end of the book, thankfully.
I may just have a weird thing for geeks, but I just loved Matt. I don't know why Julie felt the need to make fun of his dorky tshirts, because I loved those tshirts. I absolutely loved the witty banter between Matt and Julie, and couldn't get enough of his humor.
And Celeste, oh my dear Celeste. How could you not love this little girl? Seriously.
Flat Out Love took me on an amazing journey with quirky and very lovable characters. My emotions ranged from laughing to crying during Julie and the Watkins' emotional journey. This book will not disappoint. Give it a chance.
