Library Journal Reviews
Before she authored such beloved best sellers as The Book That Matters Most and The Knitting Circle, Hood worked as a flight attendant, enjoying layovers in far-flung places and smiling through the blisters brought on by treading miles of aisles in high heels. Deregulation, an oil crisis, furloughs, a labor strike—she saw them all in a job she acknowledges is shaped by sexism yet for her proved empowering. She sketched out her first novel while sitting in one of her plane's jump seats.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
Library Journal Reviews
Novelist Hood's (The Knitting Circle) delightful memoir of her stint as a TWA flight attendant in the late 1970s is full of amusing trivia, hilarious stories, and all the warmth of her novels. The book has plenty of quick anecdotes about strange passengers and happenings on her flights, her training at TWA's rigorous academy, and her world travels, and the author invites readers to settle in for this journey with her. The memoir demonstrates Hood's progression as a person, sees her growing into her position and authority as a mature and steady flight attendant, and tracks the advancement (not always for the better) of the airline industry since 1978. She also offers loads of insight into the inner workings of a commercial flight crew, incorporating the experiences of her flight-attendant peers, and analyzes the ads and pop culture references that track the changing image of flight attendants in the late 20th century. VERDICT An engaging memoir perfect for fans of Hood's and readers interested in aviation history or who love a good coming-of-age memoir.—Amanda Ray
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Publishers Weekly Reviews
The "demanding, sexist, exciting, glorious" golden age of air travel sets the spectacular stage for this sparkling account from former flight attendant and novelist Hood (Kitchen Yarns). Trained at Trans World Airlines' selective Breech Training Academy in 1978 at age 21, Hood's airline career began in the glitzy days of Ralph Lauren uniforms, high heels, and chateaubriand carving stations, and dramatically ended eight years later in a picket line, as the combined forces of deregulation, bankruptcies, and labor strikes sent the industry into a tailspin. Despite occasionally didactic forays into the history of air travel ("Qantas Airlines operated the world's first international passenger service in 1935 between Brisbane and Singapore"), Hood's companionable storytelling paired with her bold skewering an oft-glamorized world—riddled with surprise weight checks and aggressive male passengers—make for an enthralling account. Equally effective is her moving story of overcoming entrenched stereotypes—"glorified waitress, a sex kitten, an archaic symbol of women"—within the industry to become a writer, drafting stories late at night on long international flights "as passengers slept" and powering through jet lag in "hotel rooms in Zurich and Paris and Rome" to craft her first novel. From takeoff to landing, this entertains and inspires. (May)
Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.