Review of Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

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.

I'll start by stating that this is The Best Book I Have Ever Read, and I don't say that lightly - I have read a lot of books -  but none like this one. It made me laugh until I nearly cried. It's funny, sad, romantic and just simply fantastic (look Mom, I didn't say awesome!). I took longer than usual to finished this because I just didn't want it to end. I loved all the characters and I can honestly say that this is the first time that my favourite character is made out of cardboard.
There's a twist in the plot of course and I'm sad to say that I guessed it at the beginning. I don't know how I guess these so easily, although this twist isn't too difficult to guess.

Funnily enough, I can also relate to the story - I actually met my OH through Facebook but due to where we both lived at the time, I wasn't able to meet him until about 8 months later. I definitely remember staying up until about 4 in the morning just so I could talk to him...

I'd post all my favourite quotes here, but I'm not sure if Jessica would appreciate me pasting the entire book here. If you're looking for something uplifting, heart-warming and downright hilarious this year, buy this. 
 
5/5 
Received free from the Author in exchange for an honest review 

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