I was curious to read Jessica Park's YA romance, Flat Out Love, as it's published by Amazon Children's Publishing and I've been interested in how their publishing arm would work out and what they're focusing on. I wasn't prepared to enjoy the book as much as I did. It was billed as a teen romance so I was expecting it to be fairly formulaic, and in fact there was less romance and more about dealing with growing up, coping with love, trust and loss. So overall there was much more meat to the story than I was expecting. There were some interesting twists and turns although I guessed the main one well before the end of the book. That didn't matter, though, because what was important was the way Park developed the characters and situations and the touching ways they all ended up resolving their issues. Park uses settings very effectively and the city of Boston itself plays a major role in the story. So going back to my comments on Truby's book yesterday, this book is a great example of using secondary characters and settings to augment the protagonist's main journey. Don't write this book off as a fluffy summer romance. It's anything but. It's not too heavy, but rather is an accessible way for young readers to think about how to cope with change and growing up under often difficult circumstances. It's also a quick read. You can get through it in a day or two and it kept my interest throughout.
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