i’m delving into spoilers here because a lot of what i have to say is about the last quarter or so of the book, and once you read it, you’ll know why. you’ve been warned.

i think the story could have gone without weston’s death. i knew it was coming - the blurb here on goodreads alludes to it - and dreaded it. the minute weston was finally happy, finally content and not feeling so much loneliness, he was killed off. it felt to me like saying he couldn’t have that happiness, or wasn’t built for it/didn’t deserve it or some shit, and that made me angry. once i (warily) accepted it, i WAS able to finish the story, which all in all was rather good. the writing is beautiful, honest, and true. i liked the whole marching band theme too.

#netgalley

Ashley has truly done it again. The way she’s able to write equally heartwarming and heartbreaking books is a true gift, and she’s remarkable at it. I sobbed many a time reading this, and every time I thought I was done, I would read the next page and start all over again. I just love a book that emotionally destroys me and leaves me feeling empty after I finish it, so Full Flight truly hit all of the marks for me.

One of the features I loved about this book was its conversation surrounding loneliness and the pressure to be perfect. It deep dives into the way everything in high school can feel monumental and the stress that can be caused by just trying to stay above water. The truths that Weston and Anna shared with each other illuminated those feelings beautifully. Weston is my bb and I loved his angst and personality. I definitely swooned at least once in his conversations with Anna, and he really is just the sweetest guy.

As someone who was a theater kid, I love books focused on specific high school groups as you get to see the differences and similarities with your own experiences. It was so interesting to see the amount of rehearsal marching band takes, and even though I had so many band friends in high school, I didn’t actually know much about what they did. I think Ashley did a great job of exploring that and what being dedicated to an activity in high school can look like and how it can affect your social, school, and home life.

I read this book in a few hours because I didn’t want to put it down, and I truly cannot say enough good things about Ashley’s sophomore novel. This deserves being an Indie and NYT bestseller and so so much more.

Thanks netgalley for the arc.

I enjoyed the characters of the book and the main storyline was good. This book would be a great read for someone else it just didn’t turn out to be my cup of tea.

I loved the author’s last book, Amelia Unbridged, so I happily read this ARC.

It has kind of a niche audience- the two main characters are high school marching band members who feel like outcasts. Still, I enjoyed their connection.

The plot twist near the end was really not my favorite, and due to recent events in my own life, not something I really wanted to read about. The ending was satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Holy Cow! This author did it again with another great book that had me sobbing and basically never wanting to pick up another book from the hangover I have received! I don’t even know how I will make it through this review, haha.

The book is told from dual point-of-views: Weston and Anna. They both have grown up differently and because of that they view the world through a specific lens. Weston is still learning to deal with divorced parents and what it means for relationships when it comes to his own. Anna is dealing with feeling alone and never knowing if she is good enough. Although I haven’t had to deal with divorced parents myself, my husband has and I could see him relating to Weston. I do feel for Anna and her insecurities because I have been there as well.

They live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and this does cause problems for them. Their insecurities can cause the problems to be even bigger but I liked seeing how the two managed to deal with what they faced. They didn’t always pick the best choices but the moments they had together because of it was the cherry on top. I lived for those moments.

The book also deals with music but more importantly high school band. I was never in band but did have friends who were. I can’t say much on the topic but as an outsider it was easy to understand everything especially the pressure these two faced while trying to stay on top. Anna wasn’t always in band like her friends because she comes from a family that didn’t always have money to spare. She didn’t want to burden her parents and she kept that weight on her shoulders. This is a really important topic and one that I would love to see more in books. Parents don’t realize how money talks can affect their kids and the kids in turn make it a priority for them to not be a burden. I definitely felt for Anna.

There are great side characters as well like Ratio. Everyone needs a friend like him to help push us out of our fears and self-doubt! And even though sibling bonds weren’t too big in the book, I really appreciated Jenny going to bat for her sister. It was sweet.

The romance you could say is friends-to-lovers and that usually isn’t my cup of tea but I enjoyed seeing how their relationship progressed through the book. Just like with any relationship there are ups and downs. They did everything to hold on to their first love and I loved every bit of it.

I’m going to keep this review spoiler-free so I’m just going to say have tissues ready.

