I should say this book should have been named FLAT OUT CRAZY But AMAZING!!
"Normal people can become very annoying if put in annoying situations."
This book gave me the ultimate book boner with all the psychological aspects that were present.
As a future counselor I sorta guessed from the very beginning what happened BUT the ultimate test with any author is even if you SUSPECT/GUESS/KNOW what is going to happen and they are still able to make you portray the emotions they wanted you to experience, then they are an A+ author. And Jessica Park did that and more.
I seriously had to put the book down and cry in a corner for a minute to get over all the heartbreak and emotions that I was feeling. Ok maybe it was my bed and not a corner but you get the point.
This book made me FEEL and I came out on the other side in a mixed bag of emotions.
Just call me emotionally unstable!!
This book starts off with Julie, who is just starting college and she gets ripped off by an online ad for a room for rent. Not only is there not a room for rent but she also lost a lot of money in the process. Julie calls her mother and her mother contacts an old college roommate that offers Julie a room to stay in while she is at school.
This is where she meets the ever-quirky Watkins family.
I loved each member of the family because of their uniqueness, especially the old Celeste and the new one that was present by the end of the book.
Celeste was carrying around a cardboard cutout of her older brother Finn because he was away from home and the whole family missed him terribly. Flat Finn, which he was appropriately named, went everywhere Celeste went in the home. She was a hermit, only staying confined in the walls of her home while being socially awkward at school. The psychology student in me was naming all kinds of scenarios that happened with Celeste to make her that attached to her FF because it wasn't normal and it drove me crazy that the Watkins family refused to not only talk about the huge elephant in the room but to also ignore how awkward Celeste was. It wasn't until Julie started to work with Celeste that you started to see a change in Celeste. She started acting like a quirky-"normal" teenager like the other girls in her school. It both terrified and thrilled the Watkins family.
Julie also spent a lot of time with Matt and online Finn. Since Finn traveled all over the world the only communication he had was through the internet. You begin to see a little love triangle type thing form between them and you are not only falling in love with the nerdy Matt but also the adventurous Finn.
Matt was fun, creative, smart, driven, determined, but also had a humorous and sweet side. The banter between Julie and Matt was funny, flirty and borderline explosive. When they argued it was still funny and even if Julie was aiming more towards Finn, I felt that she belonged to Matt!
"I'm guessing by the suitcases that you must be Julie? Or else I'm about to kidnap the wrong girl."
Finn was adventurous, sweet, kind, and was there to give Julie advice when she needed it the most. But he couldn't physically be there for her since he traveled all over the world and never came home, the only communication was through FB and emails so while Julie felt emotionally attached to Finn, she couldn't be physically attached.
The ending is what I figured out from the very beginning but I didn't know all the details to what happened and the who, what, where, how, when etc so when it finally came time for the big plot twist I was OH MY GOSHING and crying buckets. The reveal wasn't what made it emotional it was the pain and sorrow that was depicted that made me weep.
I was a goner!
But I was also disappointed in the very end as well. Of course I have not read Flat-Out-Matt yet so I might get more information in that book and will have to change this review. But I wanted to find out more about Julie and her father's relationship and her mom kind of dropped off after being a big part of it in the beginning of the book. Also we never figured out what her major was going to be. Lastly, the ending with Matt and Julie was kind of anticlimactic, I thought it needed to be more exciting because of everything that happened but thats just me and it didn't deter from the story in any way and I still loved it! It was just little things but it left me wanting more!!
Then again I LOVED the characters so much that I probably would have wanted more no matter what!
I give this book a 4.5/5 and I hope every ONE of you LOVE this book as much as I did
Snippets from the book:
"I see a maniacal-looking guy with brightly colored candy in one hand, and he's waving a bloody sickle with the other. Oh! He's beckoning me to the car. This must be my ride."
"But that's what love does to you. Gut-wrenching, overpowering, crushing, fulfilling, complex, bring-you-to-your-knees love."
"The cockroaches are a nice bonus. I've always wanted to live with animals. And I can make extra money working as a hooker. Those girls outside looked really friendly, and I'm sure they'd take me under their wing and teach me the tricks of the trade. Pardon the pun."
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2013
