"The Flight Attendant"

“The Flight Attendant”

Written by Chris Bohjalian

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

“The Flight Attendant” was a very polarizing book for me. In certain chapters, I felt eager to continue, enraptured by certain scenes. In other chapters, I felt that attempting to read any further was more difficult than Frodo and Sam journeying through Mordor.

This political and mystery thriller was initially interesting to me, kicking off with a brilliant first chapter, full of intrigue and confusion. Cassie Bowden has found herself hungover, lying in bed next to the man she slept with the previous night. One issue: he’s been murdered, his throat cut by a broken bottle. The book chronicles Cassie’s guilt over disappearing, without calling the police, and links her story to Elena. Elena is a Russian spy, involved in the murder of Alexander Sokolov, Cassie’s one-night-stand lover. We initially are let into the fact that Elena is the cause of his murder, which was an interesting choice on Bohjalian’s part.

To continue, the writing style is mainly what ruined the book for me. Cassie is an extremely unlikeable character, flitting through the book with guilt and trope-like actions. Cassie does not feel original nor does her character create nuance to an old type. Elena’s character is fun and interesting: the parts of the book that you do want to read. Most of the book is dialogue, much of which is talking about what happened, reacted to by every single character. Also, there is not a lot of action in the prose, featuring the inner monologue and thoughts of both Cassie and Elena. The detail placed into both monologues and dialogue is just too in-depth. Much of the story is stuck in Dante’s circles of hell. “We don’t know what happened; what should we do?” and “How do I frame this stupid woman for murder?” No matter the inane actions that Cassie takes, Elena takes an absurdly long time to complete her tasks.

Additionally, there are small inclusions of interview transcripts, letters, e-mails, investigation materials, and more. These additions add a small element of appeal into the story, purely because it’s more information to which we’re finally privy.

Another aspect that saves this book is listening to it via audiobook. Being able to speed up the audiobook allows the book to be listened to quickly and efficiently. Reading every sentence in stark concentration is not effective, allowing room for distraction and boredom. Listening to the audiobook while completing chores and errands efficiently breaks up the monotony.

Although this review seems to be harsh, I feel it to be justified. I hardly enjoyed this book. I do not plan to continue reading Chris Bohjalian’s work for a while, unless the premise really grabs ahold of my attention. This book was not for me. Perhaps you’d enjoy this book if you like “Homeland”, “The West Wing”, and “Argo”. This admittedly was a departure into political thrillers, which I plan to steer clear from in the future. I rated this book at 3 out of 5 stars.

I received a finished copy of this book from Doubleday Books, in exchange for reading and reviewing purposes. Thank you to the publishing house for the opportunity.