Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Review Flat-Out Love, Flat-Out Love series by Jessica Park





Title: Flat-Out Love
Author: Jessica Park
Series: Flat-Out Love
Release Date: April 11th 2011



Synopsis

Flat-Out Love is a warm and witty novel of family love and dysfunction, deep heartache and raw vulnerability, with a bit of mystery and one whopping, knock-you-to-your-knees romance.

It's not what you know - or when you see - that matters. It's about a journey.

Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it. 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.

Flat-Out Love comes complete with emails, Facebook status updates, and instant messages.

Goodreads 

Buy Links

Amazon US 
Amazon UK 

Author Bio


Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novels FLAT-OUT LOVE and RELATIVELY FAMOUS; five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park with her mother, mystery author Susan Conant); and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2).

Jessica grew up in the Boston area and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After spending four years in the frigid north, including suffering through one memorable Halloween blizzard, Jessica hightailed it back to the east coast. She now lives in (relatively balmy) New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, Jessica indulges her healthy addictions to Facebook, Rick Springfield, and super-sweet coffee beverages.


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Flat-Love Series

Flat-Out Love #1
Flat-Out Matt #1.5
Flat-Out Celeste #2

Review


“He just wasn’t the guy, you know? I want the guy. The everything guy. Not the dumb Prince Charming, nauseatingly-perfect everything guy. That’s pathetic. I want the flaws-and-all everything guy.” 

Ah. Mattie. Matthew Watkins is my very first geek BBF. I fell in love with him when I first read Flat-Out Love, and I keep on falling for him, each and every time I read this amazing book.

It gives you so many feels. It's full of surprises, twists and turns and funny situations. 


So, Julie's a freshman in college in Boston. Due to not having where to live, she ends up at an old college friend's of her mom's. She was taken in, given a place to stay until she found something else. But Julie fell in love with this family. With the rather eccentric, but smart and beautiful little sister, Celeste. With Erin, the smart and driven mom. Roger, the absentee but kind dad. Mattie, the middle brother, and geek with the weird shirts and love of Math and Physics. And, of course, with Finn, the older brother that was off traveling and seeing the world, while everything was falling apart.
Because, unfortunately, looks are deceiving. And Julie had no idea, until she witnessed it herself.


It's a story about heartbreak, pain, acceptance, moving on. How our actions always have consequences. It's about how a 21 year-old guy shoulders every burden, in order for his family to continue on surviving. Of course that Julie comes along to help him out.

If you haven't read this book, DO IT. I cannot stress enough how much I love it, Mattie is so near and dear to me! I'd give anything for a Mattie. Julie's one lucky gal. 

5 stars are not enough and I wouldn't mind if Ms. Park were to write a novella with them *hint hint*

No really, do read it.  


P.S. I was proud and honored to represent Matt in the NA Crush Tourney 2014.  

 

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