Flightsend (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Flightsend Karen Coats Newbery, Linda. Flightsend. Fickling/Random House, 2010 242p. ISBN 978-0-385-75203-9 $15.99 R Gr. 8–12 Charlie is happy with her little family—her mother, Kathy; Kathy’s younger, live-in boyfriend, Sean; and a new baby on the way—until the baby is stillborn, and Kathy begins to push Sean away in her grief. Eventually, Kathy and Charlie move to a decrepit cottage called Flightsend in a little village far from Charlie’s friends. Sixteen-year-old Charlie is glum but resigned; at least she can still see Sean at her school, where he teaches. Meanwhile, she gets a job at a local resort, where another teacher, Oliver, encourages her to develop her art. As Charlie sorts through her new [End Page 256] situation as well as her own grief over the loss of her baby sister, she finds herself flattered and a little disturbed by Oliver’s attention but she also increasingly misses Sean. Her crushes on both of these men work insightfully to develop Charlie’s character from multiple angles. From a psychological perspective, each man meets different aspects of Charlie’s need for security and growth. On an emotional level, her responses are credibly portrayed; once she’s decided that she might be in love with Sean, she’s quite taken with the idea, and once she realizes that Oliver is callow sort who just wants a protégée with benefits, she’s validated in her initial wariness towards him. In the end, she manages to sort out the possible from the romantic dream and appreciate the value of a new beginning. There’s a brisk matter-of-factness to the accessible story, and the descriptions of life in a small British village and its poetic environs, though likely quite ordinary to those who live it, evoke a wistful sense of natural and historical connectedness conducive to quiet reflection and quite alien to American teen experience; also intriguingly exotic to American readers will be the descriptions of Charlie’s last round of exams and revisions before sixth form. However, Anglophiles as well as other readers who enjoy a solid, well-told coming-of-age story full of atmospheric detail will be absorbed by the story of Charlie’s growth through loss and change. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois