Starred review from September 1, 2022
Award-winning author Hood (The Book That Matters Most) showcases her talents as both author and narrator in this breezy memoir that recounts her experiences as a TWA flight attendant during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hood deftly keeps listeners beside her as she shares how her childhood dream of flying the world became reality. She reveals that while the training was grueling, the last golden years of air travel were remarkably lavish. Hood learned to make a perfect cocktail, deliver a baby, repair almost anything, and much more. Her tone varies as she reveals many fascinating historical facts about airplanes and the industry. She also covers the downside--women were weighed to maintain "perfect" weight, weren't allowed to marry, and were objectified by male bosses and passengers until they finally demanded their rights. An array of personal anecdotes, glittering descriptions about destinations, examples of her compassion, and snippets revealing her goal to become an author are compelling. VERDICT After experiencing this appealing and informative audiobook, listeners may never view air travel or flight crews in quite the same way.--Susan G. Baird
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 14, 2022
The “demanding, sexist, exciting, glorious” golden age of air travel sets the spectacular stage for this sparkling account from former flight attendant and novelist Hood (Kitchen Yarns). Trained at Trans World Airlines’ selective Breech Training Academy in 1978 at age 21, Hood’s airline career began in the glitzy days of Ralph Lauren uniforms, high heels, and chateaubriand carving stations, and dramatically ended eight years later in a picket line, as the combined forces of deregulation, bankruptcies, and labor strikes sent the industry into a tailspin. Despite occasionally didactic forays into the history of air travel (“Qantas Airlines operated the world’s first international passenger service in 1935 between Brisbane and Singapore”), Hood’s companionable storytelling paired with her bold skewering an oft-glamorized world—riddled with surprise weight checks and aggressive male passengers—make for an enthralling account. Equally effective is her moving story of overcoming entrenched stereotypes—“glorified waitress, a sex kitten, an archaic symbol of women”—within the industry to become a writer, drafting stories late at night on long international flights “as passengers slept” and powering through jet lag in “hotel rooms in Zurich and Paris and Rome” to craft her first novel. From takeoff to landing, this entertains and inspires.