I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought the Flight Attendant was an okay read, my main complaint was that I just didn’t like the main character. I know she has a drinking problem and that isn’t really what bothered me about her, it was just her personality throughout the book I just wasn’t rooting for her. I thought the idea of the story was interesting and there was a couple twists I didn’t see coming and then there were a couple I eventually figured out, but it still took a bit to figure it out. At first the chapters switching between characters was somewhat confusing, but eventually figured it out once I got going. I liked that when the FBI did an interview the chapter was the interview log, that was just something different that you don’t see in books.

I thought the writing was well done, there were no grammar mistakes and the story had good detail, but not too much that you get bored with it. The story flowed nicely and was a good pace it kept you guessing what the outcome was going to be and how everything was going to play out in the end. Especially with all the lies that Cassandra tells throughout the whole thing. You didn’t have much information on the supporting characters, but you still knew the part they played and it worked.

I liked the ending, it was well done and you still got a couple of surprises at the end. As I was reading it I was thinking this would be a movie that would come out now a days, so I kept imagining what would happen in the movie as I watched it. I thought overall it was alright, just wasn't my favorite. I think there could have been more done to just strengthen it overall.

Cassie Bowden is a flight attendant known to flirt and known to drink. Commonly known to end up blackout drunk and wake up next to a strange man in a strange city. But this time, she wakes up next to a strange dead man in a strange city. Did she murder him while she was blackout drunk or did someone else murder him and spare her?

YIKES! This book was so intense and the last few chapters things went by so quickly yet tied everything up well. I have already told several people to start reading this book immediately (if not sooner) so that I can finally have someone to talk to about this book! I had hoped for one surprise. I had not expected there to be so many! It does get a bit redundant on Cassie's routine (alcohol, men, alcohol, men) and a bit long-winded on Elena's background, however, it is all important in building up to the climax of the novel. The Flight Attendant is very well written and I wish I could go back in time so I could read this book fresh again. I would recommend this book for adult readers who enjoy fast-paced thrillers.

For those who may be triggered/offended: there were sexually explicit scenarios, mild foul language, heavy alcohol abuse, childhood trauma, graphic violence, murder and rape.

Please note: An electronic copy of this book was generously provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been a fan of Chris Bohjalian since Midwives was published in 1998. While I may‘ve missed some of his books in the interim, I’m thrilled to have read The Flight Attendant so soon after its release. That I received the ARC prior to release and only just read it is entirely my fault.

Bohjalian creates a story that spans just a few days, but includes multiple continents and plenty of intrigue. The titular flight attendant is Cassie Bowden, who’s been working for the airlines since just after high school. She lives a simple life for the most part. In between flying and binge drinking, she has few lasting relationships. Unless you count the shelter cats she visits regularly, and her sister’s family.

So when Cassie wakes up in Dubai next to the dead body of one of her passengers—and the previous night’s drunken fling—she has no one to turn to. In her mixed up, hungover state Cassie attempts to manage the situation. But all she manages to do is tell lie after lie and thoroughly confuse herself.

Bohjalian effectively walks the fine line between making Cassie likable and portraying her as a disaster. She is indeed both, and very humanly so. For every time I face palmed, there was a moment when Cassie seemed endearing. Faced with a horrible situation, I’d wager that she does no better or worse than many of us would do.

I love to watch a character’s fundamental self undergo a change as a result of events in a novel. The Flight Attendant gave me that in spades. Cassie is affected to her core by the events of the story. No matter how she could’ve changed, there’s no question she’ll never be the same person who landed that day in Dubai.

Before long, Bohjalian gives the reader infinitely more information than poor Cassie has. We learn about the forces of global espionage at play. But the information comes in bits and pieces, with the points of view and timelines shifting unexpectedly. As a result, the story moves like a airplane suddenly flying without an engine. Just when I thought I’d figured out all the twists, the airplane dropped unexpectedly and one more twist was revealed.

My Conclusions:
This is a strong thriller, with a likably flawed main character. The pace moves forward evenly, and plot twists abound. I’m a fan!

Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Doubleday Books for the digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Special Feature:
My college friend, Carla, was the flight attendant who served as a research resource for the author. She was kind enough to let me interview her about the experience via email, which follows my review on <a href="http://thebibliophage.com/book-review-interview-flight-attendant-by-chris-bohjalian/"> TheBibliophage.com</a>.

