G. Bianco, 2019
![]() Many of you might remember my review of Amelia, Unabridged, which quickly became one of my favorite reads in 2020. Ashley Schumacher returns to the YA stage on February 22nd with her sophomore novel, Full Flight, to showcase first love and how it can so deeply affect us. Everyone else in the tiny town of Enfield, Texas, calls fall football season, but for the forty-three members of the Fighting Bearcat Marching Band, it’s contest season. And for new saxophonist Anna James, it’s her first chance to prove herself as the great musician she’s trying hard to be. When she’s assigned a duet with mellophone player Weston Ryan, the boy her small-minded town thinks of as nothing but trouble, she’s equal parts thrilled and intimidated. But as he helps her with the duet, and she sees the smile he seems to save just for her, she can’t help but feel like she’s helping him with something too. When her strict parents find out she’s been secretly seeing him and keep them apart, Anna and Weston learn what it truly means to fight for something they love. With the marching contest nearing and the two falling hard for one another, the unthinkable happens, and Anna is left grappling for a way forward. Ashley Schumacher has captured my heart once again! I don’t know what I can say about this book without spoiling it, but let me just tell you that this book is breathtakingly beautiful! The poetic writing style is a joy to read and the allegories and symbolism in this book just heighten the emotions of the story and connect everything in a unique and captivating way. From an extinct bird, starry skies, and music duets, the continual repetition of themes in this book make the story even more developed and intricately beautiful. Aside from the writing itself, the plot and characters are wonderful and this book will have you devouring it! I legitimately binge-read this book in 24 hours and felt so many emotions while reading it. The book was bittersweet and although I cried for the last 20% of the book, I couldn’t help but feel changed after reading it. This book shows how wonderful and precious first love can be and how despite hardships and the cruel things that life throws at us, we must always move forward. It shows how there is sometimes no explanation for the things that happen in this world and we have no control over them, but we can control how we move forward and finish the symphony we call life. Anna and Weston are both complex, yet simple, characters who feel things so fiercely and it just shows the beauty and heaviness that comes with youth. Poetic, bittersweet, and astounding, Full Flight is a book that I cannot recommend enough. If you choose to only read one book this year, let it be this one. *I received an ARC from Wednesday Books in exchange for my honest opinion.
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AuthorHi! My name is Elisa and my bookshelf is quite literally overflowing! Join me in my journey of reading as many books as humanly possible! Archives
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