Review: Ask the Passengers

author: A. S. (Amy Sarig) King 

length: 293 pages

genre: Realist fiction

my rating: 4.3/5

A. S. King is one of those authors with a very distinctive style - the first book of hers that I'd read was I Crawl Through It (go have a look at it, it's amazing) so I was expecting Ask the Passengers to be similar - mysterious and surrealist.

However, this book is quite different to ICTI. It's centered around a girl named Astrid Jones, who hides her love for the girl she works with by sending it up to aeroplane passengers. She lives in a small and conservative town, with a mother who favours Astrid's sister, Ellis, and a father who she rarely sees. But as Astrid's feelings for Dee grow stronger, people start to wonder about her.

I liked Ask the Passengers because of Astrid's unique characteristics - she's interested in philosophy, and sees the world in a unique way -, although at times I found the book a little tedious. However, something that I liked was the way that Astrid's story is linked to the stories of the aeroplane passengers. And the end was amazing; I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thought that it was really well done, and helped to link everything together.

I'd recommend Ask the Passengers to anyone who's ever felt like they are alone because of their differences - Astrid is a really relatable narrator :)  If you've read and enjoyed The Upside of Unrequited (Becky Albertalli) or Because You'll Never Meet Me (Leah Thomas), I think you'll love this book.