Chris Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant is a slow burn that has a bit of everything. We peek behind the proverbial curtain of the lives of those who fly the friendly skies, there is Russian espionage (could anything be more on-brand these days?), and the sad routine of a young woman drowning herself in drink day after day serves as both the premise of the book and as a warning. That said, for a book filled with so much, as a “whodunit” mystery, I was left wanting a little more.
*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy for review.

This was a really good story, interesting characters and a solid plot. The ending was super satisfying, which isn't always the case with thrillers so that was also appreciated. It is however slow, and if you pick it up wanting a fast read you will likely be disappointed. Those who enjoy character driven mysteries will love this book.

A decent, fast-paced thriller, with a black-out drunk, wreck of a female flight attendant as the main character. This is the summary description, in a nutshell, on the back of the book. What I didn't expect, however, was all the crazy double-agent-international-spy stuff. I see from others' reviews, this was just fine and dandy, but for me it was a bit too out there for me. There was a lot of stuff you had to just believe to move forward with the story, and the whole Russian-spy story line didn't feel very believable to me. I would have rather had a straight forward mystery, with the requisite twists and turns, minus spies. Not into spies. On the whole, I read it all, so the book did it's job in keeping me engaged. The alternating viewpoints and frequent travel probably helped that. But adding in a Law-and-Order feel, with spies, with international travel and liaisons, with drunk-all-the-time Cassie, it all was a bit much.

There are a lot of lessons to learn from this book. One be careful how much you drink and second do not lie. Next it might not be the smartest to run away from a crime scene though I did understand why Cassandra made that decision. It was funny and annoying at the same time, the amount of bad decisions Cassandra was making. There was not much time to recover from one of her stupid decisions before she made another. I could totally relate to her lawyer and did like how she reacted to all the stupid things Cassandra did.
Still it is easy to feel for Cassie. Just trying to imagine waking up next to a dead person and not having an idea what happened. I found it interesting that she actually considered she would have done it. Her fear of being in a country where the voice of a woman is not heard, trying to decide what to do and getting all nervous was contagious.
There is another story in this book. That of Elena. A secret agent in service of the KGB. Being in the situation she was in and what that did to her was really interesting to read. Her anger was palpable and working. I enjoyed that part of the story touching developments in the secret service. It always adds something creepy to a story.
The revelations at the end felt a bit rushed. The one moment I was still in a hotel in Rome tying up the loose ends. Next it is two years later and there are still things happening. I honestly did not care much about that part of the story.

The first half of this book was so slow it just was too hard to care about it when I got to part 2. I felt like a lot of things were repeated constantly. Like she drinks, she drank, she used to drink, did you count her drinks, oh by the way she drank. I felt like I was not trusted enough to remember things over the course of a page let alone a chapter. It had a lot of potential just fell a bit short for me.

When Cassandra Bowden wakes up in Dubai, in a luxury hotel, with a handsome rich man, at first she feels only the mere regret and shame of drinking too much, way too much. But when she realizes that the man is dead, she spirals into panic. 

It's not that unusual for her to wake up in a stranger's bed. It's not that unusual for her to wake up with a hangover. It's not even that unusual for her to wake up with no memory of the last night's events. But she's never been violent before. And now this man, Alexander Sokolov, a hedge fund manager, who had been sitting in first class on the flight, has bled out all over the sheets. They had flirted during the flight. She had been the flight attendant who had assisted him the most. They connected, so she decided to meet him for drinks. And drinks had led to dinner, which led to more drinks, which led to his hotel room. 

But now he's dead. And she's alone in the room with him, unable to remember if she had been the one to kill him. 

Cassie's mind races with her choices. She could call down to the front desk for help. She could call the American embassy. Or she could clean herself up, wipe down her prints from the room, and leave to catch her next flight. It's clear that leaving would be the worst idea, because they'd find her eventually. There were cameras in the lobby. It was only a matter of time before she was caught. 

She left anyway. 

As the days go by, she waits for the story to get out. She expects the FBI to knock on her door. She expects the police to come for her. She expects the worst, maybe even thinks she deserves the worst for how she's been behaving, for all the drinking and all the men. She lies to her coworkers. She lies to the FBI. She lies to the airline. Each day that goes by, each lie, each photo of her that gets released, she just gets in deeper and deeper. 

She needs to figure out what happened, in order to get her life back again. Or maybe even to stay alive . . . 

