“I hope if you write about us tonight, it feels like the beginning of a very long story”

What a heartbreaking story of young love found and lost way too soon.

Anna and Weston need to perform a duet together for the marching band at school. Weston is known as an outcast in town, so Anna has to sneak behind her over protective parents back in order to see him to practice. You can smell how that'll turn out a mile away.

I thought this was well written and I enjoyed listening to this young couple find their first love.
The dual narration was almost perfect ~ Tina sounded the proper age, but Cody sounded a little too old to be a high school student. I would read or listen to this authors work again.

*Thanks to Netgalley, Tantor Audio and Ashley Schumacher for the advance audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*

Anna has moved up to the first chair saxophone in the marching band, but she may not have be able to keep her duet if she can't perfect it. So she recruits Weston to help her. Weston's parents are among the only ones who are divorced in their small town. If that didn't set him apart enough, his schoolmates have determined he is weird because he wears a leather jacket and rumors say he chopped up a tree.

Anna and Weston agree to be completely honest with each other. I love that because the lack is too often the cause of relationship problems. However, they are less honest with the adults in their lives.

The story is told in dual perspectives. Weston regularly references a beautiful metaphor of a bird, the Kaua'i'õ'õ, who is the last of it's kind. It symbolizes loneliness and becomes a major theme throughout the book. What does it mean to be lonely and to be accepted? How do we experience loneliness when with others?

When "the unthinkable" happens late in the book, it doesn't fit the tone of the rest. The synopsis makes it clear what to expect, and this is one book where I do recommend reading the synopsis ahead. I didn't feel the ending fit maturity of the rest of the book. And I felt it didn't quite resolve the established themes.

Both narrators did a good job with pacing and emotion. Cody Roberts sounded too adult to me, so he didn't feel like a great fit for a YA novel. Tina Wolstencroft did a better job voicing Anna in a believable way.

Thank you to NetGalley and for the audiobook and to Wednesday Books for the paperback. These opinions are my own.

3.5 stars rounded up

Let me start by saying I ADORE this book. I can admit to reading the ARC more than once and I cannot wait to get this in our high school library. What better way to brush up on the details than to listen to the new audiobook version, right?
I tried. I really tried. I just cannot get over the narrators voices. Weston’s is harder for me than Anna’s - he is just too mature/too old sounding. His tone doesn’t sit right for me either. I get that Weston feigns apathetic and irritable, but he is really just closed off and introspective. Anna’s narrator sounded more believable as a high schooler but her voices for her sister and some of the other characters is really grating.
I hate to be so harsh, especially for a book that I hope finds success and is such a great fit for high schoolers.
Book is 5 Stars!
Audio is 3 stars.
Thanks so much for the ALC!

Once upon a time there was a girl from a small Texas town obsessed with band and football.

Wait - are we talking about me or this book?!

Because this book was legitimately set in my high school life, I was a little distracted by some of the unrealistic parts (she doesn’t know this guy when there are only 43 people in band? The band teacher gives the duet parts to people who could mess them up? There are showers in the band hall?!)

I know these are minor things and I’m just getting distracted because this was my life an undisclosed number of years ago.

Back to the book, Anna and Weston’s relationship starts with necessity and quickly grows into friendship and (forbidden) love.

The book portrays the loneliness, love, loss, and grief in small town life and the teenage experience in such a lovely way. I found myself in the band hall right there with them - practicing my music and doing my homework. My heart broke and rejoiced with them.

3.5 stars

3.5 stars

Even though reading the Goodreads synopsis basically told me the entire plot of the book, I found that there was still a lot to enjoy in Ashley Schumacher's sophomore novel Full Flight. I was absolutely captivated by her gift for prose with several excellent lines leaping out at me from the pages. I also think that she has an excellent handle on her characters, allowing them to experience emotions in the uncomfortable and overwhelming way that is so distinctly adolescent. The main relationship really shines on account of that winning combination.

What this book lacked for me was a greater picture of the world around these two characters. There is a fair amount of conflict, both internal and external, that is a result of living in Enfield, Texas amongst god-fearing but hypocritical people. Because most of these conflicts are told but not shown, I would get pulled out of the book at certain moments because I felt like I didn't have a clear picture as to why something was important. Like, did people in the town really think that Weston was going to hell just because he wore a leather jacket? This specific setting and community had such an impact on the characters' mind and hearts throughout the book and I think that fully developing that aspect of the storytelling would have made this relationship all the more rich.

Although I knew where this story would end and while there were some rocky moments for me, I must say that I still really enjoyed the journey that Schumacher took me on!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Awww yes football is king in Texas ~ however every football team needs the support of the marching band ~ Right?
Although not from Texas, I worked as a Guidance Counselor with high school students for many years and yes members of the marching band certainly march to the beat of their own drummer. They are actually a great group of students but do stick to themselves. BTW: I love to read YA stories so that I can share some great reads with my students. This is one that I would like to recommend to my students ~ however. I do have a problem with the profanity…Oh Yes! ~ I know that many use nasty words but I also know they show me respect by using a filter in our conversations. This story definitely held me in its grip; it was good and oh so sad!
Great title!

Audiobook Narrators Tina Wolstencroft and Cody Roberts both do a great job in their performance of
Anna and Weston!

Want to thank NetGalley and Tantor Audio ~ for this audio eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for February 22, 2022.