Overall this was a heartachingly beautiful book! It talks about many great topics that I feel like teens and even adults can relate to on some level. I love how this author just hits you in the feels with everything she writes. If you haven’t read either of her books yet, please do!

After loving Amelia Unabridged so much, I, unfortunately, found Full Flight to be a little bit of a letdown. I do think that one of the reasons why I found the book confusing is that I am not American and was never in band. However, I was constantly googling things to figure out what was happening. Even in one of the most emotional scenes of the book, I had to pause and look something up. It really pulled my focus from the story.

I will say that Ashley Schumacher writes grief like no other, and this book is no exception. Even though I wasn't necessarily feeling the story, she still managed to reach in and give my heart a pretty good squeeze. She gets what loss feels like in a way that most authors do not.

I also really loved Anna James, she's the kind of protagonist that you just want to give a big hug to. She's earnest, charming, and pretty much the only person in their town willing to give Weston Ryan a chance. Weston however... left me a little bit confused as well. His "bad boy" reputation is never really explained, his parents got divorced, he may or may not have damaged a tree, he switched schools for a year, he wears a leather jacket? Not to mention, one of the only reasons we knew that he is a "bad boy" is that HE WON'T STOP SAYING IT HIMSELF! While reading his POVs I couldn't get Jughead of Riverdale's "I'm a weirdo" speech out of my head. It seems like Weston trying so hard to be an outcast was the only thing that made him one.

I definitely think that this is the right book for someone else, I think that Ashley Schumacher really does have a way of writing books that manage to feel so deeply personal to the people who are able to connect with the book. For me, that was Amelia Unabridged, and for others, it will be Full Flight. I 100% plan to pick up Ashely's future books because I know that she is a beautiful writer, but unfortunately, Full Flight was just a miss for me personally.

This was such a beautiful and engaging read; I loved the way this novel dealt with very real issues with seriousness while also bringing in moments of levity along the way. Definitely recommend picking this one up!

This was a beautiful telling of finding your person and yourself along the way. It touched on anxiety, depression, and stereotypical small town ideals. It was raw and it left you stripped bare. Ashley Schumacher worda pulverize your heart and leave your eyes puffy from the tears you cry. It is an experience that stays with you and isn't that the greatest gift a book can give?

Choosing to read this book was hard, because I knew it was going to devastate me, and I was right. But it was so worth it. This book was just wonderfully beautiful, a deeply sad but honest look at loneliness, love, and grief. Anna and Weston were fully realized people to me, and I recognized pieces of them in both myself and in others that I’ve known. Ashley Schumacher is exceptionally gifted at not only being able to capture the beauty of a first love, but also how someone can feel alone if they are surrounded by people, how finding someone who understands you completely is a special form of magic, and how loss can change us as we try to live with the grief. There’s also an added bonus of this book featuring band kids, a world I saw marginally as a choir kid in high school, and it brings not only a levity to the book but also gives it another way of feeling more like a true story.

I thought I knew this from reading Amelia Unabridged, but Full Flight solidified it: I will gladly let Ashley Schumacher devastate me with any beautiful words she chooses to put into the world!

This book was absolutely devastating. I loved seeing how Weston and Anna found each other and feel in love, but the ending felt horribly sad. I want to know what happens next to Anna and if she ever found her Wes after. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story, and I loved it. Great book and the author made the characters come alive. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for my free arc in exchange for my honest opinion. Wonderful story!

Thank you so much Wednesday Books for this widget I was over the moon to receive this novel!

5/5 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
I loved Amelia Unabridged and I knew this would be no different. Schumacher can reel a reader in, in a matter of seconds with her novels!
There is too much to love in this book. The writing is superb and just outstanding. The pacing was brilliant.
The characters were so dang relatable Anna readers will fall so in love with her. I sure as heck did.
Anna and Weston’s relationship was just beautiful in every way possible. Ahhh! Just lovely.
A book about young adult love, music and grief will just take your breath away.

Such an outstanding novel and I wanted it to last forever. Ashley girl..... You seriously rock!
And I will always love anything you create 😍

Again thank you for this widget Wednesday Books and NetGalley!
I will post to my platforms closer to pub date!
Now I wished I would have held off on reading this one! I might re-read it come January.