The Flight Attendant is the latest novel from Chris Bohjalian, the best-selling and award-winning writer of such books as The Guest Room, Midwives, and The Night Strangers. And it is fantastic. This is a beautifully constructed story told through the voices of several different characters, and it reads as smoothly as silk. I listened to the audiobook version, and there were three narrators, which just added to the richness of the story. This is a fantastic summer read, full of intrigue and suspense, with a slow burn mystery in the background. Highly recommended! 



Galleys for The Flight Attendant were provided by Doubleday Books through NetGalley, with many thanks, but I purchased the audio myself thanks to Audible.

Never miss a book by Chris Bohjalian! In this book Cassie is a flight attendant to drinks to much and parties too hard. When her drinking and sexual escapades catch up to her, they catch up big! She wakes next to a dead man, a man who was a passenger on her last flight to Dubai. Her first thought it not to alert authorities but to get the hell out, because she's not really sure if she did anything wrong. In a dark tale of drunken behavior and trying to make sense of her life this book follows Cassie as she continues to lie, and yet try to unravel what really happened. Love the suspense this book gave me. Grab it up!!

I gave this a good try, I really did. I kept hoping it would get better and it just never did [for me]. I have read so many good reviews of this book and was really looking forward to it and it just isn't happening for me. 100 pages in and I have to DNF. What was supposed to be a thriller and grab you from the very first sentence, felt tepid and I had no sympathy or love-lost for the MC. To me, it almost fees like she deserves what is going on because of her destructive behavior. I am very disappointed.

Chris Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant is a wonderful example of what a thriller should be. I was captivated by the story, particularly the hot mess that is Cassie, from the very beginning. I couldn’t see how she would get herself out of the mess she was in, and was compelled to keep reading in order to find out.

The best part about this novel, though, is that the ending completely surprised me. As the pieces all started to fall into place, they didn’t go together the way I expected, keeping this from being a run of the mill mystery that any armchair detective could solve halfway through. Bohjalian did an excellent job of parceling our bits of information that kept me engaged all the way to the end.

This is a fantastic story for anyone who likes smart thrillers and spy novels.

Thanks to NetGalley for the complimentary copy of the book.

The Flight Attendant is a fast-paced thriller that left me wanting to keep reading. On a flight to Dubai, Cassie meets a man and goes back to his room. The next morning, she wakes up to find the man dead next to her. Who killed the man? Was it Cassie or someone else? Even Cassie is unsure if it was her or someone else. Cassie has a drinking problem and has blackout moments, which happened that night she spent with the man. This book follows Cassie, the FBI, and a woman as they all uncover the truth. As readers we know who killed the man, however, the ending is something you will not suspect.

Cassie is a flight attendant and a hot mess. She's known to drink an excessive amount of alcohol and sleep with a lot of dudes. During a flight to Dubai, Cassie is flirting with one of the passengers and ends up going out to dinner with him. Dinner leads to other events and when Cassie wakes up in the morning, she's laying next to a dead body. Cassie slips out of the hotel not completely remembering what happened the previous night. Once back in America, there are FBI agents waiting at the gate to interview the airplane employees and Cassie begins her web of lies. Did Cassie kill the man or did someone else?

This was a slow read for me and I thought there could have been a little more to the story.

This is another winning book from Chris Bohjalian. Cassandra Bowden flew to Dubai in her capacity as a flight attendant. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself laying next to the body of the man who had sat first class on that flight. Having a hazy recollection of what ensued, she begins the harrowing journey of attempting to find out.
The intrigue, the cast of characters, the lies and the twists all add up to one relevant, exciting book, as always!

I read this book sitting in a restaurant nearly from start to finish. I closed the restaurant! I didn't even know that my check had arrived. Most mysteries/crime novels don't make you feel anything about the characters but this one, did.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian takes the unreliable narrator trope and does something completely new and surprising. Cassandra Bowden is a flight attendant and an alcoholic. Blackouts & hook ups with strangers are a normal occurrence in her life, The book starts with Cassie waking up in a hotel room that is not hers, with a man she recognizes from first class on her flight to Dubai the night before. Just one thing...he's dead and she doesn't remember the night before.

This kicks off a twisty plot, full of suspense and enough empathy for you to feel for Cassie while also completely loathing her choices. She lies to the police, the FBI, her sister, her coworkers. And trying to figure out the big question of if she didn't kill this guy, then who did and are they coming for her?

