Publisher: Dey Street Books
Date of publication: April 7, 2015
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.
Read Bottom Up was an interesting book. Because of the format, it's a very quick read. I read it in about an hour. The "romance" is told through email and text communications between Elliot and Madeline and their best friends Ellie and Dave. Elliot and Madeline meet at a party and a sort of relationship begins. As the reader, we only see the relationship through emails/texts between the 4 characters.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I know what the authors were attempting to do and I found it a cool idea. But I can't say I got any joy out of reading a story about a relationship doomed to fail at the outset. Both Elliot and Madeline were kind of immature and frustrating. The story reminded me of every bad attempt at a relationship I had in college and my early 20s. The second guessing everything and over analyzing that Madeline and Elliot do with their friends brought back memories. Now, I didn't have e-mails and texting, (OMG, can you believe I'm that old?) but I remember sitting for hours with my friends analyzing phone calls and conversations I had with a guy. I also remember the feeling of trying to force something that just wasn't there. So, maybe in that respect the book worked. It was more reality than a lot of romances we get today.
I do recommend giving this book a read. The ending made the drama journey worth it. I also urge you to read the author's note in the beginning. It gives the reader insight into what motivated the authors to write this book and how they went about it.
About the authors:
Neel Shah is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. He used to be a
reporter at the New York Post and his work has appeared in Glamour, GQ,
and New York magazine.
Purchase Links
Tour Stops
Tuesday, April 7th: From the TBR Pile
Wednesday, April 8th: A Chick Who Reads
Thursday, April 9th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Friday, April 10th: A Bookish Way of Life
Tuesday, April 14th: BookNAround
Wednesday, April 15th: bookchickdi
Thursday, April 16th: Peeking Between the Pages
Friday, April 17th: 5 Minutes For Books
Monday, April 20th: Booksie’s Blog
Wednesday, April 22nd: Bibliotica
Thursday, April 23rd: Thoughts On This ‘n That
Monday, April 27th: Mom in Love With Fiction
Tuesday, April 28th: Walking With Nora
Wednesday, April 29th: The Book Binder’s Daughter
Thursday, April 30th: Kritters Ramblings
Monday, May 4th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Wednesday, May 6th: 100 Pages a Day … Stephanie’s
Book Reviews
Friday, May 8th: The Discerning Reader
The idea of a story told entirely through emails is certainly a different kind of approach, and one I haven't seen before.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a part of the tour.
I remember over-analyzing everything when I was a in my teens/early 20's, and I can't imagine how much worse I would have been if we'd had text and email!
ReplyDelete