Having really enjoyed Please Ignore Vera Dietz some years back, I couldn't resist picking up a copy of A.S. King's new novel, Ask The Passengers. King's characters are just as quirky as ever and dealing with issues just as difficult as ever, not helped by the fact of the small town mentality surrounding them. One of King's amazing strengths as a writer is the way she invokes the life of her small towns and the people who populate them. They seem so real, both in terms of setting and in terms of the inhabitants and their interpersonal and group dynamics. This story revolves around the struggle of a teen girl (Astrid) to come to terms with her sexuality in a town that is rather close-minded and homophobic. She doesn't know if she's gay or straight, and her family and friends are little help and, in fact, make it much harder for her. She already had the deck stacked against her as a transplant from New York City with a somewhat dysfunctional home situation - nothing terrible or violent, just a cast of familial characters who seem to be growing in different directions and can't quite manage to pull it all together.
Astrid spends quite a bit of her time lying on a picnic table sending her love to anonymous strangers in passing airplanes because she doesn't feel she has much use for her love in her own life. The airplane motif is beautifully constructed, developed and sustained throughout the story in a typical metaphysical quirky King manner. (Gee, that was a run-on description, but it's true.) King is such an original and engaging writer who draws the reader in to the lives of people we may or may not meet in our own lives but who are rendered so beautifully on the page that they feel real. Astrid's voice is sarcastic and intelligent, but also extremely sympathetic. The typical teen dealing with atypical problems who's looking for both information and allies in her struggle to become who she's supposed to be. Engaging, entertaining, melancholy and a powerful read.
Astrid spends quite a bit of her time lying on a picnic table sending her love to anonymous strangers in passing airplanes because she doesn't feel she has much use for her love in her own life. The airplane motif is beautifully constructed, developed and sustained throughout the story in a typical metaphysical quirky King manner. (Gee, that was a run-on description, but it's true.) King is such an original and engaging writer who draws the reader in to the lives of people we may or may not meet in our own lives but who are rendered so beautifully on the page that they feel real. Astrid's voice is sarcastic and intelligent, but also extremely sympathetic. The typical teen dealing with atypical problems who's looking for both information and allies in her struggle to become who she's supposed to be. Engaging, entertaining, melancholy and a powerful read.
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