When an author's words can bring me to tears, I know I've found a great author. Ashley Schumacher did that. I knew from the blurb that Anna and Weston don't end up together, and yet I loved how they engaged with each other and how both grew as a result of the other. I'd forgotten that tragedy was lurking until it happened; however, the ending was completely redeeming. I love the interweaving of a suspected extinct bird as the tie in for Weston and Anna and their duet.

A good read.

I have discovered that most YA romances are not for me. This one fell into that bracket as well. I just couldn’t connect with the characters and could not get into the story line.

This book made me cry more than Ashley's debut, which I didn't think was possible. That alone is worth the read but it's a great book overall. Our YA customer will love it.

Break out your marching band gear – we are heading back to high school where young love can be found in the band room!

I was such a big fan of Amelia Unabridged, I couldn’t wait for this story. This reads differently though – I found that it was hard to connect with Anna and Weston and the first 80% of the book is a bit on the slow side. It picks up with the same emotions that made me fall for Amelia – I just wish that I felt it a little more throughout the story rather than just the ending. This book had a bit too much teenage angst, even for me.

For those that played in the marching band in high school, this may bring back some memories for you! As I was a friend to band members pulled out of class for practice in elementary school, I could relate to how Anna felt for why she wanted to join the band.

There is also a theme of birds that is skillfully woven throughout the story that had me captivated. I loved how it related to both Weston and Anna. Side note – this story has back and forth POV’s from Weston and Anna for each chapter.

Based on my watery eyes at the end of this story, even with all the angst, this story is a 4-star read for me. Full Flight is available now!

I had a hard time staying focused and engaged with this book. The writing style is wonderful, and one of the beautiful things about Schumacher's writing. The author is to take simple turns of phrase that evoke visceral reactions in readers and make the characters' emotions feel exceptionally real to the reader. My focus problem lies more in the plot and full expectation that something terrible would happen to a main character from the first page on. I can see that this work would appeal to lots of readers, and Schumacher's writing style is established as being fully enough to make one familiar with her work pick up any book she has published.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the dARC of this work in exchange for my honest, though short, review.

My least favourite trope ever is probably insta-love, and unfortunately this book had that from the very first page. It is therefore just not the book for me and therefore, I decided not to continue it.

3 Stars

My review for Full Flight by Ashley Schumacher will be posted within the next two weeks as I just finished reading it a few days ago and have to bring my thought together.

Full FlightI did not expect to have so many feelings when I picked this one up but I should have known better after Amelia Unabridged! This is a beautiful first love story about self-discovery, love, and loss. However, it did read very YA and angsty to me for most of the book.

Ashley certainly knows how to pack a huge punch when writing her characters.

I also enjoyed Anna's family dynamics with her parents and sister. Weston has challenging family dynamics as his parents have recently divorced and he often finds himself juggling each of their emotions before prioritizing his own.

Band and music play a huge role in this book so if that's not your thing, this may not be for you.

So from reading early reviews, I knew this was going to be a super sad read. But while reading them, I also managed to spoil the ending for the myself. Like why did I do that to myself?!

Anyways, this resulted in me anticipating to finish it, but the more I read, the less inclined I was to actually finish.

While I liked both Weston and Anna as characters, I didn’t feel any sort of connection to either of them. However, I found myself relating more with Weston’s character ‘cause of his parent’s divorce and his thoughts on that.

I wasn’t a fan of Anna’s parents, especially the mother, she was a freaking bitch.
Also why were they unnecessarily strict!? Like it wasn’t that deep and yet they forbid Anna from seeing Weston. Honestly, their motive made no sense.

Despite my thoughts on this, I truly believe if I wasn’t spoiled for this book, I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. However, I still want to read her debut eventually and give her a second chance.

Oh my goodness. I did not expect to have so many feelings when I decided to pick this one up. It's such a beautiful story of first love and loss. The relationship between Anna and Weston was how one would hope their first romance would go.

