(Review) Flat Out Love

Title: Flat Out Love
Author: Jessica Park
Format: eBook (to buy)For Kindle users and for Nook users.
Pub Date: April 2011

Source: I received an ecopy of Flat Out Love for being a part of the blog tour for this book.

About the book: (take from BN)
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.

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.

I absolutely loved this book.

I was curious after reading Ashley from the Book Labyrinth’s review of the book and was super excited when she decided to host the blog tour for the book. I had to jump on the bandwagon to find out for myself what was so fantastic about the book and I quickly realized once I was reading it why it was so great.

The only thing is I have to figure out how to download it on to my Kobo now because I actually read this on my computer and I think this will be a book I will reread again.

I loved how real the characters felt and the story was believable and that it could happen to just about anyone.

Julie from Ohio, is going to school in Boston but gets a rude awakening when she arrives because the apartment she thinks she got off of craigslist really isn’t an apartment but a restaurant. Julie got scammed. Basically stranded and alone with not much money she has no idea what she will do so out of fear and desperation she calls home. It was nice to see Julie’s mom not freak out and panic because within minutes she calls Julie back letting her know that an old college friend of hers has stepped in to help her out letting her stay until she finds something.

The family she is staying with is the Watkins. The parents are Erin and Roger and the kids are Finn, Matt and Celeste. You can see right away that even though Erin and Roger really love their kids but they are distant and very much driven by their success. Finn is a young 23 year old who is off seeing the world, while Matt who is 21 and a junior in college is basically left to take care of Celeste who is 13.

From the outside you would think that this is a well put together family and its all picture perfect but Julie soon realizes that this isn’t the case. Matt and Celeste are quite similar both being very smart and a little socially awkward. The only difference is that Celeste Carry’s around a life size cardboard cut out of her brother Finn. Which seems a little odd for a 13 year old to do but I have to admit that I thought it was a little funny and the conversation she has with him is funny.

I loved how Jessica added the facebook status updates, chats and emails to the book because it made the story line seem that much more real and enjoyable. As I was reading the interaction between Julie and Finn, even though it was happening all online I couldn’t help but feel like I was getting butterflies in my stomache for her. I thought it was a sweet little romance and left you wondering if something could happen in real life for them.

Another thing I loved was that it just wasn’t about a romance but also what was going on within the family no matter what there was issues that were brought up at just the right times giving the book just enough balance. The emotions just flowed within the book.

I really enjoyed this and for me to want to reread a book that says alot about the book.

Thanks so much Ashley for pointing out this book to me and for hosting the blog tour. I am definitely going to be checking out Jessica’s other books and I think you should check out Flat Out Love for yourself.