"I stare at the first plane that's cutting the sky in two. I stare and I send my love. I send it to the woman in seat 5A who is worried about something. I send it to the man in first class who's not feeling well. I focus on the stars, and I send love to the aliens flying millions of miles from me in outer space. My brain people like to think that one of these days, they'll be coming for me" (45).
Title: Ask the PassengersAuthor: A.S. King
HARDBACK
Amount of Pages: 293
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 23, 2012
Gered Towards: Teens
From: Publisher (Review Copy)
I was not paid for this review.
Summary (From Front Flap):
How do you give your love away when no one seems to want it?
You send it up into the sky.
And you hope the right person catches it.
Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people wo won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions...like what it means that she's falling love with a girl.
As her secret relationship becomes more intense and her friends demand answers, Astrid has nowhere left to turn. She can't share the truth with anyone except the poeple at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even realize she's there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers' lives-and her own-for the better.
Wdebo's Review: I remember reading The Dust of 100 Dogs three or so years ago and being completely in love with it; therefore, when I was given a chance to review Ask the Passengers I pounced at the chance.
Compared to The Dust of 100 Dogs, Ask the Passengers does not seem to contain anything truly remarkable or throught-provoking. However, there was just something about the novel that I found truly touching. Though the storyline itself is nothing too exciting and goes along the same path that many other high school coming of age stories do there was something about Astrid that made her someone truly magical in her averageness and through King's simple, honest writing. Astrid is a character that is very relatable to the readers. I'm sure all of us have felt, at one point in our lives, that we were unloved or unnecessary (For some of us, this feeling has progressed throughout half or all of our entire existence.) Therefore, through this simple similarity Astrid was a very remarkable character. She is the awkward, shy person that we feel like inside. That person that feels unloved, ignored and just needs some love sent her way.
The book is divided into the actual story and little snippets of the lives of the passengers and how Astrid's love affects each of them different way. I loved that. I love reading about other people's life that even though we are all different and going our own separate way we can be connected in some unknown way. The book shows the effect that a little bit of love can create. Even if you are just giving your love arbitrarily to the skies it will be able to find the right person and just help them through their lives. I think that's where the magic part of this story comes from. We never truly get to stop and think that we should just pause and love more that life should be focused on our relationships and not just what we are superficially to others.
Those were the two main things that truly stuck with me in this book, the love that could be felt in the pages and Astrid's character. However, I found the plot to be disappointingly lacking the same sort of charm that the other two elements possessed. It went down the same path that every other book about the same topic delved into and the relationship strains were tied up too quickly towards the ending. Though they did not end up in a "happily-ever-after" way it was still not the ending I was searching for in a book like this one.
Cafe Cover Chat: I really love this cover there is something this cover possesses that represents my thoughts of the book. The warmth and the comfort that it gives off. (A-)
All in all, though the storyline was not phenomenal but the writing and character of Astrid make up for it. I found myself reading this book, not to see where the story would go but mainly for Astrid's love-giving because every time she parted with a little bit of love I felt like some of it was reaching me and it just made me feel a bit more comforted and warmed.
Grade: B+/A-
The book is divided into the actual story and little snippets of the lives of the passengers and how Astrid's love affects each of them different way. I loved that. I love reading about other people's life that even though we are all different and going our own separate way we can be connected in some unknown way. The book shows the effect that a little bit of love can create. Even if you are just giving your love arbitrarily to the skies it will be able to find the right person and just help them through their lives. I think that's where the magic part of this story comes from. We never truly get to stop and think that we should just pause and love more that life should be focused on our relationships and not just what we are superficially to others.
Those were the two main things that truly stuck with me in this book, the love that could be felt in the pages and Astrid's character. However, I found the plot to be disappointingly lacking the same sort of charm that the other two elements possessed. It went down the same path that every other book about the same topic delved into and the relationship strains were tied up too quickly towards the ending. Though they did not end up in a "happily-ever-after" way it was still not the ending I was searching for in a book like this one.
Cafe Cover Chat: I really love this cover there is something this cover possesses that represents my thoughts of the book. The warmth and the comfort that it gives off. (A-)
All in all, though the storyline was not phenomenal but the writing and character of Astrid make up for it. I found myself reading this book, not to see where the story would go but mainly for Astrid's love-giving because every time she parted with a little bit of love I felt like some of it was reaching me and it just made me feel a bit more comforted and warmed.
Grade: B+/A-
Wdebo :)
"I stare out the window and smile because just dreaming it is nice...even if it doesn't happen. Just dreaming it is nice" (216).
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