I admit, I love an unreliable narrator AND books that change perspectives. This was a compelling read until the end.

Cassie, a flight attendant with a serious drinking problem, wakes up next to a dead man on one of her layovers. I was definitely captivated by the story (sometimes it's fun living vicariously through a truly hot mess!), but the ending was just so-so for me. Great twist but the action was wrapped up so quickly I got whiplash. It also felt like there were some loose ends that didn't get tied up. So, four stars for a quick, fun thrilling read, but had to deduct one for an unsatisfactory ending.

In Night Strangers, my favorite Chris Bohjalian novel, one of the main characters is a disgraced pilot who attempts to pull a Sullenberger-type maneuver when his plane slams into a flock of geese, but unlike Sullenberger’s Miracle on the Hudson, the water landing fails, and the aftermath is thirty-nine dead passengers. In his 2017 novel, The Sleepwalker, Bohjalian’s blond and almost ethereally beautiful protagonist goes missing, leaving her two daughters and husband behind. Now, in The Flight Attendant, his heroine Cassandra Bowden appears to be an amalgam of the pilot with the missing blond mother and wife. Not identical, just close enough to harbor a comparison.

But Cassie Bowden isn’t a mother or a pilot. She is a flight attendant with a well-known binge drinking problem, who often forgets what she did and who she slept with the night before. It’s not difficult to speculate that Cassie’s drinking is tied to a troubled childhood, which is promptly revealed with the mention of her alcoholic father. It’s this legacy she carries around with her like a boulder, unable to rid herself of its impossible weight.

When she awakens in a hotel room in Dubai, hung over and remembering nothing, she assumes it’s just another of her many sexual dalliances overseas. But the man next to her is dead, his throat has been slashed violently and silently during the night. After her initial shock and disbelief, Cassie begins to remember the previous night. The man, a passenger in her section of first class, her memories bits and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Within her jumbled thoughts, there is a question she cannot bring herself to answer: did she kill him?

Bohjalian is masterful at leaving clues in plain sight, making you kick yourself later that you failed to see them. Like a modern Agatha Christie, the answers to the riddle were always there, but we believed the wrong person or trusted the wrong narrative. The Flight Attendant follows that direction, only if you know what you’re looking for.

In her panic and not knowing if she’s responsible for the man’s murder, Cassie’s self-preservation prevails, and she bolts from the hotel to join her flight crew out of Dubai, after removing shards of glass from a broken bottle which was used as the murder weapon and hurriedly wiping down her fingerprints as best she can.

Her unease at being caught is palpable even as she boards her plane: “When she was back on her feet and standing with the galley and flight deck behind her, the only person watching her was the sky marshal. She wondered if he could sense, rather like a lion, her fear.”

Immediately things begin to go downhill. Cassie can’t properly hide her terror at being discovered, and combined with her drinking and utterly ridiculous behavior, leaves her open and vulnerable to increased scrutiny from her co-workers, her family and ultimately, the FBI.



As is frequent in Bohjalian’s novels, the mystery is not so simple and Cassie tires her hardest to find out more about the murdered man’s identity and who could have wanted him dead. But in her attempt to clear her name, Cassie repeatedly takes foolish risks while continuing to indulge in more drinking and casual sex.

Bohjalian’s portrayal of Cassandra as a woman who after heavy drinking engages in sex and then fails to remember what she did due to alcoholic blackouts, drives a strong message in the #MeToo era. What we could have read as reckless behavior on Cassie’s part say five years ago, now takes a moral and even criminal tint, harboring the question that if Cassie was too drunk most of the time to give consent, doesn’t that mean that she has been repeatedly raped while drunk or unconscious?

With the murdered man, she has memories of consenting to having sex and wanting it. But the previous times? Cassie isn’t sure, which makes her self-loathing much more painful and heart-breaking.

But the more she finds, the more questions arise. There’s the alleged presence of an unknown woman in the hotel room the night of the murder who has vanished in thin air, making Cassie question her own memories of that night. Her past and present recklessness come back to haunt her, even as she tries and fails, to leave them behind.

And she had slept the rest of the night beside his corpse. In the same sheets. Her head on the pillow beside his pillow. His blood clinging to her hair. This was a spectacular, revolting fail even by her standards for indignity and mortification. She guessed if she weren’t already such a lush, the revelation would have driven her to drink.

At the mid-point of the novel, Cassie reflects on the origins of her name. In Greek mythology, Cassandra is the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, who was given the gift of prophesy by Apollo. When she refused his advances, Apollo left her a curse by spitting in her mouth. This caused that no one would ever again believe a word she said, and Cassandra lived for the rest of her life “in frustration and dread.” Cassandra sees this as a parable of her own life, oozing with too many lies and recklessness.

