Sunday, February 24, 2013

Flat-Out Love (Flat-Out Love, #1) by Jessica Park



But that’s what love does to you. Gut-wrenching, overpowering, crushing, fulfilling, complex, bring-you-to-your-knees love.

4 Stars

FLAT-OUT LOVE was recommended to me by my sister. I’ve been reading some intense books lately and my sister told me this would be the perfect light, happy-go-lucky, in between read I needed. I’ll admit, I wasn’t fond of the blurb because I usually don’t like YA contemporary novels revolving family dynamics, especially if it’s not the Heroine’s actual family, BUT I read the reviews and I had to see what the fuss was about.

FLAT-OUT LOVE could be described as a light-hearted, good-feeling read you sometimes need.

[Summary/blurb]

Julie moves to Boston for college, but the apartment Julie sets-up prior to moving was a scam and she doesn’t have a place to live. Julie’s mom calls an old college friend, Erin, who is happy to let Julie stay at her house until Julie can find an apartment. Erin has two sons, Finn (23) and Matt (21) and one daughter, Celeste (13). Finn is away traveling and Julie stays in Finn’s room. Julie soon forms an on-line/Facebook/E-mail relationship with Finn and a sweet friendship with Matt. However, not everything is what it seems and Julie tries to discover what makes the family not so normal.

I think one of the reasons why I didn’t pick up FLAT-OUT LOVE sooner was because my pet-peeve is reading love triangles with brothers, however I was promised a HEA ending , so I didn’t think it would be that bad and it wasn’t.

Let’s get this out of the way, yes the twist was obvious and of course it’s not confirmed until the ending, but I put that aside because I was too involved with Julie’s relationship with Matt, Finn and Celeste.

[Julie]

Julie is great because she’s care-free, young, and sweet and likes to help people. No, she’s not your typical 18 year-old just moved out the house college girl. I don’t know any 18 year-old who just moved out their parent’s house and is okay moving back to living with a family, but it’s cute.

[Finn]

Finn is adorable and very charismatic, but it’s hard to form an opinion of him since most of his relationship with Julie is via email and messaging.

[Mattt]

Matt is a super nerd and not the fake nerd authors try to make up, he’s a true nerd. One of the things I loved was the banter between Matt and Julie. Matt’s jokes are so nerdy and was so above me, I had to ask my husband what some of them meant since Matt is like my husband, so suffice it to say, I enjoyed Matt a lot. Although Matt is quirky and comes off rude, he has his “sweet” moments.

[Celeste]

My favorite relationship was between Julie and Celeste. I am a sucker for books with sweet kids, especially when the kid is adorable towards the Heroine. I loved Celeste’s character and it was very nice to see her struggle and grow. Celeste has some major issues and it was just (again, I’ll say it) sweet to see Julie try to help Celeste.

If I had any complaints, I wished the twist was revealed a little towards the middle-end or it wasn’t made so obvious until middle-end. Also, even though I’m a fan for slow developing relationships, I’m all about falling-in-love-with-your-best friend kind of story, but I wanted a little more interaction between Julie, Finn and Matt. But these issues weren’t too major and I basically enjoyed everything else.

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.

Overall, FLAT-OUT LOVE is the sweet, adorable, funny read everyone needs time to time.

I recommend.

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