Flat-Out Love

by Jessica Park

[Cocktails and Books]

I'm so glad that I followed the leader on this one and picked it up. It's definitely not one of your typical YA romance books. It's filled with quirky characters and dialogue that at times has your laughing or breaks your heart.

Julie, a college freshman, finds herself without an apartment a week before school starts. Enter the Watkins family. Julie's mom, Kate, went to college with Erin Watkins. So as any good mother would, she called up her long lost college roommate and found a place for her daughter to stay. On the surface, the family seems to be like an other typical family with quirks. But as Julie's life intertwines with theirs we start to discover something amiss with the Watkins. The parents who are never home, the eldest son, Finn, is globe-trotting, and the youngest son, Matt, is left to care for his baby sister, Celeste. Julie become Celeste's caregiver, in hopes of helping the little girl fit in, but she discovers it may not be just Celeste that needs help.

I won't lie and say I didn't figure out the plot "shocker", but the characters were so engaging I found myself unable to put the book down because I needed to know what happened with Julie, Matt, Finn and Celeste. I was lost in the friendship that built between Matt and Julie. I was desperate to discover if Julie could help Celeste be less socially awkward. And I needed to know if Finn was ever going to visit his home again.

The last 50 or so pages will absolutely rip your heart out, but they'll also produce a watery smile when we finally get to see a "whole" Watkins family.