Bohjalian has often remarked that he was inspired to write The Flight Attendant due to his many travels and his admiration for a profession that is deemed glamorous but in reality, is anything but. In the novel, the resolution when it comes, seems a little bit too tidy, a tad too perfect, too neatly tied up. But that doesn’t mean the novel is step-by-step predictable or easily guessed. The twists and turns are abundant enough to keep the reader guessing and wondering who is telling the truth.

Perhaps next time we board a plane, we will look at the flight attendants with new eyes. We might try to see a little more carefully behind the placed smile, the tired eyes. After all, who knows what goes on after landing, inside their real lives, within their own walls. With The Flight Attendant, Chris Bohjalian has shown us a glimpse of the truth that could be hidden beyond that thin divider curtain.

The main character Cassie is incredibly unlikable, and the book was about 50 or so pages too long. It's an interesting look at 1) the lives of flight attendants and 2) how daughter of an alcoholic father deals with her own alcoholism. The middle of the book almost enough to turn this into a DNF but the ending is quite the surprise!

The main character is flawed and not all that likeable, but it works well in this book. This was a slow read. The ending was a little bit of a mess and kind of out there.

An intriguing look at the life of a flight attendant, who is an alcoholic with a history of blackouts. On a routine flight to Dubai she enjoys flirting with the customer in 4 C., agrees to meet him after the flight and changes the course of both their lives. This novel is suspenseful, frightening and pulls you into it’s web. The ending is both shocking and satisfying.

Prior to reading the book I saw a lot of people commenting on how they didn’t like Cassie. I’m a believer that you don’t have to like the main character to enjoy a novel. I didn’t have such strong feelings for Cassie. I felt sorry for her because she didn’t have any strong relationship and didn’t really care about herself. She was an alcoholic, which is a disease but she was self-destructive.

I love spy movies and books so I was thrilled when this book had that edge to it. It is a fast paced thriller that will have you wondering what the hell is going on until it all comes together in the end.

Mr. Bohjalian has written another fantastic novel.

Could not put it down! First book I've read by this author, will not be the last.

DNF @ 38% as I could not get into the writing of the book.

*Thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy of this title. This in no way impacts my opinions and rating of the book.*

Overall, a very great book with twists and turns. I wasn't prepared for the novel to be as focused on spies and organizations as it was, so that disappointed me just a little. Still, the main character and her voice made this story believable, fun, and riveting.

I’m putting this into the category of books with female leads who have alcoholic tendencies or some other issue who get involved in criminal situations & make various bad decisions (think The Girl on the Train or The Woman in the Window). It’s worth reading if you enjoy thrillers, mystery, international crime, etc. It’s just nothing I would rave about.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian has been on my radar ever since it created a lot of buzz on Bookstagram. I have some mixed feelings after reading this one. The Flight Attendant is a slow burner and I found it a little repetitive at times. I usually enjoy stories with unlikeable characters, but Cassie was such a hot mess I was really hoping she would pull herself together in the end. I will say that it’s very obvious that Bohjalian put a lot of research into this story and it is very well-written. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would, but that won’t deter me from reading more of Bohjalian’s work.
Thank you NetGalley, Doubleday Books, and Chris Bohjalian for the opportunity to read The Flight Attendant. It was my pleasure to write an honest review.

Just finished up reading The Flight Attendant! Little late to the game but thank you netgalley for the advanced copy. This story is about Cassie who is a flight stewardess and a bit of a drunk. After an flight to Dubai from one of her flights, she goes back to the hotel room of one of her passengers, Alex. A night of partying and sleeping with Alex, Cassie wakes up the next morning next to Alex who is stone cold and his neck is slashed open. The book follows the story of Cassie and how she deals with this series of unfortunate events. I’m giving the book a 4/5 because although it kept my attention, I’m not sure I 100% followed the ending. It seemed to wrap up really quickly and left some loose threads. All together an interesting read and twist!

Cassie Bowden loves the lifestyle that comes along with being a flight attendant. She gets to visit the most exciting locations in the world, she gets to stay in some of the nicest hotels, and she gets to party with some of the hottest men alive. As an alcoholic, the lifestyle is perfect for her. She lands, gets a few hours of sleep and then finds the local bars and the local men to entertain her for the evening. When she wakes up next to a dead man in Dubai, Cassie's world suddenly becomes something out of a spy novel. She doesn't believe that she killed Alex Solokov, but she was blackout drunk the night before, as she is many nights. Cassie does the only thing she can think of doing, she gets out of there and on her flight home before the body is ever discovered. That is when the lying starts. She lies to her friends, she lies to her family, she lies to her union representative, she lies to the FBI, and she lies to her lawyer. Only Cassie knows the truth, she was not the only other person in that hotel room that night, but how can she convince the police that she is innocent when she is not entirely convinced herself?

