Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

SPOILER ALERT: Starting this entry, I decided that I’m no longer going to fill in detailed character stuff or plot summaries anymore. That’s honestly what ends up taking so long in these posts and then I end up not doing them, so in the end, I’m just not going to do them. From now on, starting June 2022, any new blog posts about books, movies, dramas, etc., will not be spoiler-free or have spoilers hidden. Read at your own caution!

HUAYDAY RATING: 4 stars on Goodreads, but actually like 3.675 stars…

I’ve been meaning to? wanting to? read this book for so long, but I’m not sure why I never bought it. In order to get free quicker shipping a week or so ago on some item I wanted to buy for my ma, I decided to buy this book (along with another book by Jessica Park, ignoring the fact that I’d never read any of her books before hahaha).

So I’m not sure what kind of plot blurb thing I had read before, but I had some weird idea that this story was about a flat share in Australia or something HAHAHA. This is completely inaccurate.. OH.. Wait do they call apartments “flats” in Australia? lolol not sure why I picked Australia, but anyhow, I thought it was that, probably because of the title.

Welp. Turns out I am very wrong. It’s not about that at all, but instead it’s about a college freshman, Julie, strangely not being able to get into university housing despite being a freshman and coming from out of state. I honestly don’t really know about small private universities, but I feel like that shouldn’t be a thing, especially because private colleges should have funding and/or room for at least freshmen?! It’s not like UCSB…. :| Anyhow, so she has this brilliant idea of renting from craigslist and paying deposit and first and last (was it) months rent? Which is completely dumb, because she ends up in front of a burrito restaurant. She was scammed. But hay, people are dumb. Anyhow, her ma reached out to her college friend who lived nearby. Julie goes to stay with this family while she’s looking for a replacement apartment. She meets her ma’s friend’s son, Matt.

So it’s interesting because the blurb mentioned something about “she likes Matt, but she loves Finn”. So I’ll get to Finn later, but this made it pretty interesting in the sense that Matt is the first guy she meets, so you would think that he’s the main guy. And there are some touchy feely-but we don’t feel giggly about it really-moments so then it’s interesting…

Anyhow. So the big secret is that there’s something WRONG with the daughter of the family, Matt’s lil sis Celeste. It was soo weird because she’s freeking 13, and they talk about her like she’s like 8. Which is fine, because I do know that long-er-time ago, before instagram and tiktok and snapchat, 13 year olds were like really young :P Now they mature too fast. (This book was published in 2011 I think.) So anyway. From the beginning, Matt says that Celeste is strange or weird, but just don’t ask about her. So for like HALF of the book, I’m like.. are they hinting that she has autism or something? Like she seems socially awkward and doesn’t act her age? Why are they making it seem soo taboo? It was really awkward to read.

So this is something that irked me about the book, and I see it did others too (from goodreads reviews). Julie is like.. super judgmental. Like she talks about how her friends were pretty cool and she had an ex but they didn’t really love each other, it was more from convenience, but yet she wants her ex to be curious about her as she is about him. She doesn’t really tell her friends stuff, like the fact that she likes school and studying, etc. It’s so like superficial weird. It’s like the author tried to create a secretive complicated character? But instead, she (the character herself) was complicated for no reason. Or iono, maybe if I read this story back in 2011, while I was a college kid myself, I wouldn’t feel that? Who knows. But at least 11 years after publication (omg.), it seems a bit tacky outdated personalitywise.

Anyhow, so because I thought they were hinting to autism, I thought that the girl was suuuper messed up, like. Trying to fix Celeste when it’s not something that you can “fix”… But then psych major MC talks to her professor and the professor foreshadows junk. Also helped in this case that she mentioned possible Asperger’s/ASD, so that shows that it wasn’t that. But it really sounded suuuper weird the way the author made the MC describe it. She just kept talking about how strange and weird this 13 year old acted and it was not really cool. I thought it was mad messed up. And then the family was also messed up for not saying anything, although I do understand that you might want to not share all of your family secrets with someone who’s temporarily staying with you.. But still.

Oh speaking about outdatedness. Well I guess it was this part of the book that became more interesting. After I found out that Celeste didn’t have Asperger’s and that there was some type of trauma involved, then that left me guessing and not wanting to stop reading. So this chat with her prof happened right before Julie went home for Thanksgiving (in which like a regualar college person visiting home, she didn’t want to see any of the friends she talked about for the first few chapters of the book? huh.).. Um she talked about her messed up aunts and uncles and fam who liked to dress up with Native America and pilgrim hats and how that wasn’t right. So I was like, oh wow, this book was a little more progressive for its time.. Since I don’t recall this being discussed much when I was in college… Definitely not in the history of my K12 schooling for sure. And then she has a battle with a bigoted uncle about the cause of poverty… So this part was pretty cool except also gross and disgusting that her uncle is like that.. (What’s the actual point of this part of the story though? loll a little random.. is it to show that she’s smart and learned stuff in college?).

But then later she chats with her mom after dinner and then wears the pilgrim hat. lol what’s the point of that.

Anyway. So I’m jumping around, but it’s cool.

