Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Falling

Yeah, this book was not for me. This is for several reasons: the Islamophobia, the Xenophobia, the half-assed and shallow characterization, and (surprisingly) the pacing.
I found it really cheap and frankly disgusting that Newman chose to play into stereotypes and make the bad guys Middle Eastern/Islamic. It's 2022, it's time we stop demonizing an entire ethno-religous group because of the actions of a few men 20 goddamn years ago. There were moments where it felt like Newman was trying to overcome this, but it fell flat and just came off as in bad taste. The whole brown guy = bad guy bullshit is overplayed, overused, and fucking disgusting.
I also didn't care about 90% of the characters. Theo, Jo, and the kids were pretty much the only people I cared about and, not so coincidentally, they were the only ones with complex characteristics! Bill was such a cookie cutter, rah-rah-All-American hero character that I could not care less about. So much of the plot was unoriginal as well. There were whole chapters that were almost scene for scene recreations of a Criminal Minds episode, season 10 episode 3 to be exact.
Worst of all, somehow, I was bored throughout this entire book. I have no idea how she did it, but I could only read a few pages before I would get bored and go do something else for a while. Very rarely have I ever been so incredibly bored by a thriller. Somehow, it was both faced paced and slow as hell. Everything happened quickly, but it wasn't fast enough apparently.
Not my cup of tea, probably won't reccomend it to anyone either.

Content Warnings

thespinystacks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

First, let me start with the good - the adrenaline you get while reading this book is unparalleled for anything I’ve read in awhile. The descriptions of the cockpit, the attendant’s station, and general aircraft design are so realistic you can literally picture yourself there.

However, I hold little to no weight in any of that when we’ve gone ahead and played into the most basic, derivative stereotypes.
I found it deeply upsetting.

I want to be clear, I am a white female - I know my privilege, I work hard to be sensitive to the feelings of people who experience the world differently to me.
I don’t think that the white, affluent community did anything positive with this, and I’m so disappointed.

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