Flat-Out Celeste

Achingly beautiful and incredibly moving!

Some stories are just like that and they reach deep into the core of my soul and they fill me with so much happiness. They break my heart a bit and then wash away each tear with their intensity.

… Flat-Out Celeste is one of a kind.

 You are who you are. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. At all.
Surround yourself with people who cheer you on.

I finished reading it and then I found myself in that state of mind when I somehow feel like crying (over a wonderful, emotional book), even though inside I am all happy and giddy. You know the feeling, right?

The thing is, I read “Flat-Out Love” quite a while back and I fell in love with it, with the characters, with their stories, with their pain and their happiness. And now, following Celeste, reading from her point of view, being in her tormented, beautiful mind (that it is also full of hope and dreams and love) – it felt like too much to take in, in the best possible way.

I still feel like falling..
I don’t know how skydiving actually feels like (though Matt taught me a thing or two about it *fanning*), but it must be similar somehow – as exhilarating and amazing and full of contradictory emotions.
And it is fitting, you know – Celeste means ‘heavenly’, ‘divine’, so it is related to the sky and it becomes a metaphor on its own, it defines so well the character and it works with my post-skydiving-alike euphoria.

Yeah, I know, I am drunk on this story and I am irrationally babbling.
Caution.. This story might have this effect on you too.

The good:

I don’t even know what should I start with.

I loved Jessica’s emotional writing, full of humour but also tear inducing.
I loved the characters full of life and love, of hope and fears. I loved their complexity, their particularities, I loved everything about them all.

Then there is the beautiful dialogue (with the unique way Celeste talks in) and the wittiness most characters seem to carry around, the geeky t-shirts with those lovely funny messages on them, not to mention the coffee routine, the emails and the sugar-sweet romance.

I guess this means that I loved everything about this story.. and yeah, I truly did!

The Characters:

CELESTE is such a wonderful and special character.
There’s nothing ‘flat’ about her, she has a lot of depth, but I guess that she needed to find that on her own. She needed someone to un-break her tiny heart, she needed to break free of the protectiveness of her family (especially Matt, who loved her so much that he sacrificed everything for her; Matt who also kept her as a shield, ‘protecting’ him from taking risks and living his life), she needed to find ‘herself’ and be comfortable in her own skin. Most of all she needed love. Because love was what broke her in the first place, and love was what could make her whole again.

It will be lovely to see you again. I have missed you, and I don’t have occasion to miss many people.
~ Celeste

JUSTIN is one of the funniest guys out there.
I loved his ramblings, I loved his clumsiness, I loved how protective and caring he was with Celeste, but also I loved how he was the one that made her break free of the many things that kept her in that imperfect bubble of solitude. He was everything she needed and reading their story made me really giddy. They were both so cute and right for each other.

I won’t lie to you, he might have been a bit too good to be true at some point and a bit over-done with the <<I always do that, embarrass people, you might not like me already, but that’s fine>> kind of act and the ex reference – all that could have been toned down a bit too.

But he was wonderful nonetheless and absolutely perfect for Celeste (so full of life and tender). And together they were simply too adorable for words! And I truly I fell in love with their emails.

MATT is a complicated character, as you already know.
He is too into sacrificing his own happiness for the greater good and sometimes he doesn’t understand that people can be happy without actually stepping all over his heart. But I did fell in love with him in the first book and his novella, and so I did more than appreciate each moment with him.

As for the relationship between him and Celeste.. that’s precious. They tease, they help each other, they fight even and they do whatever it takes for the other’s happiness, no matter at what cost.

I am not giving up on you.
You should.
Never.

MATT & JULIE come as a package (more or less) and a lovely one in fact. It pained me to see them apart and I rooted for their ‘happy ever after’ once more. There was this utterly romantic scene I should probably not mention (some might think it’s unrealistic and quick, well I think it’s fairytale alike and sweet).

Conclusion:

I could tell you many more things about Celeste’s parents and her new friends, about her dreams and needs, about her first date and first kiss, about each and every element I loved in this book, but that would never be enough. You need to feel each emotion on your own, you need to love this book for your own personal reasons.

All I can say is that this book is more than I ever thought it would be:
Simply, utterly and flat-out amazing!

Happy midnight reading!

Book source: ARC received from the publisher for review. Thank you very much!

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