Anna wasn't expecting to fall for Weston when she was partnered up with him to do a duet for the marching band but the more time they spent together the more they realized just how well they fit together. I liked the development of their relationship from beginning to end.

I also enjoyed the family dynamics between Anna, her parents, and younger sister. Weston's family on the other hand has just recently hit a bump in the road when his parents divorce. I liked that the more Weston was around Anna's family the more he made peace with the new dynamic between him and his parents. By the end things settle and he realizes that even though his parents aren't together anymore they're still a family.

Overall this book is a perfect blend of love, family, loss, and working through grief. I definitely recommend it and plan to read more of Ashley Schumacher's books in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the author’s previous book, Amelia Unabridged, but this one was not for me. I do think there will be readers who will enjoy both, particularly those who enjoy angsty young adult books. I also think this will appeal more to teen readers, rather than adults who read YA. I personally really enjoyed Amelia Unabridged for its focus on books and authors and stories, but this book focuses much more on band and music, which doesn’t appeal to me personally, although I am sure some will love reading about that subject. I did also have a few issues with the book. Our characters are paired up for a duet, and after they start spending time together, they fall for one another. It did feel a bit like insta-love to me. I didn’t really understand why they were so into each other so quickly. Weston is also a bit of a pariah in their small town, and everyone sees him as the weird bad kid, but I didn’t feel like any of that was really thoroughly explained. Some scenarios and conversations also feel very dramatic and overly angsty. This was a miss for me, personally, but I think it will appeal to some, and I do look forward to what other books this author will write.

I enjoyed how much Schumacher seemed to understand the ins and outs of band, and I think all band geeks would love this one. Without giving too much away, this one definitely hits hard at the end - be prepared.

Enfield is a big Texas town where fall means football, but for their marching band, it means it’s time to work.

This year is Anna’s year to finally show off how great of a saxophone player she is. When she gets paired with Weston for a duet. Weston is known as nothing but trouble in their small town, but as Anna starts working more and more with him she realizes that everyone is wrong about him. The more they practice the more their feelings for each other grow and they both learn to fight for what it is that they love.

You’ve done it again Ashley Schumacher. You’ve given me characters that I love dearly and you skillfully rip my heart out with your brilliant writing.

I wish I could erase my memory of this book and read it again. I loved everything about this book. It’s a typical ‘girl falls for the bad boy who is really not a bad boy’ forbidden love trope, but written so well. I loved the main characters and that the chapters went back and forth between their points of view.

There wasn’t really anything I didn’t like about this book except for maybe a couple of Anna’s friends, but they’re necessary I guess.

To be completely honest, I would have read this book no matter what is was going to be about. I read Amelia Unabridged last year by the same author and it easily became one of my most favorite books and I was not let down with this book. The books are not related, but both are definitely heartbreakingly wonderful reads.

Ashley Schumacher, I am prepared to read any book write.

A gut punch of a book. While I generally enjoyed this marching band kid YA romance, I did think it had some major pacing issues. But the emotions were definitely there (though maybe bordering on manipulative) & the romance was very sweet. & the marching band parts made my heart smile.

Please for the love of everything, do not read the blurb if you plan on reading this. It gives everythinggggg away.

I loved this book as much as I loved her first book, Amelia Unabridged, O was in a Texas HS marching band, so I found myself relating to this book in the best ways. It was like the author was there for my years in high school.

Ashley Schumacher's sophomore YA is masterful! I wondered what could come out of her pen after Amelia Unabridged and I am so happy to say that, once again, the experience was magical. She has this innate talent to toucher her readers straight through our hearts with those poignant stories of hers.