I don't know that a flawed character has ever been written as well as Cassie Bowden. She is a hot mess, there is no other way to say it. With her addictions to men (she sleeps with at least four different men in the book) and alcohol, there is only one way that this is going to end - badly. Even in her hungover state, she had the presence to clear all evidence of herself from Alex's hotel room. Well, at least she thought she did. The book is told from different viewpoints, though. That of Cassie and the viewpoint of the Russian assassin who was with Alex and Cassie that night. It makes for an interesting look at the different perspectives. You can sense the paranoia and fear building in both of them, but for very different reasons. I was a little surprised at the way things ended, especially the big revelation about Cassie's flight attendant friend. -- CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS Oh and I loooove that this East Coast author paid homage to my favorite baseball team. Cassie's brother-in-law wore a faded Royals t-shirt to the zoo! :)

Bottom Line - From an author like Chris Bohjalian you may expect The Flight Attendant to read a like a subdued spy novel, but the reality is that The Flight Attendant is as fast-paced as the most popular spy novels and with much better character development making it a truly unforgettable read.

Details:
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
On Instagram
Pages: 368
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Publication Date: 3/13/2018
Buy It Here!

Cassandrra "Cassie" Bowden is a binge drinker, having accepted that she is just like her father. Her sister doesn't trust her, her coworkers are used to her being absent from dinner plans, and the bartenders at each of their flight stopover points know her drink of choice. When she awakens next to one of her many dalliances, she is surprised to find she spent the night when the last thing she remembers he's leaving. Sneaking out is easy, she's used to it, what she isn't used to is the blood and the pale pallor of the man lying beside her. Afraid to call the police Cassie runs and so begins a long, frightening trail of lying and looking over her shoulder. Did she do it? And if she didn't, who did?

I have had The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian sitting on my Kindle for a little while and I finally had the chance to dive in this last week. The cover and the blurb pulled me into this one, promising a novel filled with suspense and thrill and, my favorite, a lying unreliable narrator. Cassandra Bowden is the sort of main character you can both love and hate and, save for a handful of chapters told from the perspective of another, we have the pleasure of seeing everything unfold from the eyes of a beautiful, often drunk woman. She seeks love in the arms of one night stand men, she drowns every feeling in the bottom of a bottle, and she lies like she doesn't even know that the truth exists. She's in a terrifying predicament, made worse by her poor decisions and her bad habit. She is, however, a kind, loving person and her desire to uncover the truth and her will to continue just living daily is really refreshing for a main character being pulled through the mud. The occasional perspective from Elena was my least favorite and unfortunately I never got a real feel for her, as her chapters were boring and easily skimmable. Those breaks from Cassie's perspective threw me off, but ultimately made me like Cassie even more, she needed a few more people on her side.

Just as the blurb tells us, Cassie awakens from one night of spectacular drinking and finds herself in the bed of a handsome man, except he is no longer alive. From the very first page this book is twisted, the writing style perfect for this high anxiety tale. We travel alongside Cassie, visiting various airplanes, beds, destinations, and far too many offices of lawyers and agents. Chris Bohjalian uses Cassie's drinking problem to his advantage, leaving both the narrator and the readers unaware of what really happened that evening. We are just as unsure of Cassie's innocence, our trust in her wavering with every pour of a bottle and yet we also believe her. Though not fast paced, there is a significant amount of detail in The Flight Attendant and I could see every location Cassie visited on her hunt for both the truth and for normalcy in her life. Though not as edge-of-your-seat suspenseful as I expected, it was an enjoyable thriller that takes us into the mind of a woman unsure of her place in the world and the dangers of freeing your mind with alcohol.

The Flight Attendant was a unique read for me and while it wasn't a five star read it is definitely one I would recommend. It is twisted, especially near the end, and I never saw much of it coming.

This was the first book that I read from start to finish after having my first baby. The sleep deprivation for sure made it hard to read as fast as I used to, but this book was a perfect book to welcome me back!

There were twists that I couldn’t predict, and the pace kept me wanting to read more, even when my tired eyes found it hard to cooperate. This story would make an interesting movie! I would love to read more from this author.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's been a little over 24-hours since I finished The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian and I'm still not sure where to start. I thought if I gave myself some time to wrap my head around what I'd just read. Obviously from the 4-star rating I enjoyed this read, yet, for the life of me I can't see why. Here's why...

Bohjalian's The Flight Attendant introduces us to Cassie Bowden. She's a flight attendant that doesn't shy away from a good time. She's basically a functioning alcoholic (and that's putting it nicely... so far). As she jet sets around the world touching down in one beautiful city after another, her time between flights are filled with drunken table dances and meaningless sexual encounters.

