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The Flight Attendant

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Member Reviews

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I admit, I love an unreliable narrator AND books that change perspectives. This was a compelling read until the end.

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Cassie, a flight attendant with a serious drinking problem, wakes up next to a dead man on one of her layovers. I was definitely captivated by the story (sometimes it's fun living vicariously through a truly hot mess!), but the ending was just so-so for me. Great twist but the action was wrapped up so quickly I got whiplash. It also felt like there were some loose ends that didn't get tied up. So, four stars for a quick, fun thrilling read, but had to deduct one for an unsatisfactory ending.

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In Night Strangers, my favorite Chris Bohjalian novel, one of the main characters is a disgraced pilot who attempts to pull a Sullenberger-type maneuver when his plane slams into a flock of geese, but unlike Sullenberger’s Miracle on the Hudson, the water landing fails, and the aftermath is thirty-nine dead passengers. In his 2017 novel, The Sleepwalker, Bohjalian’s blond and almost ethereally beautiful protagonist goes missing, leaving her two daughters and husband behind. Now, in The Flight Attendant, his heroine Cassandra Bowden appears to be an amalgam of the pilot with the missing blond mother and wife. Not identical, just close enough to harbor a comparison.

But Cassie Bowden isn’t a mother or a pilot. She is a flight attendant with a well-known binge drinking problem, who often forgets what she did and who she slept with the night before. It’s not difficult to speculate that Cassie’s drinking is tied to a troubled childhood, which is promptly revealed with the mention of her alcoholic father. It’s this legacy she carries around with her like a boulder, unable to rid herself of its impossible weight.

When she awakens in a hotel room in Dubai, hung over and remembering nothing, she assumes it’s just another of her many sexual dalliances overseas. But the man next to her is dead, his throat has been slashed violently and silently during the night. After her initial shock and disbelief, Cassie begins to remember the previous night. The man, a passenger in her section of first class, her memories bits and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Within her jumbled thoughts, there is a question she cannot bring herself to answer: did she kill him?

Bohjalian is masterful at leaving clues in plain sight, making you kick yourself later that you failed to see them. Like a modern Agatha Christie, the answers to the riddle were always there, but we believed the wrong person or trusted the wrong narrative. The Flight Attendant follows that direction, only if you know what you’re looking for.

In her panic and not knowing if she’s responsible for the man’s murder, Cassie’s self-preservation prevails, and she bolts from the hotel to join her flight crew out of Dubai, after removing shards of glass from a broken bottle which was used as the murder weapon and hurriedly wiping down her fingerprints as best she can.

Her unease at being caught is palpable even as she boards her plane: “When she was back on her feet and standing with the galley and flight deck behind her, the only person watching her was the sky marshal. She wondered if he could sense, rather like a lion, her fear.”

Immediately things begin to go downhill. Cassie can’t properly hide her terror at being discovered, and combined with her drinking and utterly ridiculous behavior, leaves her open and vulnerable to increased scrutiny from her co-workers, her family and ultimately, the FBI.



As is frequent in Bohjalian’s novels, the mystery is not so simple and Cassie tires her hardest to find out more about the murdered man’s identity and who could have wanted him dead. But in her attempt to clear her name, Cassie repeatedly takes foolish risks while continuing to indulge in more drinking and casual sex.

Bohjalian’s portrayal of Cassandra as a woman who after heavy drinking engages in sex and then fails to remember what she did due to alcoholic blackouts, drives a strong message in the #MeToo era. What we could have read as reckless behavior on Cassie’s part say five years ago, now takes a moral and even criminal tint, harboring the question that if Cassie was too drunk most of the time to give consent, doesn’t that mean that she has been repeatedly raped while drunk or unconscious?

With the murdered man, she has memories of consenting to having sex and wanting it. But the previous times? Cassie isn’t sure, which makes her self-loathing much more painful and heart-breaking.

But the more she finds, the more questions arise. There’s the alleged presence of an unknown woman in the hotel room the night of the murder who has vanished in thin air, making Cassie question her own memories of that night. Her past and present recklessness come back to haunt her, even as she tries and fails, to leave them behind.

And she had slept the rest of the night beside his corpse. In the same sheets. Her head on the pillow beside his pillow. His blood clinging to her hair. This was a spectacular, revolting fail even by her standards for indignity and mortification. She guessed if she weren’t already such a lush, the revelation would have driven her to drink.

