The Flight Attendant

A Novel

By: Chris Bohjalian

Narrated by: Erin Spencer, Grace Experience, Mark Deakins

Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Guest Room, a powerful story about the ways an entire life can change in one night: A flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man - and no idea what happened.

Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She's a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets.

Afraid to call the police - she's a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home - Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first-class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it's too late to come clean - or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?

Set amid the captivating world of those whose lives unfold at 40,000 feet, The Flight Attendant unveils a spellbinding story of memory, of the giddy pleasures of alcohol and the devastating consequences of addiction, and of murder far from home.

©2018 Chris Bohjalian (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

"Filled with turbulence and sudden plunges in altitude, The Flight Attendant is a very rare thriller whose penultimate chapter made me think to myself, 'I didn't see that coming.' The novel - Bohjalian's 20th - is also enhanced by his deftness in sketching out vivid characters and locales and by his obvious research into the realities of airline work." (Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post)

"An expertly turned thriller... [Bohjalian]'s back-loaded the story with twists, from ones that were hinted at early to left-field surprises. And the brisk and busy ending is a fireworks show of redemption, revelation and old-fashioned gunplay." (Mark Athitakis, USA Today)

"Readers who enjoyed the imperfect heroine in Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train and the anxiety-ridden paranoia of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment will be hooked by this murder mystery." (Library Journal)

AWFUL 2nd female reader!

The 2nd narrator’s voice was so grating and annoying- I cringed my way thru every passage she read.
It totally took away from the story which was unfortunately filled with retelling, repetitive details throughout yet crammed with an unbelievable wrap up of plot elements in the final pages that is not worthy of this author.

Not exciting

I loathed reader #2 that read Elaina's part, terrible voice. The ending felt rushed and the twist wasn't great.

Disappointingly Banal

Except for the surrealistic twist at the end of the story, I feel that I have experienced this plot and protagonist in a a couple dozen beach reads. Everything about it was sadly unremarkable and I struggled to finish it.

Good story but 1 reader got on my nerves

The story was not one of Bohjalian's - it was good, not great. Grace Experience had an annoying, difficult to listen to voice - I dreaded the Elania chapters! I would have given the narration 4 stars if it hadn't been for Experience.

“Plane” disappointing......

Chris Bohjalian is a talented author and, therefore, I had great expectations for this book. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.
I had been so excited when I read the synopsis for this book a few months ago because the entire storyline sounded very compelling and intriguing The book faltered in many places —the first half of the book was repetitive and slow-paced, the character development of some of the book’s characters was lacking, and the book’s ending was abrupt and not very well developed. Chris Bohjalin is highly skilled in crafting great plots and character development and I just was not seeing that here.

Ending a little disappointing

Good story. it just seemed like the author ended the story quickly. The narration was good except for one character. Overall I did enjoy the story. First time with this author. I will read another.

Good

Good but not great. A bit hard to follow. The characters were hard to keep track of.

Liked the book except.....

This was a good book, the characters were interesting, lots of plot twists, but the ending was so stupid & improbable that it ruined the overall quality for me. Going into any detail would be a spoiler. I’ve read other books by this author that were great though.

Narration ruined it.

A likable enough beachy sort of book. Kept me quite interested for the most part but that all came to a crashing end with the hot mess ending. Abrupt, completely unbelievable and frankly, dumb. It’s almost like the author was late for dinner and just ended the book.

Narration was great for the main character, Cassie, but whoa.. the woman who narrated Elena was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Flat, monotone and a LISP. It was so irritating, I had to fast forward through her parts. I feel bad disliking someone’s (possible) speech problem so much, but I’m sorry, a lisp isn’t easy or enjoyable to listen to for 10+ hours.

I didn’t hate the book, but can’t say I’d recommend it either.

Ok

Just ok, the end had a twist but the story itself wasn’t very engaging, or suspenseful. I felt that the author did sometimes seem to talk about things that weren’t relevant. Overall was disappointed.

Thought the narration was perfectly fine...

I've seen a lot of people displeased with the Elena narrator so I just wanted to say I thought she was great. I think its more of a personal preference issue than her giving a terrible performance.

Great book!

I wanted to have read this book before the series came out and loved it! I’m now worried by watching the series it won’t do the book justice. The only downfall of this was the narrator of Miranda’s voice, as it wasn’t quite as clear as Cassie’s. Otherwise a great novel and exciting book!

Gripping. Couldn’t stop listening!

Loved the way it was narrated. Loved the plot. Interesting, different type of story. Kept me guessing

Gripping story

I enjoyed this novel it kept me listening and was easy to follow. I liked the main narrator however the one who did the voice of Miranda was quite bad she never changed her voice from character to character so i was confused about who was talking. I would recommend as an easy listen and if you enjoy crime and mystery novels and female protagonist.

Great read!

Really enjoyable listen! Found the plot well paced and the chaotic lead character instantly likeable flaws and all. Lots of twists and turns to keep the reader hooked.

a great listen

Really enjoyed it. Narration was great and I've decided not to watch the tv series as I think it would be hard to do the book justice.

Brilliant Story

Great story, fantastic narration really enjoyed it - first-class! Will definitely get more books by this author.

Maybe this book works better in paperback?

I don't review books often. I read this before watching the series. Let's hope the screen writers do justice to what might have been a good story. The first six chapters could have been 'TOLD' in two. I felt I was being 'told' this whole story rather than being immersed in any action. The writing sounded like a list of what happened. The story was good, the execution, poor. I didn't care about Cassie. Her drinking bored me. Her life was unbelievable. The flight attendant job descriptions were the only credible part of the story. So disappointed.

Entertaining and engaging

This was an interestingly written story, told from the POV of the two key female characters and with "quotes" from transcripts of FBI interviews.

Cassie, whose life is already pretty much a mess, suddenly finds herself way out of her depth. Her habit of lying does her no favours as she tries to escape the situation, which twists and turns beneath her. We get a good insight into her personality and how she ended up like that.

The other female character, who we first meet as Miranda, is far more organised and disciplined, but also finds herself in deep water and wants to escape.

At times, I felt the story was pretty slow, especially where it describes Cassie's insights and thinking in the middle of scenes which wouldn't really allow time for her to articulate them.

There were a few curve balls, especially from the FBI, and another from Miranda, which weren't foreshadowed as far as I could tell.

Just brilliant! a book for women readers I believe

Not surprised this book has been made into a tv series, it's brilliant fun. I haven't finished a fiction book in years but no problem with this one. I was sad when the epilogue arrived. Enjoy!