What I particularly loved about Full Flight:
1. no gimmicks
2. the cool and talented marching band kids
3. Anna's complex personality without the eye-rolling stereotypes. She is a hard worker, recognizes her mistakes, treats people with respect, she is a good student, a respectable friends, a sucky big sister, a daughter to be proud of, and a girlfriend any young boy would fall head over heels over.
4. Weston is mysterious yet not a rebel, introspective, a super talented musician, has a big heart, suffers from his parents divorce (maybe that is why he is so open about his feelings), he must have a high IQ, and we love him for loving Anna the way he does.
5. the poetic connection to nature (I won't say more)

If you want to read GOOD YA, you need to follow Ashley Schumacher, she is an author to watch for. I am a fan for life <3

Thank you Net Galley and the-best-YA-publishing-house Wednesday Book for this e-ARC in exchange of my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy for review. All opinions are my own.

First of all, this book absolutely wrecked me. It's in the synopsis why, but I failed to read the synopsis prior to diving in since I loved Ashley Schumacher's first book so so much! She still did not disappoint with this book.

Full Flight is about Anna and Weston who are both in the marching band. They have to perform a duet in their show so Anna asks Weston to help her. Weston is sort of the town's outcast. He doesn't fall into their town's idea of "normal" so many people, including himself, have their own opinions about who he is, but Anna finds out that their opinions are untrue.

This book gave me serious first love feelings. I don't want to compare it to other books who have done the same and broken my heart, but I'm placing it in the same category of those few books. I fell so in love with Anna and Weston and my heart was completely shattered by the events in this book. Please do not let that deter you from reading it because it is well worth the read and the heartbreak.

This book ruined me. I sobbed at work.

I will say, I was honestly a little bored in the beginning and couldn't figure out if Amelia Unabridged was just SO GOOD anything else was going to pale in comparison, or if my expectations for Full Flight were just too high. Then the second half of the book started and I was invested and then THAT THING happened and I was distraught. While I stand by my statement that the beginning was a tad boring, overall this book is so damn good and I love it and everyone should read it, right now. Go Buy It.

Some YA books I love and enjoy, and some YA books just aren't meant to be read by 30-year-olds. "Full Flight" falls squarely in the latter category. The story centers around Anna and Weston — two members of the high school marching band who come together to help Anna nail their duet for the upcoming competition. Obviously, they fall in love, and their sweet, innocent over-the-top earnestness was just too much for this particular mom of three. It really reminded me of "Eleanor and Park" by Rainbow Rowell if that's your vibe.

What I loved about the book — and what attracted me to it in the first place — was the setting of small-town Texas. The close-knit highly-religious community strongly resembled my hometown, and I was curious to see if these characters shared any of my high school experiences. I can also appreciate Schumacher's lyrical writing style. Particularly, I liked how she weaved the story of the bird (whose name I can't remember) throughout and how that particular plotline ended.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of things that I didn't like or just didn't make sense. Possible spoilers to follow...
- One, I couldn't figure out why Weston was such a "forbidden fruit." His parents got a divorce, but so did 50% of the other kids' parents, too, so this seems like a weird point of differentiation. There was that one rumor, but even that seems a little far stretched to make Anna's parents oppose him so much. I mean... he plays in the marching band — how much of a bad boy can he be?
- Two, do the high schoolers really need to have sex? Is the love not real if this doesn't happen? I just don't think anyone should be reading or writing about adolescent sex.
- Three, and this is a big one, I didn't read the synopsis very well, because I didn't see the horrible ending of this book coming. Just completely blindsided me. And then only took 10-15 pages to wrap up the story afterward? Seems like such a slow build for such a horrific event with such a hasty ending.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

While I didn’t read the synopsis for this book, I know AS is going to have us in our feelings by the end of any book she writes. She is so great at writing a beautiful story that makes you feel so much empathy toward her characters.

I will not go too deep into anything, but this book was beautifully written and I will read anything AS writes with gusto. If I had to be picky and critical, I would say that I really disliked Anna’s family and couldn’t change my mind about them even when they changed their ways.

If you’ve got this far without reading any summaries or the synopsis, try not to read those and start reading this book!