The unreliable narrator has become the new big thing since Gone Girl exploded a few years ago. Inevitably, any book with a reliable narrator is compared to Gone Girl, just like any dystopian with a female main character is compared to The Hunger Games. The Flight Attendant takes this person who is self destructive to the extreme, who has a good heart and good intentions, but inevitably turns back to alcohol and one night stands. It's so easy to take a novel in the genre and just follow the same old touch points, but this book completely surprised me. I was hooked from the beginning and could not wait to see how the plot was resolved. I'm still thinking about it months later.

I read a lot of thrillers (sue me, I'm a true crime nerd so this is right up my alley fiction-wise) and this is one that really stands out in the genre. It goes places I didn't expect and kept me hooked for an entire day (I literally could not put it down). Definitely snag a copy ASAP and thank me later.

Imagine waking up in a bed that's full of blood - and a murder victim. That's what happens to flight attendant Cassandra Bowden. She's almost sure she didn't commit the murder - and couldn't be capable of it. Then again, she's a black-out drunk so it's hard to convince herself 100%. I've seen reviews that say this isn't Bohjalian's best work - if that's the case, I very much look forward to reading more from him - I read The Sleepwalker and now this one, and very much enjoyed both. Good pacing, interesting characters, surprises - an excellent read overall.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for providing a copy for an unbiased review.

tl;dr Review:

A fast-paced thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat, a spicy subplot, and a protagonist you both question and empathize with.

Full Review:

I really wasn't expecting this book to be this good. I had just come off of reading The Red Word and The Fisherman's Daughter, so I was ready for a bit of excitement. I knew this book was supposed to be a thriller, so I gave it a shot.

And I'll be damned if it didn't keep me glued to my seat for the next two days. I was even happy that my husband and his parents got lost meeting me for dinner at a restaurant because it meant I had more time to read. (Normally, I'd have been none too happy that he hadn't listened to me about directions LOL)

You know this is going to be a whirlwind of a tale from the publisher's description alone:

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? 

I didn't expect to sympathize with Cassandra as much as I did. First reading the description, I thought, "Who just gets up and leaves a dead body behind?"

But as the story unfolds, and you learn more about how Cassandra got to where she was, you realize how she could have made that decision. There's also a delicious subplot occuring at the same time and it adds another layer of sizzle to an already blazing storyline.

There were so many surprises and twists that I would have to stop, go back a bit, and reread parts to make sure I understood what was going on.

If you're looking for a book that will grab you from the moment you start reading it and make you want to stay up way past your bedtime to finish it, then The Flight Attendant should be your next read.

I give it 5 out of 5 thumbs up.

Cassie was out of control. Her behavior was quite predictable and as I read, I had a feeling that she was bound to hit rock bottom sometime soon. What she didn’t expect was passenger 2C. Sure, Cassie flirted with the passengers in her sections as she assisted them and there were some that she gave more attention to but she didn’t expect passenger 2C to totally change her life.

Cassie liked her alcohol and she liked her men. As a flight attendant who flew all around the world, she saw a variety of men, most of them she saw only once. Cassie also had a habit of drinking until she passed out. After a night out and she found herself coherent, sometimes she knew where she was and sometimes she didn’t. This was the same perception Cassie had towards the men she woke up with: sometimes she remembered them and occasionally, they were strangers.

This morning, Cassie woke up to passenger 2c laying beside her. She had remembered some of the night before but yet this morning, something felt different. As Cassie eyed Alex lying beside her, she began to panic. Alex was dead, his blood had managed to seep onto her side of the bed and she had been lying in. Still shaky from last night, Cassie tries to take in the room around her. Cassie knows that she needs to get back to her own hotel as the airport shuttle is scheduled to pick up the crew shortly yet her mind is still trying to piece together what happened last night with Alex. Is it possible that somehow, she killed Alex? Shuttle…....Alex…... she must hurry, there is not much time to contemplate.

Quickly piecing together what she can, Cassie realizes what she must do and what I think, I would have done and that is, to disappear from the scene. She needs to eliminate herself completely from this room and quick. But, is this even possible in a world where technology is everywhere? Can she possibly clean up the room and be totally removed in time?

This was an exciting and intriguing novel as I raced through it. Cassie risky behavior set the stage for a girl who was on the edge and one whose mind was racing. As the murder makes the news, there is no stopping what happens as they investigate every possible lead. Cassie’s behavior begins to get more wild and crazy as she tries to “help” but Cassie’s helping has me shaking my head at her in frustration. It’s definitely a novel that kept my attention and was a fast read.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for an honest review.