"Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King
King, A.S. (2012). Ask the Passengers. New York, NY: Little,
Brown and Company. ISBN: 978-0-316-19468-6
Astrid
Jones is real. She reads like absolutely real people and I loved it. She’s equal
parts snarky and loving in her head. She lets down her parents. She loves her
sister (even when her sister doesn’t love her) and she (thinks) she loves her
girlfriend. She sends love up to people in airplanes soaring overhead and to
people she sees daily. She’s got so much love in her that she feels the need to
send it all outside of her so that she doesn’t have to worry about anyone taking
it without her giving. The best part about her sending her love to them is that
we get a glimpse of them receiving it! King adds the perspective of people on
the planes she is sending her love to and shows how their lives are somehow
linked to Astrid’s and how their clarity is somehow part of her growing clarity.
Love it.
At
first, this didn’t make sense to me. Who can take away your love without your
permission? Well quite a few people actually. Astrid’s mother clearly has a favorite
child, Astrid’s sister Ellis. They take love from her and don’t return their
own. It broke my heart how her mother ignored her and excluded her from the
seemingly perfect family. But that’s real. It happens to kids all over the
world and they learn to deal with it, like Astrid.
Astrid
has a secret that she is able to keep fairly easily since most of the people in
her life don’t pay very much attention to her. Astrid thinks she might be in
love with Dee Roberts, even though she goes on a few dates with a guy named
Jeff. Once her secret starts to be less…secretive… her life goes a little
crazy. There’s bullying and petitions and betrayal and rebellion all around her
and somehow, she rises above it all. That is what I would like to think is
real, but for many kids it isn’t. They aren’t always able to rise above it all.
I think this book could help with that. Watching, or rather reading, about someone
going through what they are going through, and triumphing, can be incredibly
helpful for their outlook and perspective!
Negativity
is everywhere, especially in the life of a teen trying to come to terms with
her sexuality on her own time. This shows the silver lining of a potentially
very dark cloud. It shows readers that perfection does not exist, and at the
same time, exists in everyone. (That will make much more sense after you’ve
read it).
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