I was fascinated by Ann Hood's memoir about her experiences as a TWA flight attendant beginning in 1978. It took me back to the "golden years" of air travel when people dressed up to take a plane and stewardesses (later called hostesses) were all attractive young women who could be fired if they gained a few pounds of forgot to wear lipstick.

The author describes the long, arduous interview process, the intensive training, and the sneers of friends who felt she was throwing away her college education. But as someone who truly enjoyed the job, she also provided insights into the joys of being a flight attendant, not the least of which was a perk which allowed her to fly on a whim to exciting international destinations when she had some time off. Yes, difficult customers, back-breaking work, and inherent dangers were a part of the job, but she found the benefits infinitely rewarding. I was happy to go along with the ride!

My thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for affording me the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

Hood has written several best-selling novels, but this is nonfiction about her experience as a Trans World Airline (TWA) flight attendant back in the “golden age” of flying when “stewardesses” wore heels and passengers didn’t wear sweatpants. In 1978, fresh from college, she entered the air when it was “the epitome of glamour and sophistication.” Her flight school experience was grueling; surviving the rigors of the training academy was a feat itself, preparing her not only to evacuate seven different types of aircraft, but also to carve chateaubriand (in first class) and deliver a baby. Of course, she learned how to mix cocktails and fend off amorous pilots and passengers, which many of her colleagues married.
She opens with her early fascination with air travel, recalling how as a preteen she followed the adventures of Laika, the dog that the Russians launched into space in Sputnik 2 and reading/studying the book How to Become an Airline Stewardess (published in 1964). Hood experienced adventures all over the world and was so often called upon at parties to tell stories about her TWA days that she decided to write this book. She actually began writing her first novel from the jump seat. Ultimately, she saw the job change – enduring labor strikes, fare wars, hijackings, and corporate takeovers. Hood relates a riveting narrative, and the trials she weathered in the flying industry are colorful and fast-paced.

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I have always loved to travel by plane, and even at 60+, it is still my primary form of transport. Fly Girl by Ann Hood is a memoir of her years as a flight attendant during the more glamorous days of airplane travel. I remember when I was younger traveling in stockings, a Sunday dress, and makeup. Flying meant looking your best. Ann takes us through the early years of TWA employment with mandatory weigh-ins, high heel shoes, and the ability to make a mean Mojito. She described the heady experience of walking through an airport with a team of stewardesses getting ready to fly to the next stop. The air travel business has changed dramatically since the 70s, when many attendants were flying solely to get their MRS degree. This memoir was fun to read, and descriptions of TWA’s designer uniforms, training, and international travel sounds so appealing. The author shares the bold behavior of some passengers (the Mile-High club) and the crazy and unusual things that flight attendants had to attempt to control. Ms. Hood’s stories were fun and took me on a sweet journey of a time when travel was grand. #FlyGirl @netgalley @w.w.norton #annhood #airplanes #twa #travel #flightattendant #stewardess (Pub. Date: May 3)
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Thank you to W.W. Norton books, Ann Hood, and NetGalley for this free ARC; my thoughts and review are my own and without bias. #bookaddict #booksofinstagram #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagramer #bookshelf #booksbooksbooks #readersofinstagram #reader #booklove #author #instabooks #literature

Thanks Norton and NetGalley for this arc. This was a fun read, and brought back memories of my years from 1981-1997 working in Los Angeles for an international airline. I was ground staff and did training for reservations staff, but we had agreements with all the other airlines, so I, too, had free tickets thrown at me and I had plenty of time off. If I had four days off I'd go to Europe, five days I could make it to Asia and back. I took TW 760/761 LAX/LHR many, many times, so often that I still remember how good the chicken tikka was, and the scones and clotted cream. If that flight was full I'd fly to ORD or STL or JFK and pick up a flight from one of those cities - to whatever city had seats available in "the pointy end." Like Ann, I've missed traveling the last couple of years - but was able to go to London in Nov. 2021. With Covid testing it was a pain, and expensive, but I did it, and I'll keep doing it, because I love just wandering around the world. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. And I need to get back up to SFO, where I spent three months training, so I can get back to Sears for the pancakes and French toast, and the Buena Vista for an Irish coffee. Living in L.A. that's an easy trip for me.

This memoir is from a time in Ann Hood's life when she was a flight attendant from age 21 to 28. But it really begins from the time she was a small child , and all she had dreamed about was going up into the sky or space for an adventure away from her small town roots. This book is like a love letter to the aeronautic industry and is quite readable and enjoyable.

