Flat-Out Love: A Nice, Comforting Read about Uncomfortable Coping Mechanisms

Flat-Out Love is about a family, the Watkinses, and a girl, Julie, who comes to live with them during her freshman year in college. Soon after moving in with them, Julie find herself attached to the kids of the family: Matt, a geeky type who goes to MIT, Celeste, a thirteen-year old girl who has some psychological scars that Julie wants to learn more about, and Finn, the "adventurous son," whom Julie befriends on Facebook, and Celeste carries as a cardboard cutout ("Flat Finn") everywhere she goes.

The parents, Erin, a lawyer, and Roger, a university professor, are mostly absent, so Julie, Celeste and Matt, and, over the Internet, Finn, get to know each other better and care for each other. As one would expect, Julie also falls in love with Finn. The story is pretty straightforward for a while, while also subtly growing in complexity, as everyone becomes far more multilayered than one stereotype or another could ever encapsulate. Matt, for instance, seems geeky, but he's also a teen that is dealing with lots and lots of family issues. We get to learn more about him as the story progresses. I think Jessica Park did a great job of revealing this character to us.

Celeste is also more than we're led to expect at first, but I think her transformation is less believable. Still, I enjoyed her story too.

Then there's Julie herself, who comes with her own baggage. Nothing as big as the Watkinses', but when she takes on their problems as well, she gets into a deep end.

I enjoyed the book, so I won't give any more spoilers.

The book has a great pace and I found myself reading late into the night, to see how the book would end. It's probably not quite as good as John Green's "pitch-perfect" novel (as reviewers describe it -- indeed!) The Fault in Our Stars, but it's up there close.

Enjoy!