So anyway, the main weird thing about Celeste is that she’s 13 and has a cardboard cut out of her brother, Finn. Finn, whose room she’s staying in. Celeste tells Julie to add him on facebook, so she does (and adds Matt too). So over time she starts messaging with Finn about his sister. No one will tell Julie about Celeste though. And slowly Julie starts to like Finn. Even despite dating (not official bf though) this guy from a cafe. And she realizes that she really does like Finn and anticipates him coming home. But he’s off exploring the world and volunteering and helping the world, etc. Everyone seems to revere him. Meanwhile, it’s soooo ughh @ their mom. The mom always tells Matt that he needs to focus and study more, etc. when he’s clearly doing so much and is devoid of a social life. I think it’s especially gross because she’s acting like an Asian tiger mom, but for her college aged son. But anyway. So this is when you would start to suspect something is wrong with the mom.. Is it because of what happened with Celeste? I was wondering if Celeste had been sexually assaulted.. but I didn’t know why Finn would be away from the family if this were the case.. Then I was wondering if Celeste had been abused? but same thing. And then the dad is a researcher I think, and away on trips a lot. So I was like, is it because he’s having an affair and then the whole family is broken because of this? But I was like idk why the cardboard brother would need to be a thing though…

Anyhow. So along with all of this, there are some moments of closeness between Julie and Matt. Him helping her with her acrophobia/escalator?? anxiety? And I forgot what else.. (Btw, this phobia/anxiety was pretty random and not even explained, although this was used later in the story 2x - First when she has an imaginary airgasm??? with Finn via fb messenger when she gets stuck in the elevator going to visit the guy she was dating’s house… uh. okay.) But she doesn’t see Matt as anything more than a brother-like figure, and she’s always making fun of his nerdiness/nerd t-shirts/lack of social life. All the meanwhile, she’s in love with his brother who she’s never met or even videochatted with in reallife. And also she keeps wanting to “fix” Celeste. So irritating.

But anyway. I think that while I did want her to be with Matt, despite there not being a connection in general, I thought it was super sweet when Finn had Matt set up the candles in the tree like she told him. And they were lying together, although I was like, if Finn likes Julie, wouldn’t it be weird to tell your bro to do this with her? And oh- another character I hadn’t mentioned is Julie’s dad. Who is an absentee dad with money. But she somehow still really reveres him. And he cancels on her twice. We never even actually met him, he had no lines. But he was used in the plot to get her drunk on New Year’s and drunk dial Matt. lollll okay. And then afterwards she did this crazy jump in the freezing ocean thing, and then I thought Finn would finally meet and find and save her, but it was Matt and Celeste that showed up and helped her.

Soo… When was it that I realized the plot twist??… When I realized it, I was left a little .. empty? feeling… I did want them to meet finally.. But then// Okay I’m flipping through the book. Chapter 28-29 is when she starts to/find/s out.

OHHHH. Well. Chapter 26 is a part that was REALLLY like * _ */tug on your heartstrings type of feeling. Because I have had that exact experience basically. So I reallly liked that this scenario was so so so real and like omg. REAL FEELINGS. So part of what was going on was that in Julie’s mission to make Celeste “normal” she added hinges on Flat Finn, and then encourage Celeste to go to a sleepover party. Celeste ends up having a breakdown and Matt spazzes out @ Julie.

Thennnn Julie feels really bad and apologizes (but Celeste is actually not even that spazzy-it was more in the moment, but she was fine again). But Matt was pissed and Julie went to talk to him (pg. 278) and he was lying in his bed and she goes in his bed and begs for forgiveness by cuddle hugging him and then he apologizes too and then they fall asleep. And then they stirred and then she moved closer and then he closed the gap and they made out and at this point I’m like :OOOOOOOOO What about Finnnnnnnnnnnn.. And then yeah. Somewhere between Chapter 26-27 then is when I realized the ultimate twist.

Finn was dead.

And Matt was being Finn online.

So yeahhh that was a thing. I mean that’s the main secret of the plot. So the mom has depression and she was in a really bad place off her meds, went for a drive, Finn ran into the backseat to try to stop her, she got in a car accident on black ice, Finn died immediately. Matt and Celeste were walking home from piano lessons and basically witness the (aftermath of the) accident. That’s why she was so traumatized and ordered a cardboard cutout of her brother. The whole family kept it a secret from a lot of people and they sort of carried on as if Finn was just away and that he wasn’t dead.

Oh there’s a part where she also finds out that she’s been staying in Matt’s room, not Finn’s… So the shirt she’d been caught smelling by Matt was actually Matt’s shirt lolol. That was cute.

Anyway. So yeah that’s the big reveal.

So it’s interesting because in this part of the book, it’s pretty like eek. I do understand her feelings in this part of the book.. I think that’s why I’m inbetween ratings for this book. The first half I was like, she’s sort ofa really sucky protagonist.. But then once the relationships begin to develop and it’s not just about her, it gets more interesting. So Julie is so upset obviously. She fell in love with someone that wasn’t really who she thought it was. Matt had lied to her. She does say that obviously their family was going through something worst, but she can’t help her broken heart, and I think this part is completely true and real and I can’t imagine how that might feel.. To be so hurt by someone whose pain is so different from yours… But then after sometime, Celeste is really healing and then they reunite and go skydiving together. The end.

XD. So that’s why I’m at a 3.675… Not quite a 3.75, but it’s better than a 3.5 :P

-huay