Quote from the book, subject to change upon release date of 5/3/22. "The history and culture of being an airline stewardess that I stepped into was a combination of women fighting for equal pay, fair work rules, and respect for their jobs as flight attendants while those same women were being used to dress sexy, act demure, and lure businessmen onto airlines. It seemed, in 1977, to pretty much capture the role of women in general."

This book contains so many new facts for a reader to learn about: the first stewardess and what her job entailed (hint: she was a nurse and that was what her role was, to take care of and cater to men passengers). Also how the uniforms changed over the years, and the name too, from hostess to stewardess, to flight attendant, from women only to men included. ...to the days of only hiring females 5'1-5'7 and not over 115 lbs or age 28. It was said back in the day that if you didn't find a man (through your stewardess career) by age 28 then no man wanted you and neither did the airline. Ms. Hood shares so much trivia about a fascinating career that intrigued me! For instance the TWA terminal, which was a modernistic space age hangar during its heyday, closed when TWA closed up for good. It is now the TWA Hotel and lots of people, including Ms. Hood, go there for the ambience of the cocktail lounge, the restaurant, the chalet bar, and an infinity pool... and for a place to reminisce.

I've read two other books by Ms. Hood and liked them enough to take a chance on a memoir specifically dealing with her hiring process for major airlines, endless interviews to secure a flight attendant career, and then the joys of dealing with the public & performing a service to put stressed out people at ease. I'm very glad that I did!

Recommended! 4.50/5 rounded up to 5/5 for my enjoyment and quality of the writing. Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for my copy--

An interesting read. This was an entertaining and fascinating memoir of Ann Hood’s adventurous years as a TWA flight attendant.

Always love Ann Hood's stories and FLY GIRL is full of them. We're immersed into that era and get to fly alongside Ann and her fellow flight attendants with a behind-the-scenes look at their challenges and adventures.

I hate flying.... truly terrified of it. I thought this book might make me feel better about it. It did! I loved Fly Girl, I knew nothing about the flight industry or flight attendants so this was an interesting read for me.

Since a member of my family is in the aviation business, a lot of the information in this book was not new to me as it likely is to those who don't have someone close to them living it every day. For those people, it can be an eye opener as to all the duties and responsibilities of flight attendants.

When aviation was new and it was a man's world, women fought to get into the field and were turned back for many, many years. The first female pilot who applied to the airlines was instead offered a flight attendant position as flying was just for men. Back then you were hired for your youth, looks and figure. Once any of those categories was no longer the case, you were no longer a flight attendant or stewardess as they were called then. It was only when men were hired for the job that the title was changed.

The author dreamed of flying and writing and fought hard to do both at a time when people laughed at such a thing. After all, women were supposed to fly until they found a husband and then were forced to quit so they could be wives and mothers. We've come a long way since then.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Book: Fly Girl: A Memoir
Author: Ann Hood
Format: Kindle
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir/Biography
Places Featured: Several
Book Club/Reading Challenge: N/A
Review Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Review: As a young girl in Rhode Island, Ann Hood dreamed of being a writer and seeing the world, so in 1978 she became a flight attendant for TWA--"Fly Girl" is all about everything it took to become a flight attendant and what life was like during the eight years she was one (especially interesting since it was during the rise of feminism and the deregulation of the airline industry). Hood also includes some really interesting information about the history of flight, the airline industry, and, of course, flight attendants. As someone who has spent a lot of time on airplanes, this book was fascinating and I really apprecaited learning some of the ins and outs--the writing needed to be more concise and a little more editing would have made it five stars, but I think anyone that travels will find it a good book.

"At first blush, Fly Girl is a charming, layered memoir about Ann Hood’s life as a flight attendant who knew the industry in its glory days―and its-not-so-glorious days post-deregulation. But it’s also something much more, nothing less than a manifesto calling us to embrace joy and adventure, however we define them. I have always loved Ann’s stories and now I know why she has so many: She has lived, in the best, fullest sense of that word. She can't make the sun stand still, but, boy does she make it run."

Fly Girl
A Memoir
by Ann Hood
Pub Date 03 May 2022 |
W. W. Norton & Company
Biographies & Memoirs | Travel


I am reviewing a copy of Fly Girl , A Memoir through W.W. Norton & Company and Netgalley:


It was 1978, the tail wind of the Golden era of traveling by air, back when flight attendants were the epitome of glamor and sophistication. Ann Hood was fresh out of college, ready to experience the world and maybe even write about it, and perhaps even write about it someday!




After a grueling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what the situation. Ann Hood joined the ranks.