I didnt think I could love and Ashley Schumacher book any MORE THAN after Amelia Unabridged.

I WAS WRONG.

I LOVED Full Flight. I dunno how Ms Schumacher weaves her magic while she writes but she just does such a fantastic job of getting the emotional intligence down of her characters they really TRULY feel like honest to God real people.

I think it this point I'm just going to have too put her on auto buy... 🤷‍♀️ What can I say? I'm smitten!

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for this complimentary arc in exchange for my honest review.

Oh don't mind me, I'm just crying on my lunch break at work because of this book. I knew from the synopsis that it wasn't going to be a sunshine and roses ending, but still. Ugh. I think I liked this book nonetheless? It was a beautiful (albeit somewhat slow moving) ride to the end.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes I’ve wondered when I’ll find an author who I just get.
Ashley Shumacher is definitely that author.

I’ve also wondered if it’s possible to convey beautiful music through words.

Ashley Shumacher did it.

When books make me cry, I usually can keep breathing normally through my tears.

This book made me sob.


I cannot wait for this to come out next year. I will be waiting for it with my face pressed up against my window. Or I’ll be the first person to enter the store on release day.

Full Flight is a must read


!!So so much thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this ARC!!

I loved 'Amelia Unabridged' but this one took me a little longer to get into. I love Schumacher's look at first young love and I love experiencing it with them as if I were experiencing it again. I loved the band aspect, being a band nerd myself. It's a story with heartbreak and grief and love. A coming of age story.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!

FULL FLIGHT is an utterly gorgeous, compulsively readable story of love, grief, and of course, music. Very rarely in YA contemporary romance does the reader go in with the full knowledge that the love interest (Weston Ryan, here) will be dying at some point of the story.

This leaves the reader on pins and needles throughout the entire experience, as you wait for his death to happen. And while you're waiting for it to happen, you're experiencing this gorgeous love story of two musicians who are learning to love each other, as well as the music they play and the life they're cultivating together.

FULL FLIGHT is utterly gut-wrenching, but gorgeous all the same, and I cannot wait to see what Ashley Schumacher writes next.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This book was the kind I have not read in a very long time: beautiful and heartbreaking. I am a regular passenger on the Happing Endings Train these days, so this was an unusual--and emotional--departure from what has become my normal reading fare. But I'm very glad I read it.

Schumacher's writing is lyrical, poetic. Even separated from the story itself, which is well crafted, the prose leaps off the page. I was a little surprised that we got POVs from both Anna and Weston; I'm mixed on whether I like multiple POVs in first person prose, but it worked in this case. Both characters were complex and multifaceted, but I particularly enjoyed Weston's chapters. Seeing his perspective made it hard, in a lot of ways, to understand why he was so mistrusted by the people of Enfield. I'm not familiar with small-town Texas, but is wearing a leather jacket and being quiet really so stigmatizing? I didn't quite get that. Then again, high school was a while ago for me . . .

It was a lovely and thought-provoking book. I will have to go back and read Shumacher's first book.

i knew this would be heartbreaking from the synopsis and i am heartbroken that i was right. beautifully written, emotionally moving, i adore this book (rtc)

I love this author's debut novel, Amelia Unabridged, but I had difficulty getting into this one. There's a ton of marching band lingo that I got hung up in and I didn't relate to the characters as well. I also didn't really see their attraction to each other before they were together. However, Ashley Schumacher is excellent at exploring grief and love.

Ashley?!?!?! What the actual heck? Way to break a girl.
Sigh..... I need to read it again. Those books that make you just finish and then want to jump back in again are my kind of books and this one is high on that list.

Young love is so beautiful to read about. I adore when its real though. When we recognize that these are young adults. They literally are on the cusp of adulthood and this books shows you just that.

The author doesn't sugar coat this for you. You get the beauty and newness of a young love while also recognizing that these young adults are packed with BIG feelings and those aren't always pleasant.

If you are looking to dive into a truly incredible story than you definitely have found it here.

Schumacher's first book "Amelia Unabridged" is still my favorite book of the year and she has become an instant autobuy author for me. Read either of her books and you will know exactly why.

Thank you to Wednesday books and netgalley for the advanced review copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. All opinions are my own.