Flight

I order somewhere around 30 audible titles a year. Every now and then I luckily stumble across a book like this. Within the first five minutes I knew I'd snagged a total winner. Amazing book. Well narrated. Everything.

Great book. Wonderful narration. I'm glad that Adam Beach collaborated again with Sherman Alexie. He had already done some fine work for him in the film "Smoke Signals".
Also I will try to comment on some interesting points that Heather remarked on the book. First, she pointed out that Zits trust someone in less that 12 hrs when he usually trust nobody. Well in my opinion he is alone and has nobody in life and many people in need or who lack some meaning in their lives will be instantly attached to someone who is willing to listen and who somehow can answer all of their questions. Many people in need will do anything to be always listened or accepted by this person (unfortunately a lot of the wrong people are aware of this).
Second point, she finds that Zits has an unjustifiable "deep connection to the Indian side of his heritage". I think that this can be somehow justified because he is trying to fill a great void in his life and probably his Indian face and looks encourage him to find out more about himself (or the part of himself that he is missing) and probably that's why he tries to get as much info on this subject as he can, that's why he watches films on History Channel and hangs out with Indian drunks.

The rarest of combinations when you mix great humor, good fiction, characters you can't help but love, and throw in science fiction, history, and God. Oh and wrap it in a package of the perfect narrator for the story. I've always really enjoyed Sherman Alexie's writing, but hearing his work perfectly performed was even better.

A kid with a crumby life finds empathy through time travel and hope in his future. I loved this kid. We should all grow up so well.

Powerful and funny. great read.

Sherman Alexie's uncompromising view if Native Anericans is always refreshing and is most evident in Flight. He shows the good and the evil of both the native world and the world of whites. Alexie proves again that he is one if our most important cross-cultural writers.

The story of Zits is equal parts bizarre and tragic. When he enters a bank and starts shooting people, we think his fate is obvious, but the universe has strange intentions for this sarcastic delinquent. Combining a touching coming if age tale with a warped adventure through time and space, Flight is unlike anything you have ever heard before. Adam Beach's narration is the perfect blend of raw youth, emotion, vulgarity, and stoicism.

I love Sherman Alexie - but I didn't love "Flight" that much. The theme is very important - what leads people to act out in violence and how does one come to understand the potential each of us has to hurt others and to step away from doing so. But the story is not the least bit sophisticated and goes after the theme in such an obvious and clumsy way that there is never any mystery where the story is going or how it will end up. The jacket cover description of this story says that it is "hilarious and tragic..." - I would say it is tragic but I didn't find anything hilarious about it.

Wow, this was a powerful book. I'm not sure its listed as a Young Adult novel, but it struck me as such while I read it. I guess that's because the main character is a troubled kid being passed around foster homes. If it's not a Young Adult listing, I am totally happy about that too, because it provides a lot of good insight and revelation to the older reader. For the non-Indian, this book is educational about contemporary native life; for the Native American, it's likely educational too, but in different ways, such as how to interpret --or investigate--some situations and events in one's background. The book as a whole causes one to think long and hard about the impact we as humans have on one another, from within families to interculturally. How careless we can be, and how devastating the results. Likewise, how simple it is to just step back a little bit and let someone like Sherman Alexie teach us how to see honestly and with humor. So, why didn't I give it a 5 star rating? I just thought the end came together a little to nicely, almost as though the author had run out of umph. Some may disagree, and with that I would be fine.

I'm not a big fan of time travel scenarios in story because I'm a realist, but I suppose Sherman used the device in Flight in order to get "Zits" to learn from others' points of view. It was a fairly enjoyable read but I was hoping for a more realistic storyline.

Slurry. Odd. Ethnic.

Sherman Alexie has crafted an entertaining and insightful story that takes readers into the history and current conditions of Indigenous peoples in North America. Told through the experience of young man as he travels through time in search of his identity, Flight had me engaged from beginning to end.

Adam Beach is a great actor. His performance of Flight brings this story to life.