Ann Hood found both the adventure was all she dreamed of as well as the realities of life on the job. She carved chateaubriand in the first-class cabin and dined in front of the pyramids in Cairo, fended off passengers’ advances and found romance on layovers in London and Lisbon, and walked more than a million miles in high heels. She flew through the start of deregulation, an oil crisis, massive furloughs, and a labor strike.


Just as the air industry started to change around here, Hood began writing even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist standards. Packed with funny, moving, and shocking stories of life as a flight attendant, Fly Girl captures the nostalgia and magic of air travel at its height, and the thrill that remains with every takeoff.


If you are looking for a writing advice book, full of tips on how to go about different aspects of a writing career, Fly Girl is not that book…But if you are looking for one writers inspiring, and exciting start to writing, I highly recommend Fly Girl.



Five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Ann Hood's writing is always engaging. As a YA title this did not disappoint. I'll read everything she writes.

I can count on one hand the number of Non-Fiction books I read in a year. They tend to bore me, and I prefer to escape to another time and place, not read about someone's life, so I avoid them.

However, even though I'm terrified of airplanes and have to be heavily drugged to fly without making the local news, I have a fascination with flight attendants from the '60s and '70s, when flying was glamorous and exciting. I wasn't sure Mrs. Hood's story would interest me, given that she was a flight attendant in the early '80s, but I absolutely loved this book.

From dreaming of flying as a young girl to her stressful job search looking for the perfect airline to the thrill of finally achieving her dream and flying the friendly skies, I was completely enthralled. What an exciting journey to be on! She had so many cool experiences, and while it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops, those 8 years shaped her into the person she is today.

It was kind of sad to read about how it all came to an end, though. Instead of retiring on her own terms and planning her final flight, she, along with so many other hard-working flight attendants, were unceremoniously dumped after going on strike in 1986 after TWA threatened to cut their wages by 22%. TWA hired young women straight out of high school to replace the veterans on strike and refused to do what was right in a bid to save money for the floundering airline. In the end, many flight attendants never went back to the job they so loved, and their time in the air was cut short by misogyny and mismanagement.

Overall, if you have an interest in flight attendants and the 'good 'ol days' of flying, then I absolutely recommend this book. It was so well done, and not once was I bored!

I love the cover and title of Fly Girl, and I love memoirs, so I was expecting to be wowed by this book. However, it’s a DNF for me at 34%. The first third of the book was less a memoir and more a dry history of flight attendants. Perhaps the entertaining anecdotes, personal growth epiphanies, etc. will come later, but I couldn’t make it any further. I am, however, grateful for the ARC.

What a memoir! And written with the style I have loved since I first read Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine back in the late 80s (yes, I am old). Learning lessons, never understating the fun and oddness, and providing a short history of the airline industry from the perspective of those who lived through it. Fun!

Ann Hood became a flight attendant at TWA in 1978 and worked there for many years. In this book, she recounts the places she saw and the people she met, and how the shifting culture of air travel at the time affected her and her job.She was fortunate enough to fly during what was considered the golden age of air travel until the advent of deregulation and its after effects which changed the industry beyond recognition..

The author gives us a fascinating insight into the world of air travel in the 70's and 80's which makes the modern reader wish they had been able to experience. Who wouldn't want to be served freshly sliced chateaubriand, tossed salad and made to order ice cream sundaes instead of the plastic meal trays and bags of peanuts facing travellers onboard today? However it wasn't all glitz and glamour and the hard working stewardesses also found themselves with much to have to cope with from dirty diapers in the seat pockets, drunken and rowdy teams of sportsmen and women breast feeding cats. (Yes you read that correctly)

Everyone who flies on an airplane should read this book and be made aware that far from the trolley dolly unformed bar staff image, on board staff are an integral part of the flaying experience and help to ensure that each and every passenger has a safe and comfortable trip even when it means they have to suffer themselves when going above and beyond for the customers. I defy you to read this and come out without a newly found appreciation for flight attendants.

An intriguing look at the golden age of flying and the women who chose careers in flight. Ann Hood makes wonderful use of her experiences to craft a memoir which reads as rewardingly as a novel. Many thanks to Norton and to Netgalley for the early look.

I enjoyed this book set during the golden age of air travel. I was surprised about how much I learned from a fiction book. Now I want to know more.

An incredibly interesting memoir about an incredibly interesting job! I absolutely love this book about the golden age of travel. Hearing the authors perspective on a job that was really empowering for women was extremely informative. I would highly recommend this been memoir!