Flat-Out Love & Flat-Out Matt by Jessica Park 

Ladies do I have a treat for you!!! My awesome friend and amazing author Brei Betzold is my "GUEST REVIEWER" for Flat-Out Love & Flat-Out Matt by Jessica Park. Now I haven't read either of these books despite being told by Brei that I HAVE TO READ NOW! I have both books and after reading Brei's reviews I have moved both of these books to the TOP of my TBR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm thinking if some of you haven't read this we should totally have a little "read-a-thon" and all read these two TOGETHER ~ wouldn't that be fun? What an awesome way to get to know one another and share our thoughts why we are reading? I know I would love to have a "freaking out" buddy while I read.

So let's learn a little bit about these two books that Brei claims I need to read now because I'm seriously MISSING OUT ~

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.

********************************************************************************
Okay I'm intrigued ~ so what it's not what some think I normally read ~ a "smexy" book that has us drooling but I've found that some of the BEST books I've read are outside of the stereo-typical books that we see day in and day out.

So what is Flat-Out Matt? Well it's the latest release from Jessica Parker that is also getting a lot of attention and after reading this synopsis I think some of you might be adding another couple books to your TBR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Matt is a junior at MIT. He’s geeky, he's witty, he's brilliant.

And he’s also very, very stupid.

When beautiful, cool, insightful Julie moves in with Matt’s family, why (oh why!) does he pretend to be his absent brother Finn for her alleged benefit?

It seems harmless enough until her short-term stay becomes permanent. And until it snowballs into heart-squeezing insanity. And until he falls in love with Julie, and Julie falls in love with Finn.

But … Matt is the right one for her. If only he can make Julie see it. Without telling her the truth, without shattering them all. Particularly his fragile sister Celeste, who may need Julie the most.

You saw Matt through Julie’s eyes in FLAT-OUT LOVE. Now go deeper into Matt’s world in this FLAT-OUT MATT novella. Live his side of the story, break when his heart breaks, and fall for the unlikely hero all over again.

Take an emotional skydive for two prequel chapters and seven Flat-Out Love chapters retold from his perspective, and then land with a brand-new steamy finale chapter from Julie.

*******************************************************************************

A book told from the male's point of view ~ well heck COUNT ME IN and a little steaminess at the end ~ I'm so hooked!  To add both these books to your TBR on Goodreads follow these links:

Flat-Out Love: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11096647-flat-out-love

Flat-Out Matt: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17611379-flat-out-matt 

To follow Jessica Park on Goodreads and check out her other published books follow this link:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22159.Jessica_Park

To purchase Flat-Out Love & Flat-Out Matt on AMAZON click here:

Flat-Out Love: http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Out-Love-ebook/dp/B008DZTE60/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1364574509&sr=8-1 

Flat-Out Matt: http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Out-Matt-ebook/dp/B00C1HD61U/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

For those of you with a Nook (I have both :) ) here's the B&N purchase links:

Flat-Out Matt: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/flat-out-matt-jessica-park/1114922328?ean=2940016189765  

Flat-Out Love is not listed on B&N which is quite odd ~

Now for the BEST PART of this entire post ~ Brei Betzold's AWESOME review of BOTH Flat-Out Love  & Flat-Out Matt:

****************************************************************************

You cannot have a review for Flat-Out Matt without also discussing for Flat-Out Love so lets start there at the beginning.

Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park is one of my all-time favorite stories, she wrote a story full of hope, love, secrets, misery, joy, self-discovery in a way that made you feel it as if you were living it.  It’s a rare find to read a book that can draw you in to the point that you no longer realize what reality is and what is written words in front of you.  I do love this book, it has so many twist and turns, it makes you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will break your heart over and over again.  Each of the characters are damaged in their own way trying to live life to the best of their abilities, even if that means dragging a life sized cut out around Boston with them.  It’s the story of a girl just starting out in life on her own, Julie has left her home in Ohio for the big city life of Boston to attend college, and after a few mishaps she finally finds her place.  She finds a home and a family that is broken, full of secrets and sadness, but Julie is a fixer.  She sets out to help this family, to help the young girl who is far from normal, Celeste is a character that you can’t help but love and want to help.  From her odd speech patterns to her even odder choice of clothing Celeste is not a normal 13 year old girl, but the most disconcerting of her afflictions is her strange attachment to a life sized cardboard cutout of her older brother Finn.  Julie sets out to help but without fully understanding what is going it makes things difficult, add in the odd mathematician geeky older brother Matt, who needs help of his own and absent parents this family is unlike any other.  Matt, sigh, Matt is an odd one himself, he has shouldered the care of Celeste while attending MIT, and is close to his breaking point, he doesn’t know how to heal or parent his young sister, he’s doing the best he can.  The thrill seeking Finn his older brother is off exploring the world, or that’s what Julie has been told, in her attempt to help she falls in love with the older brother who’s never home but emails back and forth with Julie.  Though everything isn’t as it seems with any of these quirky siblings, and everything soon self-destructs, secrets are unveiled, truths are told and trust is broken.  

Flat-Out Matt by Jessica Park is a novella from Matt’s perspective, it begins before Flat-Out Love and then some chapters throughout Flat-Out Love are told from his perspective.  I fell in love with Matt during Flat-Out Love, Finn is great he is the all American boy, but Matt is a warm hearted, geeky, stressed, young man who is real.  I think that’s why I love these books so much is because they are real characters, they have flaws, they fight, they bicker, they laugh, they are fractured.  Matt’s perspective is a bit of an eye opener in some cases and makes you look back at the same chapters in Flat-Out Love and realize that your first impressions were not correct, that he didn’t do this or that to be mean, but mostly out of fear.  The first chapter had me both sobbing and smiling, it’s a catch 22 you want to laugh, but since you know the outcome you can’t help but think what if.  It was going through the roller-coaster ride of emotions all over again, and it hurt just as much if not more the second time. The second chapter is gut wrenching, the things that we did not see in the first book, things that happened before Julie arrived you wonder how he kept it together as well as he did.   Seeing the other people in the book from Matt’s point of view made you realize just how much he had taken upon and in himself, and you couldn’t help but wish to lift some of that burden.  The ending was the perfect ending for both sides, it left you with a great amount of hope that they will eventually mend and find their way.  If you have read Flat-Out Love this is a must read, if you haven’t buy them both you will not regret it.

******************************************************************************

So what do you think? Well, I'm thinking I need to get my arse in gear and get reading some Jessica Park's. Now you know me I can't recommend a book without giving my amazing FOLLOWERS a chance to WIN the book ........

Here's the GIVEAWAY ~ 

Grand Prize Winner ~ Paperback Copy of Flat-Out Love

I'm also going to giveaway 2 copies of Flat-Out Love & Flat-Out Matt to 2 lucky winners so that means you have the COMPLETE set :) Now if you've read Flat-Out Love don't worry you can still enter to win Flat-Out Matt you will just need to tell me if you have the first one! 

Here's the Rafflecopter to enter to win! Winner's will be chosen on March 31st! Good Luck Ladies!!!! 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway