A solid YA romance. This book has it's share of tragedy, but is not the typical gut-wrenching, angsty YA fare. The genius in this book is much quieter. Well-drawn characters and very well-written relationships make this a winner. But, if you prefer a hard driving plot, look elsewhere.

Flight Season by Marie Marquardt is a book that will be releasing in February 2018, but I think If many more people could read it now they should. Or at least once. The book follows 3 different perspectives:

Vivi, a Yale student home for the summer focused on completing a internship to help save her spot at college, while also dealing with her father's death and the unpaid bills piling up back home. 

TJ: A young student training to be a male nurse who has to deal with family issues and drama of his own, all while knowing a secret about Vivi from last year that he doesn't even know if she remembers. 

Angel: a young Guatemalan man who is in the hospital due to a heart condition and dealing with the possibility of deportation. 

All three of these people have very different lives, but can one summer bring them together? 

I really was not sure how I would feel about this book when I saw it was multiple Point Of View. However, that aspect grew on my fairly quickly and I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the characters and how they all had different voices, something that can be tricky when it comes to differing point of view narratives. I really enjoyed the characters and felt a real connection with them, especially Angel. I really thought the way the plot went was also interesting since it included characters who end up in places by the end you would not expect. The writing style is very relatable and sweet, something that I think the author did a great job with. 

What is keeping me from making this a 4 or 5 star review is I didn't really feel like this book was that memorable or something that I wound want to read again and again. I mean I read it and I thought it was decent, but I also did not love every second of it. A lot of times I found myself skimming through the pages and trying to get to more interesting parts. I found this book to be kind of slow. The other issue I had was the ending, without giving too much away I felt like the ending was a bit too unrealistic. It had heartwarming moments by the end, but I still wished the author had gone in another direction. 

Overall, I did enjoy this book and think it was one that I might recommend to someone at least once due to the writing and unique characters. However, I did have a few issues with the pacing and ending, which is why I am giving this book a 3 stars out of 5. 

*** out of *****
I received this ARC galley from Netgalley, Wednesday Books, and St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review.

I fell hard for Flight Season. Loved it.
Well-planned and engaging, the story is told from the point of view of three characters. Blending Vivi's birdwatcher's journal with the plot of the story, Marquardt matches various species of birds with scenes from the story, and it worked so well I actually cared about birds, which I so often overlook (Note to HS English teachers: good classroom discussion point . . . what's right in front of us that we don't see?). While I know nothing of ornithology, I do know about a little about teaching literature and this text offers so much in the way of literary analysis I wanted to write a lesson plan on the spot. Also, the current themes of immigration and health care and social media are poignant. Social inequality is in there as well. The story has just enough of the juicy stuff to engage readers, but it is so much more. This title has major summer reading list potential.