Review: Fly With Me

 

    So alas, I just could not get into this book. It might be because I read it over a really extended period of time – but part of the reason for that is because I just wasn’t compelled to pick it up. It was fine, there wasn’t anything actively wrong with it really, but there was also nothing special.

    So basically it’s about Olive, a nurse who’s terrified of flying, and Stella, an airline pilot. On Olive’s first flight ever she ends up saving the life of a man who works at Disney World and goes viral. She ends up getting a ride from Stella to Disney World so that she can run their half marathon like she promised her brother, but then Stella disappears from her life – or so she thinks. Later, Stella turns up to ask Olive to be her fake girlfriend so that she can get the attention she needs to finally get the promotion she’s been working for. And then all of the classic fake relationship drama ensues. A couple of things were generally missing that I think might have helped this book get to the next level.

    First, almost all of the reader’s time is spent with Olive and Stella. In my opinion, the best romances also emphasize the other relationships in a character’s life. I would have liked to see more of Olive’s relationships with her best friend, her estranged family, and Stella’s father Hector, who she has a really sweet relationship with but only actually gets I think two scenes.

    Sort of on the same topic, it also didn’t seem like a lot of the subplots really got the wrap-up they deserved. In particular, I didn’t feel like Olive’s relationship with her family really reached any kind of progress or culmination. This was really annoying because it was definitely exploring a really interesting dynamic, but it sort of just got abandoned at the end of the book. There’s also a subplot where Olive’s toxic ex is trying to uncover the relationship as fake, which she is able to do, but then that just…disappears? And isn’t really mentioned again? Which really bothered me because then what even was the point of that storyline.

    Finally, there were just several odd syntax things in the writing that just made it hard for me to feel immersed in the story. I’d be reading along and then suddenly be confused by the way something was worded or described and be completely distracted. So overall, it’s not like this was an awful book, but in my opinion there are much better sapphic fake dating books out there.