Title:Flat-Out Love
Author:Jessica Park
Publisher:CreateSpace
Release Date:July 27, 2011
Pages:400
Source:Crazy Book Tours|My FTC Disclaimer
Purchase: Kindle|Nook|Smashwords
Rating:/5 Books
About the Book:
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.
About the Author:
Jessica is the author of the novel FLAT-OUT LOVE, the YA novel, RELATIVELY FAMOUS, and the Gourmet Girl mystery series. She also has a few eshorts out: WHAT THE KID SAYS (1 & 2) and FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD. She lives in Manchester, NH where she spends an obscene amount time scheming ways to get onto the Rick Springfield Cruise. (Also, excessive thinking about caffeinated beverages and Glee episodes). On the rare occasions that she is able to focus on other things, she writes.
My Review:
WOW! Awesomeness! Geekiness, but totally AWESOMENESS. Jessica Park really created a story that is geeky, humorous, mysterious, and well, just down right READABLE!
Julie’s off to college, and the craziness for her begins instantly. Her housing is no longer her housing, so she’s left with no choice but to fall on the good intents of Erin Watkins, an old friend of her mothers. Moving in there, well, it was a bit unusual for Julie. I mean, we’re talking total dysfunctionality (is that even a word?) here. But, Julie gives it ago, and before long the readers are right there with her, experiencing her thoughts and emotions, laughing nearly the entire length of the book.
But, let’s not forget to give the glorious Finn a mention. Park really made him a character I wish was REAL so I could text him, email him and chat with him….all to feel the emotions that Julie felt. After getting to know him and his family, Julie felt that she was a whole new person. Um, well, duh! With a family like this, I’d have been a whole new person too…..just a little bit crazier! LoL!
No, seriously. GET THIS BOOK. Sure it sounds awkward, sounds a bit….well,crazily dysfunctional, but it is a truly awesome read. Park is talented, creates characters from the heart, and turns out a plot line that is NEVER, I repeat NEVER, boring. Five books worthy to the end, I hope to see more of this kind of work from this new-to-me author, but certainly not last-to-me author!
Next Stop: October 8th-Laurie Here Reading & Writing Reviews
