The Flight Attendant Book Review

Book Review by Dinh.

Read synopsis here.

Review:

This is the first book that I have read by Chris Bohjalian and I am glad that I read The Flight Attendant as an introduction to this author.

I missed my local library book club reading for this book recently and I am glad I read this for our book club.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. What a great way to start the year by reading a suspenseful thriller!

I didn’t know that the author was such a prolific writer. Bohjalian is a New York Times best selling author. He has written 20 books, including Close Your Eyes, The Guest Room, Hold Hands, The Double Bind, and Midwives, which was a selection on Oprah’s Book Club. His other novels, Secrets of Eden, Midwives and Past the Bleachers were adapted to the big screen.

The Flight Attendant is being made into a limited T.V. series on HBO Max, which is coming out in the spring. Kaley Cuoco from the “Big Bang Theory” will star as Cassie!

Find Chris Bohjalian: Website|Twitter |Facebook

Plot:

The premise of The Flight Attendant was fantastic. Cassandra Bowden wakes up in a hotel in Dubai to find a murdered man next to her and she is covered in his blood. How intriguing is that?!

Now she has to get out of place and figure out what happened. Did she kill him? She can’t remember because she was black-out drunk!

Author’s Style:

Chris Bohjalian writing style is great.

The book was an easy read and it sucked me in right at the beginning.

I liked that The Flight Attendant was easy to follow as well. There’s enough description to get the gist of scene and enough dialogue to move the plot along. I liked that it was balanced and not wordy.

The book was a page turner. It does start off slower at the beginning but the pace moved along as we got closer to the end. It was a great build up. The suspense builds right up until the end.

It is evident that Bohjalian did his research on the life of a flight attendant. The details added authenticity and made the book more enjoyable. I enjoyed the inside stories that the attendants shared.

Characters:

Bohjalian does a great job in exploring the complex nature of people. His main character Cassie was done just right; not your typical heroine but a flawed one.

I enjoyed Cassandra Bowden because she is not your typical heroine. I liked that she was not perfect. Cassie was a real character with real issues (like alcohol abuse). It’s a big problem if you can’t remember if you killed a man!

Her emotional baggage makes her like a real person. She’s not quite unlikable because she has heart but her actions in her carefree lifestyle makes you cringe.

Although she had issues and you feel sorry for her, by the end of the book there’s a turn around and you root for her.

Ending:

I enjoyed the ending immensely.

The ending was abrupt but all the loose strings were tied up by the last page.

What a twist at the end! I didn’t see that one coming a mile away! And the twists didn’t stop there. The epilogue had a nice twist too!

My favorite part of the book was the epilogue.

“Remember that person you wanted to be? There’s still time.”

I liked that Cassie got a happy ending, her “Happy Ever After”. Two years later, she has a purpose in life and is not drinking.

My Final Thoughts:

I enjoyed reading The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian.

It was a suspenseful thriller that hooked you in from the beginning.

This page-turner was an excellent read and definitely worthwhile. Though slower to start, the book builds up until the ending hits you in the face!

I will be checking out Bohjalian’s new book The Red Lotus, coming out March 17, 2020!

Get your copy of The Flight Attendant here. Or listen to it for free with an Audible trial.

Belong to a book club? Check out The Flight Attendant Book Club Discussion Questions.