Madeline and Elliot meet at a New York City food event. Flirtation, online, ensues. A romance, potentially eternal, possibly doomed, begins.
And, like most things in life today, their early exchanges are very public, available to be scrutinized and interpreted by well-intentioned friends (aka amateur love doctors) who are a mere click away. Of course like all good email trails, this one reads from the bottom up.
Madeline and Elliot's relationship unfolds through a series of thrilling, confounding, and funny exchanges with each other and with their best friends. The result is a brand new kind of modern romantic comedy, both in format and in content. Read Bottom Up is a brilliant, fresh portrait that captures how enchanting, exciting, and downright confusing falling in love twenty-first-century style can be.
ebook, 256 pages
Expected publication:
April 7th 2015
by Dey Street Books
(first published June 17th 2014)
I received an advanced readers copy from Dey Street Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
The very first thing that I have to say about this book is that it is super easy to read and can be read in one sitting in about an hour or so. I'm not kidding...it is that quick of a read. The entire book is made up of emails and text messages between four people and it tells a relationship story through this method.
I have read books done in this style before where it was quite effective. I did however think that the synopsis made the story out to be more than it actually was. The story itself was not as good as what the synopsis made it sound. Yes, it had some humorous moments and it was interesting to read through the emails and texts but there wasn't a whole lot of depth. I completely understand the texting part of the story but do friends actually still email each other with this kind of stuff? For a quirky book that is meant to bring us to today's world it seemed to date it a little. I apologise if I am wrong but speaking for myself I can say that I don't think I have emailed a friend in over a decade. I think that it would have made more sense if it had been done completely in text.
The story in short is a very quick and condensed technological view of a new relationship between two people and how it plays out. With it being done through email and text, the reader hears about the goings on after the fact and is never really a part of the couple connecting or falling in love. I wasn't routing for the couple one way or the other and didn't love or hate them. It was really too quick to connect with the characters or story. Basically it was just an interesting and entertaining way to get lost for an hour or two on a snowy afternoon.
About the Authors
Neel Shah is a screenwriter in Los Angeles currently working on a pilot for ABC. Prior to that, he was a reporter at the New York Post, and also wrote for magazines, including GQ, Glamour, and New York.
Skye Chatham is a writer living in New York. Her work has appeared in GQ and Maxim.
I really like the idea of this - it reminds me of Rainbow Rowell's Attachments - so it's disappointing that there's more style than substance. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteBeth x
www.thequietpeople.com