Flight Season, by Marie Marquardt | {ARC} Book Review #326

A huge Thank You to St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley, for allowing me to read Flight Season in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger Warning: Death & Grief

Back when they were still strangers, TJ Carvalho witnessed the only moment in Vivi Flannigan’s life when she lost control entirely. Now, TJ can’t seem to erase that moment from his mind, no matter how hard he tries. Vivi doesn’t remember any of it, but she’s determined to leave it far behind. And she will.

But when Vivi returns home from her first year away at college, her big plans and TJ’s ambition to become a nurse land them both on the heart ward of a university hospital, facing them with a long and painful summer together – three months of glorified babysitting for Ángel, the problem patient on the hall. Sure, Ángel may be suffering from a life-threatening heart infection, but that doesn’t make him any less of a pain.

As it turns out, though, Ángel Solís has a thing or two to teach them about all those big plans, and the incredible moments when love gets in their way.

Written in alternating first person from the perspectives of all three characters, Flight Season is a story about discovering what’s really worth holding onto, learning how to let go of the rest, and that one crazy summer that changes your life forever.

Publication Date: February 20, 2018.

Flight Season is a story that has three very different points of view. You may think that they might not work together, since all three personalities are incredibly different. Yet, they all fit together like a puzzle—exceedingly well. The three characters’ points of view are from Vivi, TJ, & Ángel.

Vivi, in this novel, deals with a lot of emotions. She deals with a few things that any teenager shouldn’t face while they are young. What I like most about Vivi’s character, is that in my opinion, she was written very realistically.

TJ, in the beginning, was a lot like me: surely and growly. Slowly though, TJ begins to open up and we see how much of a great character he truly is. We also get to see what problems he may or may not face in this story.

Ángel is the third point of view that we read from. Ángel is the character that brings life into this novel. Ángel breaks the fourth wall with the reader and I couldn’t have been more happy about that.

Saying what I did about Ángel’s character, as soon as I started reading from his point of view, I knew immediately how this book would end. — I didn’t want to be able to predict what would happen, but I did, and that doesn’t make the end of Flight Season all that much brighter.

I genuinely enjoyed the writing in Flight Season. For the author to be able to write three separate characters—three separate personalities so clearly is amazing to me.

As each character is faced with their own problems, we truly see how friendship lasts for life.

There was nothing that I didn’t like about this novel. I loved everything about this story. I love the characters, whether they were main characters or not. I loved the fact that their friendship, and even romance, was written in such an unforgettable way. It’s not everyday where I read a characters point of view and become immediately smitten with a character.

Flight Season is a book that people will either love, or hate, and I’m so, so glad that I am on the loving side of loving this novel. To me, Flight Season is unforgettable. I’m going to remember this book for the rest of my life. I may say that about quite a few books, but honestly, I am over the moon with this book. It’s not often I read a Contemporary and love it that much.

The ending to Flight Season still haunts me, and I finished reading this trio’s story a few weeks ago.

What makes Flight Season different from any other book that I’ve read is that I haven’t read such a memorable contemporary novel in such a long time. The three different points of view are woven together seamlessly and in such a way that just recalling Flight Season as a whole takes my breath away.