Book: Flat Out Love by Jessica Park
Synposis: 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. [via Amazon]
Book Notes:
I find it most difficult to translate into words the amazing journey I had while reading this book. I always feel like words can never fully embody the overwhelming experience as the words flow into our imagination and just take you for this one amazing ride page after page. I always love the pleasant surprise that one gets when you stumble upon such a magical read!
I wish i could be more articulate, but a book like this is just best experienced. The entire time reading, I was so envious of the witty and punchy banter the characters had. Seriously, I wish I could sound that smart and edgy on a day to day basis.
I also loved how as a reader, you think you know exactly what's going on, yet at the same time you can't just put your finger on it. The constant twists always leave your wondering, always making every page exciting.
Definitely more than just a love story, this book takes you along a odyssey of emotions that will leave you crying, laughing, smiling and simply just free falling.
Book Quotes:
"I was fitted with a specially designed compression filter that allows excessive information to lie dormant until I need to access it. Its only the beta version, so excuse any kinks that may appear. I really can't be held responsible."
"Julie Seagle is unable to find any financially Finnish finches for Flat Finn, but will finagle finger painting fingerling finery as a final finale. She finks."
"After an unfortunate incident involving Wile E. Coyote and an anvil, Three Dimensional Finn has changed his name."
"She'll need to see another goddamn place, then, because the roaches have unionized and put a stop to further negotiations regarding new tenants. Also, I think i smell a dead body."
"All motor function has been restored. Physiological integrity is intact. I can now continue not finding an apartment."
"effective decomposition strategies for certain nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem. Whatever the hell that meant."
"Julie Seagle thinks that Twitter is like Facebook's slutty cousin. It does everything dumb and whore-ish you're too respectable to do."
"I don't need a plan. They'll be harmless and mildly cute in a pathetically boozy way."
"I'd just have to meet the right guy. Someone who isn't ordinary. Someone who gets me. Someone I fit perfectly with. I want heat, chemistry, an undeniable connection. You know what I mean? I want it all. I'm done with ordinary and mediocre."
"And because you have naturally fantastic hair that most people can never achieve, even when they waste money buying celebrity-endorsed spiral curling irons on the off chance that three easy payments of nineteen-ninety-five will solve their hair woes."
"Finn is God: I "Facebook like" you, but I'm not IN "Facebook like" with you.
"What about your parents? Love 'em or want to mail them back to Walmart? Costco actually."
"Julie Seagle: I think that when Twitter says someone has 'protected their Tweets', a little picture of a chastity belt should pop up."
"Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise."
"Julie Seagle: If you can't stop thinking about someone's update, that's called 'status cling'."
"Why do washing machines eat socks? Do they taste good? Should you try eating socks?"
"This is why people pull their chites lates, because freefalling is like a drug."
"Good. I think I'm falling for you too. Let's not pull this chute."
"Finn is God: I hope that someday they invent a car that runs on inappropriate thoughts."
"I tell you to close your eyes. You listen while I tell you how I feel about you. That I think about you all the time, and I can't get you out of my head. I ask you to ignore everything you think you know and to listen only to your heart, without doubting anything. Can you do that?"
"You can look back now, and see how you should have known, but you were focusing on the facts, instead of the feeling."
"But that's what love does to you. Gut-wrenching overpowering, crushing, fulfilling, complex, bring-you-to-your-knees love."
Rating: 5/5
Book: Paper Princess by Erin Watt
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by Alice Kuipers 
