The Flight Attendant

That this gets any decent reviews is more puzzling than the actual premise of the book. Forget that the heroine is flawed, drunk and unlikable, the plot is boring and never takes flight.
Even the insider look at flight attendants was boring and not at all revealing. I don’t mind a drunk, unreliable narrator but there has to be something else to read about other than another cold glass of vodka/wine/whatever. Do something. Be brave. Solve a crime.
Even the contrived and dumb ending was best served lukewarm.
I’m not as mad about what I spent to buy this book as I am about the hours of my life I can’t get back from reading it.
Note to self: Read the one star reviews before buying another book.

Fair warning: If you are reading this book because you have a legitimate interest in airlines/aviation, you will be extremely irritated by the inaccuracies. Faux pas include mentions of pilots drinking the night before a flight (not allowed), goofing the cruise altitude (it’s 39,000 feet and change on transatlantic flights, not 35k), and reversing the flight attendant hierarchy (senior employees work coach, newbies get stuck with the legendarily difficult people in first class). It’s also worth noting that every single pilot on the sidelines is a man and Cassie herself holds the opinion that the only competent pilots are middle aged men. Can you say “sexist” any louder?

As far as the overall quality of the book, the author couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to write about flight attendants or spies and so he did both badly. The flight attendant side is both vague and inaccurate, and the spy side is even more vague with too many changing characters whose roles are never explained. There’s more rambling about drinking than actual plot development, and I didn’t find Cassie to be particularly likeable or believable. She knows she’s a train wreck, she knows exactly what she’s doing wrong, and yet she won’t make any effort to change her ways even though she’s deeply unsatisfied with her life. Zero character development, and most of them are cardboard cutouts anyways. The ending is a deus ex machina that manages to tie it in a bow without truly resolving anything.

Icing on the cake: The author made a point of throwing in multi-syllabic “dictionary words” that the average reader wouldn’t understand to try to class up what is otherwise a mediocre, under-researched book. Three stars because the book was still engrossing despite some rather unforgivable flaws.

Mixed bag. I rated it 3 stars because it disappointed my expectations, not necessarily because it was an uninteresting book. It has a terrific premise with an alcoholic flight attendant sleeping with a stranger with whom she awakens and he has been clearly murdered. I thought a great premise for a mystery book. The flight attendant is borderline likeable due to the fact she is an alcoholic, but still an interesting main character. However, during the first half of the book there are so many ancillary paragraphs that are beyond trying, that the book slows to a snails pace. The author could have cut 50 pages from the first half of the book and not lost one pertinent fact. The 2nd half of the book is excellent, faster paced and interesting. I thought the ending was a bit rushed. I do not quarrel with the premises but would have an enjoyed a more thorough explanation of the concluding circumstances of the involved characters.

There isn’t really any reason to read this book, unless you have time to waste. I kept reading because I was trying to find out why there were such positive reviews, maybe I was missing something? No…believe me, and you can thank me for it later!

Quite simply, the book was a disappointment. I expected a suspense thriller but what I got was a pathetic, whiny woman who constantly felt sorry for herself. Fast forward to the end, the author seemed to be bored as well as all of a sudden, the main character has a child and becomes a small time spy. Huh?!

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