It's business as usual on a flight to Dubai when Cassie meets and hooks up with a young, handsome hedge fund manager. After spending hours flirting with each other they meet up, hook up, and shack up for the night. When day breaks, Cassie attempts to make her getaway as this man, Alex, lie sleeping, still piecing together what she can from the night before, she notices Alex doesn't stir. Thinking she'll make a clean getaway from this latest dalliance, she's alarmed to find Alex, and herself covered in blood.

Refusing to end up like the American in Paris, Amanda Knox, she does what she can to wipe away any trace of her having been there. Dubai isn't exactly the place to be entangled in what appears to be a homicide, especially when you're a woman. From the moment Cassie leaves Alex's hotel room, she becomes...

I don't even know what to say...

They say if you have nothing nice to say don't...

I can't not say it at all. I'm a self-proclaimed reviewer, for Pete's sake. So... here we go...

Shit's about to get real.

Let's begin with the niceties.

The Flight Attendant hooked me from page one. I've read other works by Bohjalian but this one is my favorite by far. Despite the gripes that have. As I write this review, the gripes that I have with this book are actually quite big and I'm amazed I was able to overcome them to offer a positive review. Believe me, I am shocked.

The Flight Attendant is a fast moving car with no breaks. Seriously! I don't think I was bored at any point in this read. Infuriated, yes. Bored. No. Readers will share Cassie's trepidation as she wonders what's around the corner. Is it the FBI? Is it the extradition? Or possibly the other woman she vaguely remembers from that night with Alex?

Our other source of fear is the fact that Cassie is a wreck. A stupid, idiotic, alcoholic wreck that most readers will want to choke to death or slap some sense into. She's given so many chances to redeem herself and "act like a grownup" she fails time and time again. I'm sorry if that reveal was a spoiler of sorts, but seriously, 20-pages in makes it obvious Cassie's flying without a pilot.

My final gripe is that I have no clue what that ending was all about. It sorta just came at you. Some people were burned and some secrets were uncovered. Note to Bohjalian, if you ever read this review, please explain to me what happened there. I'm no Einstein, but I'm no Homer Simpson either.

Sure I had my gripes with this novel. Actually pretty definitive gripes that usually pull my rating down, down, down. Yet, The Flight Attendant was quite entertaining. There's an apprehension that's maintained throughout the novel that forces readers to see it through. Bohjalian could have made this a sappy, woe is me story about a drunk but instead, delivers a nail-biting mystery that will stay with most long after the last page is read.

Copy provided by Doubleday Books via Netgalley

Admittedly I was drawn to this after hearing SO much hype about it online – after a very dramatic start (you can’t really call your main character waking up next to the dead body of her one-night stand anything else, right?!) and an ending that just kept pulling out the plot twists right up to the epilogue, I was really pleasantly surprised by this!

I don’t want to share much more of the plot as it would spoil the reading experience for you, but will say I found the pace (and my interest in turning the pages!) really quicken closer to the end of the book. Some of the lead up was a little tedious for me, quite possibly in part because the main character, Cassie, is written as an alcoholic train-wreck who keeps putting her foot in it and worsening her own situation. In hindsight I think this was needed to give context to later parts of the plot. Cassie is not an overly sympathetic character for most of the novel, I think at times I actually found myself cringeing for her in disbelief at what she was doing!

I loved the effort the author had put into the finer details about flight attendants, in-flight antics (/horror stories!) and the lifestyle of pilots and flight attendants. I have many of both in my family and will definitely be getting them to pick this one up!

Believe the hype readers, it’s a page turner and I’m not at all shocked it has be been picked up for a film adaptation!

Thanks to Chris Bohjalian, Double Day and NetGalley for my proof copy.

Confession: I remember loving Midwives, but that was in 1997 which was (gulp) more than twenty years ago. In the meantime, I’ve acquired some of Bohjalian’s other books, but somehow haven’t managed to crack the covers. The Flight Attendant has officially changed that for me.

So—wow.
What a book.

In the opening scene (so not a spoiler), Cassandra wakes up in a hotel room in Dubai next to the man she slept with the night before. This is a pattern she has repeated in cities all over the world, in various stages of alcoholic stupor—except this time, the man next to her has been brutally murdered.

The Flight Attendant is my favorite kind of thriller, with multiple threads and plenty of things I didn’t see coming, as well as a morally compromised and unapologetic narrator. This kind of narrator has been done before, sure; but where the narrator in Girl on the Train was somewhat grating, Cassandra hits the right wrong notes, if that makes any sense—she’s not looking for pity from anyone, and she owns her sometimes appalling decisions, even when as a reader you might feel she’s on some kind of suicide mission.

This one kept me turning pages and left me completely satisfied.

This novel was a slow growing thriller. It took some time to get into, but boy am I glad that I stuck it through. I felt a distaste for the character, but the twists kept me on the edge of my seat.