Book Reviews: Flat-Out Love and Flat-Out Matt by Jessica Park

Title:  Flat-Out Love
Author:  Jessica Park
Release date:  April 11th, 2011
Genre:  NA, contemporary romance, college 

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.

 It seems that almost everyone cried while reading this book. I didn't but it was a sweet book. 

Julie moves in with Watkins family while she's attending college. The whole family is strange. Youngest child, Celeste is a withdrawn 13-year-old who talks better than some people twice her age. She carries and talks to a cut out of her oldest brother, Fin who is traveling around the world helping elephants and orphans. The middle child, Matt, pretty much takes care of his whole family. He is another genius offspring. 

Since Finn is absent Julie sends him a Facebook friendship request and they start chatting which least to falling in love. I didn't paid much attention while reading this book till I got to the part with the Christmas tree which was after the first half. After that I was crushing on Matt, hard. Even though Finn was interesting I couldn't shake the feeling Julie should be in love with Matt. I was sighing a lot. He was such a sweet guy and it was obvious he likes Julie while she was clueless. Well, I was too, since I had no idea what was actually going on until Julie herself figured it out. And I am usually one of those people who pay attention to every single detail but in this case it was almost as if my brain stopped working. 

Title:  Flat-Out Matt
Author:  Jessica Park
Release date: March 25th, 2013
Genre:  NA, contemporary romance, college 

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.

Don't read the blurb if you haven't read Flat-Out Love! I'll try not to post too many spoilers . 

If you haven't read Flat-Out Love don't read this collection of short stories because you won't understand some things. We have a prequel of FOL with a chapter of Finn and Matt hanging out so you can see their dynamic. We get to read more about Celeste who was lovely. We also see the Christmas tree scene, bed scene and the final scene from Matt's POV. Oh, Matt how much I love you. This boy deserves to be happy after all he went through. 

There's also the final chapter in Julie's POV but this one is different from others. Why? Well, this one is one has a sex scene which was, ,ahem, how do I put this? Hot and I was impressed with Matt and his skills as a lover. Who knew a nerd knows what to do with his hands and tongue. Damn! Where do I sign up for a guy like him?