Ask the Passengers by A. S. King

Goodreads
296 pages, YA Contemporary
Standalone
My rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis

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 who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she's falling in 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 people at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even know 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.

In this truly original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking real love.

My 2 cents

Astrid is pretty sure she is gay. But not a 100% sure, although she knows her best friend, Kristin is gay. Kristin hides it by having a "boyfriend" named Justin (who is also gay) and they double date all the time with another couple, that are there actual partners. Astrid is misunderstood by a very dominating mother, a father who spends most of his time smoking pot in secret, and a younger sister that hates her.

Her favorite thing to do is to lay on her picnic table and watch the planes go by, and then send up her love to them because she doesn't want to really love anyone in her life. And this is where the story got kind of weird for me. She's sending out her love, and then we jump to a passenger in an actual plane and what their thoughts are. It was a little all over the place,and I just couldn't figure out how it relates to Astrid.

The parts of the story where we get to see her in her own life are the most interesting. Astrid goes to a high school EXACTLY like mine was, so even though I'm not gay myself, I could really relate to her. The high school scenes were actually the most in depth in the book. If the author has just omitted those strange scenes with the passengers, I would have enjoyed the story even more!