At the mid-point of the novel, Cassie reflects on the origins of her name. In Greek mythology, Cassandra is the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, who was given the gift of prophesy by Apollo. When she refused his advances, Apollo left her a curse by spitting in her mouth. This caused that no one would ever again believe a word she said, and Cassandra lived for the rest of her life “in frustration and dread.” Cassandra sees this as a parable of her own life, oozing with too many lies and recklessness.

Bohjalian has often remarked that he was inspired to write The Flight Attendant due to his many travels and his admiration for a profession that is deemed glamorous but in reality, is anything but. In the novel, the resolution when it comes, seems a little bit too tidy, a tad too perfect, too neatly tied up. But that doesn’t mean the novel is step-by-step predictable or easily guessed. The twists and turns are abundant enough to keep the reader guessing and wondering who is telling the truth.

Perhaps next time we board a plane, we will look at the flight attendants with new eyes. We might try to see a little more carefully behind the placed smile, the tired eyes. After all, who knows what goes on after landing, inside their real lives, within their own walls. With The Flight Attendant, Chris Bohjalian has shown us a glimpse of the truth that could be hidden beyond that thin divider curtain.

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The main character Cassie is incredibly unlikable, and the book was about 50 or so pages too long. It's an interesting look at 1) the lives of flight attendants and 2) how daughter of an alcoholic father deals with her own alcoholism. The middle of the book almost enough to turn this into a DNF but the ending is quite the surprise!

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The main character is flawed and not all that likeable, but it works well in this book. This was a slow read. The ending was a little bit of a mess and kind of out there.

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An intriguing look at the life of a flight attendant, who is an alcoholic with a history of blackouts. On a routine flight to Dubai she enjoys flirting with the customer in 4 C., agrees to meet him after the flight and changes the course of both their lives. This novel is suspenseful, frightening and pulls you into it’s web. The ending is both shocking and satisfying.

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Prior to reading the book I saw a lot of people commenting on how they didn’t like Cassie. I’m a believer that you don’t have to like the main character to enjoy a novel. I didn’t have such strong feelings for Cassie. I felt sorry for her because she didn’t have any strong relationship and didn’t really care about herself. She was an alcoholic, which is a disease but she was self-destructive.

I love spy movies and books so I was thrilled when this book had that edge to it. It is a fast paced thriller that will have you wondering what the hell is going on until it all comes together in the end.

Mr. Bohjalian has written another fantastic novel.

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Could not put it down! First book I've read by this author, will not be the last.

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DNF @ 38% as I could not get into the writing of the book.

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*Thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy of this title. This in no way impacts my opinions and rating of the book.*

Overall, a very great book with twists and turns. I wasn't prepared for the novel to be as focused on spies and organizations as it was, so that disappointed me just a little. Still, the main character and her voice made this story believable, fun, and riveting.

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I’m putting this into the category of books with female leads who have alcoholic tendencies or some other issue who get involved in criminal situations & make various bad decisions (think The Girl on the Train or The Woman in the Window). It’s worth reading if you enjoy thrillers, mystery, international crime, etc. It’s just nothing I would rave about.

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The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian has been on my radar ever since it created a lot of buzz on Bookstagram. I have some mixed feelings after reading this one. The Flight Attendant is a slow burner and I found it a little repetitive at times. I usually enjoy stories with unlikeable characters, but Cassie was such a hot mess I was really hoping she would pull herself together in the end. I will say that it’s very obvious that Bohjalian put a lot of research into this story and it is very well-written. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would, but that won’t deter me from reading more of Bohjalian’s work.
Thank you NetGalley, Doubleday Books, and Chris Bohjalian for the opportunity to read The Flight Attendant. It was my pleasure to write an honest review.

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Just finished up reading The Flight Attendant! Little late to the game but thank you netgalley for the advanced copy. This story is about Cassie who is a flight stewardess and a bit of a drunk. After an flight to Dubai from one of her flights, she goes back to the hotel room of one of her passengers, Alex. A night of partying and sleeping with Alex, Cassie wakes up the next morning next to Alex who is stone cold and his neck is slashed open. The book follows the story of Cassie and how she deals with this series of unfortunate events. I’m giving the book a 4/5 because although it kept my attention, I’m not sure I 100% followed the ending. It seemed to wrap up really quickly and left some loose threads. All together an interesting read and twist!