So I think I would have given this book a higher rating had I read it versus listening to the audio. I did not like the male narrator at all. His tone and inflection was just off putting. I definitely did not see any Senior male talking the way he did. The sad thing is I liked the story, it was good. But the audio just lost me somewhere in the middle and I never felt a connection. The female narrator did do a great job though, I did really like her.

***Thank you Netgalley for the audio copy in return for an honest review***

After experiencing fomo from all the raving last year about Ashley Schumacer’s Amelia Unabridged, I wanted to listen to her latest novel, Full Flight.

Full Flight is filled with how it was when one was in highschool. The insecurity about our body image, crushes, grades, friends, band practice, trying to navigate through a variety of social dynamics and first loves.

Something tragically sad does occur in this novel and I really truly think I would have felt more moved if I had read this instead of listened to Full Flight. While I love audiobooks, I do realize that sometimes it just doesn’t translate as well as I would have liked. To be clear, both narrators were great. So I feel underwhelmed that I don’t have strong feelings for this book as most others do. I also could be in a reading funk.

I do want to clarify that this is a well written YA novel, but going forward I’ll be reading Schumacher’s books instead to get the full beautiful experience of her writing.

A well written YA book. This was a book about people finding each other when they don’t quite fit in. Tough to read at times, but heartfelt and more mature than I thought it would be. The narrator did a great job of differentiating the characters.

Its Anna’s first year in marching band and she is determined to prove herself. She gets assigned a duet with Weston, a boy that has a bad reputation in her town. As they practice, Anna sees there is so much more to him and starts to fall for him, but her parents don’t want her to see him.

I knew this book would wreck me, but the way it happened was so devastating. This started out a beautiful story of first love and getting to know someone for who they are. And unfortunately I got a little too comfortable when about 80% in this book shattered my heart into a million pieces and I was sitting in my bed ugly crying by the end.

Ashley Schumaker has a beautiful way of writing about tragedy. I fell in love with her writing last year after reading Amelia Unabridged and Full Flight was just as moving. It was so easy to fall in love with these characters and root for their love story. I devoured this book in one sitting because it completely enthralled me and I could not put it down. This book is truly incredible.

The audiobook was amazing. Both narrators captured the characters and their feelings so well.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

CW: death of loved one, grief, divorce, bullying

I'm not 100% sure how to feel about this novel. It's beautifully written and captures first love so perfectly, but it's also heartbreaking and had me in tears by the end. Full Flight brought me right back to high school and the giddy, lighter than air feelings and excitement that come with new love. I felt the progression of Anna and Weston's relationship was really well done and was very accurate. Doesn't every relationship at that age feel all consuming and meant to be forever? Unfortunately, even knowing what would happen to one of the main characters didn't soften the blow to my heart. That knowledge actually cast a pretty grim shadow over the entire book, and made it hard to feel invested in Anna and Weston at times. I also found the pacing a bit off, with a lot of page time spent on band details, which were interesting but a bit overwhelming. I think the author made the transition between before and after the tragedy intentionally abrupt, but it was hard to recover from that gut punch while also rushing towards the end. Also, I'm not sure if it was just an ARC issue, but was chapter 25 supposed to be missing? Ultimately, the message of Full Flight is an uplifting one and finding out how personal the story was to the author only made it more special.

I both read and listened to this one and thought the performances by Cody Roberts and Tina Wolstencroft were really well done. Oftentimes, narrators can sound too mature for the teenage characters they're voicing, but the casting was great and their voices complemented each other nicely.

Audiobook Review
Overall 4 stars
Performance 4 stars
Story 4 stars

*I voluntarily read and listened to an advance review copy of this book*

3.5 stars

I enjoyed Schumacher's debut and this follow-up; this is an author who does not shy away from sadness, and that's especially apparent here. Come to this one for a teary moment or two.

Anna and Weston alternate perspectives, and they carry out a fairly traditional misfits-who-fit routine. Their relationship is endearing, if somewhat chaste, and they are both generally likeable characters. It's easy to root for them because of the challenges they face in and out of their high school environments. This likeability is what makes it particularly tough to stomach the unfortunate turn of events. For me, it's a huge bummer that the descriptions of this novel all make obvious what's going to happen. I was always waiting for it, and when it happened, I think it was less striking because I anticipated it and wouldn't let myself get too close. My strong suspicion is that I would have enjoyed this book even more if the marketing had been reconsidered. I couldn't forget this major plot point and felt like it really clouded my entire reading experience.

Taking all of this into consideration, this is one of the better YA books I've read recently that centers on this theme (which, for some reason, seems to be a popular focus lately). I particularly enjoyed the epilogue, which rounds out some apt symbolism and motifs. This is a good read overall and a useful one for readers who find a mirror here. I do not at all understand the marketing perspective (which seems like it came from maybe people who do not read much...? Odd...) and hope there are some reconsiderations on that front for future works.

A YA love story that is equally beautiful and heartbreaking - something I've come to expect from Ashley Schumacher. Set in small town Texas, two teen bandmates have to work together on a duet and fall in love along the way. Anna and Weston bond over a shared love of music and their friendship was a delight to see evolve. Knowing what was sure to come though, I spent most of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop, which it inevitably did around the 85% mark. That said, even knowing there was going to be a sad ending this story is still a great read. I thought the way grief is dealt with was incredibly well done. Recommended for fans of John Green, Nicholas Sparks or You've reached Sam by Dustin Thao. Much thanks to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for my ALC.