4.5 stars!

Huh. I'm a little stunned to be honest.

We all have hobbies. And after a long week of moderating hateful comments on social media, 30-year-old Linda finds no better way to unwind than by going to the airport and indulging in her deep attraction to commercial airplanes! I know you're wondering "Is it sexual?" and the answer is yes, but it's not only sexual because Linda's ultimate dream is to one day be eternally bonded to one of her stunning steel suitors in that holy matrimony we call...a plane crash. Can you tell I'm having fun? Good, because it'll be a good appetizer for this book that is all at once strangely charming and charmingly strange. I was engaged the whole way through and genuinely had no idea where the plot was going, but I was along for the ride (haha). No spoilers but the ending was exactly what I wanted it to be, I laughed so much when I turned the last page. The only thing I'll say is that there is some pretty unsettling moments of sexual harassment and dubious consent that didn't feel super necessary but I just can't be mad about it. Considering the premise, this book is extremely well done and I encourage you to begrudge your curiosity and read it.

Read this for a fun time, or at least an interesting one!

Thank you to Kate Folk and Random House for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

I've had a bit of a thing recently with dark weird girl lit, and Sky Daddy by Kate Folk really took the cake. Our main character, Linda, is a certified self-proclaimed weird girl. She's really hard not to love for her unique, sometimes-relatable, sometimes-far out quirks. Her growth both personally and in her relationships is really moving to watch through this story, even as Linda herself seems to grow increasingly more unhinged. The portrayal of female friendships and platonic love throughout is really nice as well.

This story is funny, dark, and truly just a delight. If you only read one weird girl book in 2025, let it be Sky Daddy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the cherished opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

As a weird girl that works in the aviation industry, I love weird girls that psychosexualize planes... Apparently. This ate.

A wild and surreal ride through love, obsession, and chaos, with sharp social commentary. The story’s bizarre twists will leave you unsettled and oddly satisfied. A must-read for fans of unconventional, razor-sharp fiction.

Linda works in digital hygiene as a social media content moderator. Largely unbothered by this cumbersome job, Linda’s only focus is on saving enough money to flight once a month in the hopes that she’ll meet her avian soulmate and they will be united for eternity. Linda is one of the most memorable characters you will ever encounter, and bearing witness to her pursuit is immensely enjoyable. Linda is incredibly relatable, quirks and all, and reminds you of feeling adrift, waiting for the sign that you’re where you need to be. Her fear of being judged, of her weirdness being used as a weapon, is particularly resonant. Kate Folk is a hilarious writer and I can’t wait to see what else she comes up with.

Thank you Kate Folk, Random House, and Netgalley for advance access to Sky Daddy! Stay tuned for its release on April 8, 2025.

I enjoyed this book and look forward to interviewing the author!

Sky Daddy's premise is zany and absurd in way that's recognizably Kate Folk if you've read her short story collection (and uncollected stories). The narrator, Linda, has one interest in life: her sexual obsession with airplanes. She wants to marry a plane, i.e. go down in a crash with her "soulmate plane." She otherwise has no ambitions or pastimes; her one friend, Karina, is her coworker at a tech company, where they are both content moderators. Linda's life changes when she starts attending Vision Board Brunches with Karina. After she pastes her wishes to a manifestation board, they actually seem to come true. Maybe she actually can marry a plane... At its core, this book is about being a lonely outsider with seemingly impossible desires.

I do wish some of the secondary characters, especially Karina and the landlords' son, had been developed just a tiny bit more. We learn some important facts about Karina at the very end of the book, but I wish her character had been more fleshed-out overall.

4.25

Setting: California
Rep: n/a

This is one weird ass weird girl book and I loved it. Linda is pretty strange, pretty gross at times, but I was compelled by her narration and her friendships throughout the book. Fans of Melissa Broder will like this!

This was unhinged and I loved it hahahaha. Kate you’re lowkey a freak but I’d be your best friend I just know it.

This was so much fun. Although, it wasn’t necessarily happy at any point. I love reading about obsession and desire and this quirky spin on things kept me engaged from start to finish. I also learned a tiny bit about planes lmao. This was like an episode of my strange addiction written by an emotionally intelligent woman. The ending!!!! Ugh. Although I am frustrated, i think it was the perfect way to end the story. I’m still unsure if I should be out here creating quarterly vision boards or not. Weird books for weird girl crews are gonna eat this one up.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I am a big, big fan of Out There and was very excited for Kate’s debut novel. If you can somehow read this book while flying, it really enhances the experience. Honestly cured me of any flying anxieties I had lingering. The premise is entirely strange but the way Kate writes Linda’s POV I was really cheering for her to get her wish even though it’s a very sick and twisted wish. I love the instagram account associated with this book @skydaddylinda. The strange and small details make this book for me. The portrayal of a group of women is insanely accurate to my own book club lollll. However my biggest takeaway from this book is the importance of platonic love and the power it has to save us and perhaps have us meet our destiny? I predict this book will be polarizing because of the plot but I encourage you to read it because it is written with such care and attention to detail. I know now so much more about planes, and dare I say did I miss the point of the book because I too have a new appreciate for the beauty and sexiness of planes? Like I hear you, Linda. If you enjoy the strange and weird of life and friendship; this book is a true delight.

This is one of the weirdest books I have ever read, and I enjoyed it immensely. Linda's inner monologue was both pretentious and bizarre. I didn't like her at all. The amount of secondhand embarrassment I felt during some of the scenes had me cringing and groaning & taking breaks from reading. That being said, she was a super interesting perspective to read from. This book took itself a lot more seriously than I thought it would. This very much feels like a character study of someone mentally ill, rather than just a goofy story about someone with an odd fetish, as the title seems to let on. That, combined with the insane amount of abbreviations with no explanation of what they stood for, diminished a little of the enjoyment for me. Overall though, this was a very fun read that managed to keep my attention & portrayed a beautiful friendship between two women that anyone would be lucky to have.

