Read Bottom Up: A Novel by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham

(Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!)

about book:

A charming novel about falling in love (or like) in the digital age—the never-before-seen full story.

Madeline and Elliot meet at a New York City restaurant opening. Flirtation—online—ensues. A romance, potentially eternal, possibly doomed, begins.

And, like most things in life today, their early exchanges are available to be scrutinized and interpreted by well-intentioned friends who are a mere click away.

Madeline and Elliot’s relationship unfolds through a series of thrilling, confounding, and funny exchanges with each other, and, of course, with their best friends and dubious confidants (Emily and David). The result is a brand-new kind of modern romantic comedy, in format, in content, and even in creation—the authors exchanged e-mails in real time, blind to each other’s side conversations. You will nod in appreciation and roll your eyes in recognition; you’ll learn a thing or two about how the other half approaches a new relationship . . . and you will cheer for an unexpected ending that just might restore your faith in falling in love, twenty-first-century style.

my thoughts:

I read this book as soon as I received it in the post.  I sat down with a cuppa and just dove right in.  And I absolutely loved it!

Read Bottom Up is a delightful book about dating in the modern world.  Falling in love means texts messages, emails, and Instagram; along with all of the swirling emotions of lust and love.  Madeline and Elliot meet, date, and break up.  And their best mates hear all about it via text messages and forwarded emails.  In fact, by the end of the story their best mates wind up dating each other thanks to all of the texts and emails they begin to send to each other as well.  Talk about social media at work!

Told via emails and text messages, we get to learn all about Elliot and Madeline's first impressions of one another and their interpretation of what dating consists of as the story progresses.  We get to see Elliot waver on committing to Madeline, while she wonders what he was thinking when he invites her to meet up and she finds him with a group of friends - talk about a bad date!  The more we read through the emails and texts, the more it becomes obvious how much more serious Madeline is taking the relationship compared to Elliot.  I couldn't help but relate to and commiserate with Madeline at times.  It reminded me of dating when I was younger and how much I would over-analyze everything - think play answering machine message to best friend to dissect what boyfriend's message really meant.  You know what I mean, right?

I would definitely recommend Read Bottom Up to fans of chick lit, women's fiction, and lad lit.  The writing is fresh, funny, and relatable.  I found myself chuckling, cringing, and shaking my head as I read this story - it was unputdownable!

If you want to find out what other bloggers have to say, then check out the link to the TLC Book Tour schedule for: Read Bottom Up

Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!