Read on my blog.

LGBTQAI+: None
Sex on page: No

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I started reading this book, my first thought was that it would fit perfectly in The Radical Element anthology that I read recently. It’s a historical fiction with a 18-year-old female protagonist who is truly radical and defies convention by performing tricks on the wings of moving airplanes in the 1920s.

After I read the book, I would like to say that I probably would have enjoyed it more if it truly had been a short story/novella in an anthology instead of a full-length book. This way, I often felt like it dragged on, or the exact same type of conflicts and scenes kept repeating (some practice, someone trying to convince Grace not to fly, Rowland showing up…). While it was overall a good story, I feel like it would have worked better if it was half as long.

Another problem for me was the characters. Other than Grace and MAYBE Henry, I couldn’t really get connected to anyone. Grace’s two female friends were nice, but they didn’t appear that much. The Uncle, Daniel and Nathan were interesting as Grace’s family, but – especially the last two – barely felt like individual people to me (up until a certain spoiler-y event).

It was clever how the book kept hinting at one character being a traitor when it was really another one, so it gets a few points for not being predictable, but the eventual reveal just made me less enthusiastic about both of these characters when I already wasn’t too attached to either.

Overall, I think this book had a great setting but unfortunately I didn’t find it very enjoyable to read.

My rating: 🛩🛩🛩/5.