This book follows Linda, a socially awkward woman with an intense obsession with planes that pretty much takes over her life and relationships. Her ultimate dream is to find a plane that will “choose” her as its soulmate and crash, sealing their fate together. Needless to say, it’s a little out there. Linda keeps to herself, avoiding close friendships and relationships because she’s quirky, and well, the fact that she’s not exactly conventional. Everything starts to shift when her coworker, Karina, invites her to a vision board brunch. Linda goes in with the goal of manifesting her plane soulmate, and that’s when things start to go totally off the rails.

This book is straight-up comedy gold. There were several moments where I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. But it’s not just funny—there’s a lot about connection, friendship, social norms, isolation, and the pressure to fit in. Linda’s a character that feels different from most of the people around her, but she’s also relatable in her own quirky way. I really enjoyed reading her story.

This book will be published on April 7th, 2025. Thank you to the publisher Random House, the author, and NetGalley for a free copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

I don't think I can ever look at an airport the same way again.

Seriously. This book is the most uncomfortable I have ever felt at being on the inside of someone else's head. I went on a roadtrip while in the midst of reading this and physically cringed at the sight of an airport.

You will feel every negative emotion while reading through this, guaranteed.

While the expression is typically "like watching a train wreck", I think a plane crash is a more apt and thematic way of describing this utterly baffling book.

Okay this book is unhinged and it is so difficult to try to explain it in anyway that makes sense but here goes; Linda is a sad lady who doesn’t know how to have friends or act normal because the thing is she’s not normal. Linda is sexually attracted to airplanes. And she thinks that if she can manage to crash on one and die it will be like “marrying” the plane. ✈️ So Linda trudges along, but somewhere along the way this also becomes about friendship. So if you like really odd and unhinged female characters and even strange concepts, I’d highly recommend this one!
4.75

One of my favorite things about Kate Folk is that she is a unique storyteller. I found her collection of short stories, Out There to be brilliant and I’m happy to say her debut novel, Sky Daddy did not disappoint!

Sky Daddy tells the story of a woman named Linda. Linda has a terrible job as a content moderator for a video-streaming tech company. Her thankless corporate job only affords her a windowless in-law apartment on the outskirts of San Francisco, but while this apartment may lack windows, it makes up for it with easy public transportation access to San Francisco International Airport. Here’s the thing about Linda, she has a bit of a thing for airplanes and I don’t mean she is mesmerized by the miracle of flight. I mean she quite literally thinks she’s going to fall in love with an airplane and it is going to love her back.

I won’t provide any more details surrounding the plot because figuring out what Linda is going to do next is part of the fun of reading this wonderful novel. One of Folk’s many talents is her ability to take a premise that could easily be dismissed as absurd and make it feel genuine. I may not have the same passion for airplanes as Linda, but I was still able to relate to her due to her full range of emotions. I loved this story. It’s hilarious, one-of-a-kind, fun, real, and heartfelt. I guarantee you’ve never read anything quite like it!

Thank you Random House and Net Galley for the ARC!

Sky Daddy was one of my favourite reads of the entire year! The premise hooked me from the start and I laughed out loud often.

Will be great for anyone who is a fan of Emily Austin or likes characters with neuro-divergent main characters. I can already tell anyone who dislikes this book probably takes themselves too seriously.

This is a sharply written, funny, dark, moving voice-driven book that was hard to put down and explores what it means to share secret parts of yourself.

Sky Daddy is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. Kate Folk gives us a star narrator, Linda, who you can’t help but love despite some of her proclivities. While Linda does her best to navigate relationships – human and machine – Folk also delivers some smart commentary on capitalism and the internet. I particularly enjoyed Linda’s office dynamics as an online content moderator, and her difficulties securing basic, safe housing in order to stay in the city, and pursue her passion… planes.

This book has a lot of similarities to The Pisces and Convenience Store Woman. You need to know what you are getting into before picking up Sky Daddy, but it’s a wonderful ride. This one will stay with me for a long time.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was given a copy of this book to read before it was released for an honest review. I would give this book about 2.8 stars. I say this as the copy is not completely finished with edits. Once those are complete this book has the potential of being a higher star read.

The premise of this book is the reason I wanted to read it. I had never heard of a book about this. This is one of those TLC shows but in book format. I did chuckle in this book a lot. This book was a quick read for me. I felt there were moments in this book where I could relate to the main character. Other times not so much. This is a book I feel that if you need a pallet cleanse, or to read something after a real heavy to digest book. This is that book.

The only negative I have is it seems this book is a lot of run-on sentences. This is possibly due to it not being finished with edits. Other than that, I did enjoy this book. I would recommend this book to those who love reality TV and love kooky narratives.

I'm giving this book 3 stars because I love how Kate Folk portrays true friendship. I did like the way the book ended, and I'm glad I read it to the end, because I was quite disgusted by the main character, Linda.

Linda works in a media moderating company and lives alone in a tiny garage apartment in San Francisco. She is in love with airplanes, in a sort of sick way. This is the story of how Linda is unable to have normal friendships with women or men because of her intense airplane fetish. I did not want to read about this woman with such an emotional disorder, or the man that she has a "relationship" with, who was something of a pervert. I did love her girlfriends, though.

I would not recommend this book, unfortunately, to any of my friends. It was just a little too dysfunctional and unsettling.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Sky Daddy.