Book Review of
Fly Girl

Lynn's Review

Fly Girl by Ann Hood was published in 2022. 

I received this memoir of a flight attendant as one of my books last year for my monthly shelf subscription from The Bookshelf Thomasville. I had heard great things about it, but I hate flying. I was afraid that it would contain too many stories of things gone wrong for me. I knew that I would have to be in the right mood to pick it up. 

After reading a lot of fiction when I was sick recently I wanted to pick up some nonfiction that was not super heavy or that took a lot of thought. I decided that it was a good time to give Fly Girl a try. 

I am so glad that I did. I read Fly Girl in two days. 

This book is exactly the reason that I love to read memoirs. It helped me experience a time and place that I really did not know anything about. 

The book is set in the late 1970s and 1980s. That is the time period that I grew up, however, I did not take my first flight until 1991. 

I grew up in a small, rural, area of Oregon. Flying somewhere for vacation, to visit family, or even for work, was not something that we did. So the airline and airport world of the 1970s and 1980s is something that I knew very little about. 

This book was not only informative, but it was also fun. It has a spirit of adventure. I loved the stories that the author told. I loved her enthusiasm for everything from the people to the airline food, to the uniforms she had to wear. You can tell that she truly loved what she did. 

The book also showed how much the airline travel industry has changed. It has changed a lot from its early invention to deregulation, 9/11, and now modern-day. Food, staffing, airports, and why and how people travel have changed so much. 

For some, this book will be a trip down memory lane. For me, it helped show me a world that I never experienced. 

The book does cover some difficult situations, but it does it in a fun and entertaining way. So even if you hate to fly, as I do, I think that you will enjoy this read.