A review by circularcubes
Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

4.0

I really enjoyed this book! I have to say, I didn't love it quite as much as I did A.S. King's Please Ignore Vera Dietz, but I'm a latecomer to young adult books with LGBTQ ~themes~ and it's a subgenre that I really enjoy. I'm making up for never having read books with queer protagonists in them as youth, and I only wish I'd gotten around to these books sooner.

That being said, although I liked 80% of the book, there were a lot of things that I wished were addressed by this book that I feel were never fully explored (

Spoiler

for example, Dee's throwaway line about dating a girl who "went to the wrong side" because she ended up with a guy - I can understand why the character would think this, since the whole point of the book is that everybody is flawed, but it's really, really frustrating that the mere CONCEPT of bisexuality is never mentioned by the author at all over the course of the book. Not once. Not even in passing. What's the point of having a book with queer themes if it's just gonna hone in on the binary of gay/straight without acknowledging that those aren't actually the only options? Also, I loved how a significant portion of the book has Astrid not quite ready to have sex yet, because that really resonated with me, and I'm glad Dee comes around to it in the end, but... I really wish Astrid had broken up with Dee and gotten with Kim, honestly. It's good to show that redemption and growth are possible, but... honestly, Astrid shouldn't had to put up with months of ducking out of sex with the girl she was dating in the first place. I don't think the way that storyline ended up was The Worst, but I did have mixed feelings about it.

). I also didn't love the slightly magical realism bits with the people in the planes, but, again, it wasn't the worst.