Book Review – Flat Out Matt

From Goodreads:

Matt is a junior at MIT. He’s geeky, he’s witty, he’s brilliant.

And he’s also very, very stupid.

When beautiful, cool, insightful Julie moves in with Matt’s family, why (oh why!) does he pretend to be his absent brother Finn for her alleged benefit?

It seems harmless enough until her short-term stay becomes permanent. And until it snowballs into heart-squeezing insanity. And until he falls in love with Julie, and Julie falls in love with Finn.

But … Matt is the right one for her. If only he can make Julie see it. Without telling her the truth, without shattering them all. Particularly his fragile sister Celeste, who may need Julie the most.

You saw Matt through Julie’s eyes in Flat-Out Love. Now go deeper into Matt’s world in this Flat-Out Matt novella. Live his side of the story, break when his heart breaks, and fall for the unlikely hero all over again.

Take an emotional skydive for two prequel chapters and seven Flat-Out Love chapters retold from his perspective, and then land with a brand-new steamy finale chapter from Julie.

After enjoying ‘Flat Out Love’ so much, I went into this with high expectations, only to find it is more of a companion/outtake/behind the scenes type of publication. It still had that quick wit and invoked the passion felt in its predecessor, but lacked the continuity of a story, jumping forward in chunks of time. There was also too much repetition. Experiencing events through Matt’s eyes did not uncover anything drastically new, or put an interesting spin on events.

Jessica Parks writing is flawless and I completely love her style, I just didn’t get into this so much. There is more adult content in this edition (unlike ‘Flat Out Love’) which does not detract from the story – in my opinion, it reflects Matt’s maturity and redeemed the book.

Although highly predictable I wish it could have explored more of the family’s issues and/or history and reveal more about their lives. Or even a new character introduced into the mix that Julie never got to meet. I was left feeling a little unfulfilled at the end of the story, but got a warm hug in re-connecting with one of my favourite literary couples.

I’d only recommend this to hard core fans of the first book in the series – it’s definitely not a stand alone.

  

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