This past weekend, I read two books by the beautiful author (and my friend) Jessica Park. I am going to share them both with you today in hopes that you will give them a read yourself.
Flat Out Love by Jessica Park was truly a joy to read. Since the book and I have parted ways, I have had this story on my mind several times. I loved the story line, I loved the characters, I loved how easy this book was to read. Jessica is pure genius in my mind. I normally try to give you a summary of what the book is about but I have struggled with this book because I do not want to ruin it for anyone. There is a high probability that I would include some spoilers so, I am going to share the summary from Amazon instead.
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.
Julie and Finn’s communication had me literally laughing out loud at times, along with the hilarious family scenes that take place. I also cried during the course of reading this book. I am going to be sharing this story with my tween daughter because I think she will love it and it is not a racy or steamy book in any way. I hope you give this one a try!
Relatively Famous by Jessica Park was the second book I read this weekend. It is about a typical teen girl whose life gets turned upside down when she finds out the father she has never known happens to be a movie star, Mark Ocean. Dani decides to visit her father to get to know him better. Her father is simply trying to improve his bad-boy image. Over the course of the book, you find Dani and her father growing closer, Dani finding new friends and boys(!), and how life changes for them all. It was super cute and I loved every minute of it. This is another book I will be sharing with my daughter because I think she would enjoy it and I hope you would too.
I read both books on my Kindle and both are very affordable that way. Let me know if you read them and what you thought.
Both sound great. I will check in to them. I love getting new book ideas.