The Art of Crash Landing
The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo
Paperback, 432 pages
Published September 8, 2015 by Harper Paperbacks
Broke and knocked up, Mattie Wallace has got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags and nowhere to go. Try as she might, she really is turning into her late mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn’t make.
When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she’s never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around. Leaving the Florida Panhandle, she drives eight hundred miles to her mother’s birthplace—the tiny town of Gandy, Oklahoma. There, she soon learns that her mother remains a local mystery—a happy, talented teenager who inexplicably skipped town thirty-five years ago with nothing but the clothes on her back.
But the girl they describe bears little resemblance to the damaged woman Mattie knew, and before long it becomes clear that something terrible happened to her mother. The deeper Mattie digs for answers, the more precarious her situation becomes. Giving up, however, isn’t an option. Uncovering what started her mother’s downward spiral might be the only way to stop her own.
Melissa DeCarlo was born and raised in Oklahoma City, and has worked as an artist, graphic designer, grant writer, and even (back when computers were the size of refrigerators) a computer programmer. The Art of Crash Landing is her first novel. Melissa now lives in East Texas with her husband and a motley crew of rescue animals.
Published September 8, 2015 by Harper Paperbacks
Broke and knocked up, Mattie Wallace has got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags and nowhere to go. Try as she might, she really is turning into her late mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn’t make.
When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she’s never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around. Leaving the Florida Panhandle, she drives eight hundred miles to her mother’s birthplace—the tiny town of Gandy, Oklahoma. There, she soon learns that her mother remains a local mystery—a happy, talented teenager who inexplicably skipped town thirty-five years ago with nothing but the clothes on her back.
But the girl they describe bears little resemblance to the damaged woman Mattie knew, and before long it becomes clear that something terrible happened to her mother. The deeper Mattie digs for answers, the more precarious her situation becomes. Giving up, however, isn’t an option. Uncovering what started her mother’s downward spiral might be the only way to stop her own.
My thoughts about The Art of Crash Landing ~~
'Twenty-seven minutes is, if anyone ever asks, exactly how long it takes to cram everything I own into six giant trash bags.'
That is the first line of The Art of Crash Landing. Isn't it great? It totally drew me in and I was hooked. I had to find out more about this character and what she was running away from. Mattie is running away from her life and running to find some answers. She heads back to her mother's hometown to collect her inheritance and to maybe learn why her mother was the way she was.
'The cool darkness presses on my skin like water, and when I think of Queeg's bad feeling, a heaviness that is more than mere exhaustion settles on my chest. Is it the weight of not knowing anything about my mother's past, or the weight of knowing everything about my own? They say you can't take it with you when you go, but we all know that is not entirely true. You can carry your secrets to the grave.'
When she arrives in Gandy, Oklahoma, she uncovers more questions than answers. The mother she knew growing up is not the same person she is hearing stories about. Her mother was a completely different person in her youth. What cause her to change and start her downward spiral in life?
'I don't believe in ghosts, but I want to. I want to hear my mother's voice whispering to me, telling me what happened to her and why and when. I want to know. I need to know.'
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and especially liked the relationship she formed with Tawny, the 'bad' girl who worked at the library. I loved their bantering back and forth that eventually led to friendship.
'Apparently we've gone from breaking and entering all the way to reasonably friendly in just one night.'
Okay, and then there was the library, a librarian, the mention of Nebraska and the Cornhuskers. These are all things near and dear to my heart, so that clinched it for me! Love this writer!
But seriously, this was a great story that kept me guessing. I enjoyed watching Mattie unravel her mother's past and come to a better understanding of how her mother came to be the way she was. This is Melissa's first novel and I will be watching and waiting for her next one.
'It's pretty clear that for my mother there was a before and an after, and in between something happened to her. I really wanted to know what that was.'
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Whoop! Thank you very much for the wonderful review!
ReplyDeleteYou are so welcome Melissa! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for writing such a great book. Best of luck with this release.
DeleteThat's a great first line! I definitely want to find out what her story is with a start like that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a part of the tour!
My pleasure, Heather! Thanks for stopping by.
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