Flight: A Novel
It’s December twenty-second and siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry’s house in upstate New York. This is the first Christmas the siblings are without their mother, the first not at their mother’s Florida house. Flight is a novel of family, ambition, precarity, art, and desire, one that forms a powerful next step from a brilliant chronicler of our time.
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Community Reviews
It's Christmas time and three siblings and their families gather after the death of their beloved mother. They come to odds when discussing what to do with their mother's house since one sibling wants to keep the house and live in it with her family, while the other two pressure her to sell the house and divide the proceeds.
There's a side story about a young single mother, Quinn, who once lost custody of her daughter and continues to struggle. She is linked to the family through Alice, who is a social worker.
Spoiler alert:
They come together as a family when Quinn's daughter, Maddie becomes missing. In the end, the house situation is settled amicably. Kate and her husband live in the house and raise their children and she make payments to her brothers over the course of years.
I didn't like or relate to all the bickering amongst the siblings. Also, Quinn and Maddie's situation was terribly sad. Young Quinn becomes pregnant as a teen and finds it hard to be a good mother.
There's a side story about a young single mother, Quinn, who once lost custody of her daughter and continues to struggle. She is linked to the family through Alice, who is a social worker.
Spoiler alert:
They come together as a family when Quinn's daughter, Maddie becomes missing. In the end, the house situation is settled amicably. Kate and her husband live in the house and raise their children and she make payments to her brothers over the course of years.
I didn't like or relate to all the bickering amongst the siblings. Also, Quinn and Maddie's situation was terribly sad. Young Quinn becomes pregnant as a teen and finds it hard to be a good mother.
This was a mediocre read for me until all of a sudden it wasn't.
There is this magic Alexie performs where I really believe in the magic and not the magic trick. This is not to say I believed Zits was really traveling through time (or did I...?), but I certainly believed the character with the tough exterior built up layer by layer by layer through every bad experience that had been piled on throughout his short fifteen years.
Zits started out as a humorous punk kid and ended with my heart in his hands. Would you believe I am actually picturing this? Zits with his palms up and my heart lying there like a sleeping kitten? Please excuse me, as I've only had one cup of coffee this morning.
Let me leave you with a couple quotes that will make more sense than me right now:
I bet you a million dollars there are less than five books in this whole house. What kind of life can you have in a house without books? I knew there was something to like about this kid...
Then I remember that God is really, really old. So maybe God has God arthritis. And maybe that's why the world sucks. Maybe God's hands and fingers don't work as well as they used to.
Maybe God looks down on earth and sees the bad guys and tries to pick them up. Maybe he wants to squish them like bugs. But God's arthritis is so bad he can't make his fingers work.
What I'm trying to say in this review that isn't quite a review is that I love Alexie. I have gone out and purchased just about everything he has written because several books in and halfway through this one, I realized it isn't a farce. I'll say it right now - he is going to become one of my favorite authors. This also means that he has to have his own star rating scale and be held to a higher standard. Therefore....
4 Stars
There is this magic Alexie performs where I really believe in the magic and not the magic trick. This is not to say I believed Zits was really traveling through time (or did I...?), but I certainly believed the character with the tough exterior built up layer by layer by layer through every bad experience that had been piled on throughout his short fifteen years.
Zits started out as a humorous punk kid and ended with my heart in his hands. Would you believe I am actually picturing this? Zits with his palms up and my heart lying there like a sleeping kitten? Please excuse me, as I've only had one cup of coffee this morning.
Let me leave you with a couple quotes that will make more sense than me right now:
I bet you a million dollars there are less than five books in this whole house. What kind of life can you have in a house without books? I knew there was something to like about this kid...
Then I remember that God is really, really old. So maybe God has God arthritis. And maybe that's why the world sucks. Maybe God's hands and fingers don't work as well as they used to.
Maybe God looks down on earth and sees the bad guys and tries to pick them up. Maybe he wants to squish them like bugs. But God's arthritis is so bad he can't make his fingers work.
What I'm trying to say in this review that isn't quite a review is that I love Alexie. I have gone out and purchased just about everything he has written because several books in and halfway through this one, I realized it isn't a farce. I'll say it right now - he is going to become one of my favorite authors. This also means that he has to have his own star rating scale and be held to a higher standard. Therefore....
4 Stars
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