Goodreads Summary:
A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.
High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires her to fly for his banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park. And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.
But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business — until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers — and the consequences could be deadly.
But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business — until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers — and the consequences could be deadly.
My Review:
First of all, I just want to say that this book is for older teens. As a parent, this is the kind of book I would read first before I let my teenager read it and I would read it with them. It has all kinds of content issues- sexual situations, fairly graphic sexual activity, and language. Wow, the language! I think that this book has one of the widest ranges of bad language I've seen in a YA book- pretty much every bad word except the "c" word. One of the words used...I was shocked.
Theme music for this post:
I know, obvious, but it is the song that popped into my head throughout this book. I like the character of Leah. I like that she's spunky and feisty and determined to make the best and most of her life. This was one of those books in which the characters were so real to me that when I stopped reading the book, real life was a little jarring. Also, I know I really like a character when I keep going back and thinking about what comes next for them- you want to know what happens next after the book is over. The characters in this book were so well written that even Leah's mother- who is mostly absent in the book- is such a large presence. The author is able to define her and make Leah's mother's influence and character felt in the "blank" spaces of the book. Basically, every single component of a well written book is here. Great characters, a fast moving and interesting plot, very readable, etc. My big issue of course is the language and sexual issues. This is one of those books that makes me wonder who this book is written for. In other words, are authors writing YA books for adults? Here's one statistic:
Hilary Murray Hill, managing director from Scholastic Books, which publishes The Hunger Games and other teen fiction, estimated 'more than one third' of teen books in its slate were purchased by adults. She said the books were hugely popular with the '20-50' age bracket and once they had found one teen series they enjoyed they were likely to seek out more.And this statistic makes me wonder if the language and sex issues are a result of the trend of adults reading YA book. I've noticed that quite a few of the books I've read recently have had characters in high school who are 18 or who have graduated h.s. or just about to. That, technically, it's adults using this language and having sex so that makes it all okay, I guess. In any case, with those warnings, this is a good book with great characters. Overall rating: 3 1/2 stars Genre Rating: 4 1/2 school lockers Author's Website Author's Twitter Author's Blog