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Cassie Bowden loves the lifestyle that comes along with being a flight attendant. She gets to visit the most exciting locations in the world, she gets to stay in some of the nicest hotels, and she gets to party with some of the hottest men alive. As an alcoholic, the lifestyle is perfect for her. She lands, gets a few hours of sleep and then finds the local bars and the local men to entertain her for the evening. When she wakes up next to a dead man in Dubai, Cassie's world suddenly becomes something out of a spy novel. She doesn't believe that she killed Alex Solokov, but she was blackout drunk the night before, as she is many nights. Cassie does the only thing she can think of doing, she gets out of there and on her flight home before the body is ever discovered. That is when the lying starts. She lies to her friends, she lies to her family, she lies to her union representative, she lies to the FBI, and she lies to her lawyer. Only Cassie knows the truth, she was not the only other person in that hotel room that night, but how can she convince the police that she is innocent when she is not entirely convinced herself?

I don't know that a flawed character has ever been written as well as Cassie Bowden. She is a hot mess, there is no other way to say it. With her addictions to men (she sleeps with at least four different men in the book) and alcohol, there is only one way that this is going to end - badly. Even in her hungover state, she had the presence to clear all evidence of herself from Alex's hotel room. Well, at least she thought she did. The book is told from different viewpoints, though. That of Cassie and the viewpoint of the Russian assassin who was with Alex and Cassie that night. It makes for an interesting look at the different perspectives. You can sense the paranoia and fear building in both of them, but for very different reasons. I was a little surprised at the way things ended, especially the big revelation about Cassie's flight attendant friend. -- CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS Oh and I loooove that this East Coast author paid homage to my favorite baseball team. Cassie's brother-in-law wore a faded Royals t-shirt to the zoo! :)

Bottom Line - From an author like Chris Bohjalian you may expect The Flight Attendant to read a like a subdued spy novel, but the reality is that The Flight Attendant is as fast-paced as the most popular spy novels and with much better character development making it a truly unforgettable read.

Details:
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
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Pages: 368
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Publication Date: 3/13/2018
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In true Bohjalian fashion, this book hooks you from the beginning and leaves you wanting more. I really enjoyed the book up until the ending, which seemed quite abrupt and unsatisfying. While I did not find the ending entirely believable, I did enjoy the ride getting there.

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Cassandrra "Cassie" Bowden is a binge drinker, having accepted that she is just like her father. Her sister doesn't trust her, her coworkers are used to her being absent from dinner plans, and the bartenders at each of their flight stopover points know her drink of choice. When she awakens next to one of her many dalliances, she is surprised to find she spent the night when the last thing she remembers he's leaving. Sneaking out is easy, she's used to it, what she isn't used to is the blood and the pale pallor of the man lying beside her. Afraid to call the police Cassie runs and so begins a long, frightening trail of lying and looking over her shoulder. Did she do it? And if she didn't, who did?

I have had The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian sitting on my Kindle for a little while and I finally had the chance to dive in this last week. The cover and the blurb pulled me into this one, promising a novel filled with suspense and thrill and, my favorite, a lying unreliable narrator. Cassandra Bowden is the sort of main character you can both love and hate and, save for a handful of chapters told from the perspective of another, we have the pleasure of seeing everything unfold from the eyes of a beautiful, often drunk woman. She seeks love in the arms of one night stand men, she drowns every feeling in the bottom of a bottle, and she lies like she doesn't even know that the truth exists. She's in a terrifying predicament, made worse by her poor decisions and her bad habit. She is, however, a kind, loving person and her desire to uncover the truth and her will to continue just living daily is really refreshing for a main character being pulled through the mud. The occasional perspective from Elena was my least favorite and unfortunately I never got a real feel for her, as her chapters were boring and easily skimmable. Those breaks from Cassie's perspective threw me off, but ultimately made me like Cassie even more, she needed a few more people on her side.

Just as the blurb tells us, Cassie awakens from one night of spectacular drinking and finds herself in the bed of a handsome man, except he is no longer alive. From the very first page this book is twisted, the writing style perfect for this high anxiety tale. We travel alongside Cassie, visiting various airplanes, beds, destinations, and far too many offices of lawyers and agents. Chris Bohjalian uses Cassie's drinking problem to his advantage, leaving both the narrator and the readers unaware of what really happened that evening. We are just as unsure of Cassie's innocence, our trust in her wavering with every pour of a bottle and yet we also believe her. Though not fast paced, there is a significant amount of detail in The Flight Attendant and I could see every location Cassie visited on her hunt for both the truth and for normalcy in her life. Though not as edge-of-your-seat suspenseful as I expected, it was an enjoyable thriller that takes us into the mind of a woman unsure of her place in the world and the dangers of freeing your mind with alcohol.

The Flight Attendant was a unique read for me and while it wasn't a five star read it is definitely one I would recommend. It is twisted, especially near the end, and I never saw much of it coming.

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