Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by larkreads
Flight Risk by Joy Castro
3.0
There’s potential here…in the writing. It’s not great, the author seemed to attempt to use every obscure word in the English language crowded into one book, but if that were lessened, it would be lovely reading. The main character…ugh. She was so self-pitying, victimized, and just plain weird, that I had no interest in what she was doing. And she really wasn’t doing anything. Plot: there wasn’t *much* of a plot, it seemed very reliant on flowery descriptives more than substance, but when/where things could potentially get interesting, the author just dropped the thread. Main character is threatened pretty violently by having her tires slashed stranding her, and she’s terrified she’s going to die, but day comes, she discovers who’s after her, and he just….leaves her alone? She’s never afraid again and he never shows up in the story again. And her marriage…bizarre. Husband and her had some kind of magical connection, then he becomes sullen and withdrawn, she doesn’t question him, just gets moody herself, runs away for a bit, never thinks of him or communicates with him, then he randomly shows up at the end full of insightful and undying love. No solid explanation for the interim.
And the politics, oh the politics. Main character is “half Latina” and she’s a victim in every aspect of her life because of it. But no one in the story gives a shit that shes “half Latina”. She’s ridiculous. She becomes a prostitute to a wealthy man who sets her up to live in luxury and then complains that woman are mistreated everywhere she looks. How about she starts practicing what she’s preaching and not become an object for a man to abuse in the first place? She complained endlessly about “the rich”, but she has let rich men take care of her since the moment she became an adult. By choice. Then….she has a full on breakdown because Donald Trump won the presidency??? Him winning the presidency had literally no bearing on her life, but she cried bitterly, for hours, because some who “abuses women” was elected president. WHILE she’s continuously putting herself at the mercy of men so she can have access to their money. The woman has never really had a job in her life!
I gave three stars because I really think the writing has potential, and while I hated the main character, and nothing of interest happened in the book, I still can’t bring myself to give only two, because I want to see writing like this proliferate in literature.
And the politics, oh the politics. Main character is “half Latina” and she’s a victim in every aspect of her life because of it. But no one in the story gives a shit that shes “half Latina”. She’s ridiculous. She becomes a prostitute to a wealthy man who sets her up to live in luxury and then complains that woman are mistreated everywhere she looks. How about she starts practicing what she’s preaching and not become an object for a man to abuse in the first place? She complained endlessly about “the rich”, but she has let rich men take care of her since the moment she became an adult. By choice. Then….she has a full on breakdown because Donald Trump won the presidency??? Him winning the presidency had literally no bearing on her life, but she cried bitterly, for hours, because some who “abuses women” was elected president. WHILE she’s continuously putting herself at the mercy of men so she can have access to their money. The woman has never really had a job in her life!
I gave three stars because I really think the writing has potential, and while I hated the main character, and nothing of interest happened in the book, I still can’t bring myself to give only two, because I want to see writing like this proliferate in literature.