READ BOTTOM UP - Neel Shah and Skye Chatham
Dey Street Books
ISBN: 978-0-06-226218-9
February 2016
Fiction

March to November in New York City

Chef Elliot Rowe has recently broken up with his girlfriend when he attends a food event in the City. While there, he begins a flirtation with another girl. He doesn't get her number but has a source from whom he gets her email address. The next day he sends her an email to introduce himself. She is Madeline Whittaker, a something in marketing in the publishing business.

A relationship commences, one we are privy to only through their emails and texting with each other and with their communications with their best friends.

Not surprisingly, READ BOTTOM UP is a fast read, but it's also surprisingly easy to comprehend the whole story. We learn a lot about them from their messages to each other and more from the enlightening back and forth between Elliot and David and Madeline and Emily. They are the only live participants in the tale, though some others are referred to.

On the back cover of the novel, much is made of this as a romance carried out in today's electronic age. I found it interesting to contemplate, but admit to not being able to identify with the characters. But then, I have many more years in my dish (as they say in Regency romances) than they. Still, I can recommend it as something fun and different for an evening's entertainment. It even has its own website and Twitter account. Go to www.readbottomup.com .

Jane Bowers