A.S. King

In this truly original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking real love. Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions...like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl. As her secret relationship becomes more intense and her friends demand answers, Astrid has nowhere left to turn. She can't share the truth with anyone except the people she imagines flying over her at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even know she's there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers' lives--and her own--for the better.

Ask the Passengers

A. S. King

"Astrid Jones copes with her small town's gossip and narrow-mindedness by staring at the sky and imagining that she's sending love to the passengers in the airplanes flying high over her backyard. Maybe they'll know what to do with it. Maybe it'll make them happy. Maybe they'll need it. Her mother doesn't want it, her father's always stoned, her perfect sister's too busy trying to fit in, and the people in her small town would never allow her to love the person she really wants to: another girl named Dee. There's no one Astrid feels she can talk to about this deep secret or the profound questions that she's trying to answer. But little does she know just how much sending her love--and asking the right questions--will affect the passengers' lives, and her own, for the better"--

a novel

Ask the passengers

Jeannette Ordas

I wanted to love this book like I loved other A.S. King novels, but this one didn't do it for me. I liked the sending the love up to the passengers bits and how the main character struggled to sort out who she was before having labels thrust upon her, but I felt totally disconnected to her and her friends. Her relationships with her parents and sister were a bit better, but I felt like her relationship to her best friend seemed weird & surface. 2.5 stars.

Talia Dominguez 

this book is good! Astrid likes a girl but is not sure, if she is considered a lesbian or if she likes her LIKE THAT. On the other hand, she has a bestfriend, Kristina, who IS a lesbian, but is not out yet because she is scared of what the whole town will say of her. Afterall, she is the popular girl in town and Astrid is not very fond of them.
Astrid starts going out to gay clubs with kristina and her also gay "boyfriend" justin. 
It is hard for Astrid to figure out if she is into girls like that or not, because of her family being really judgemental of gay and lesbian people and because of pushy-outed Dee. SO SHE LIKES TO ASK THE PASSENERS IN THE AIRPLANES PASSING BY IN HER BACKYARD while she ALSO likes to SEND her love to THEM. LOVED THE STORY, BUT I AM STILL AGAINST THE WHOLE GAY MARRIAGE.

jess

[review written 2013]

so! ask the passengers was … okay, i guess. my problem with it wasn’t really with the plot, or well, it kind of was. i’ve read a bunch of coming out stories, especially when i was 14 and trying to figure out my own identity. and i think now … they’re all the same?

like. the plot of this book is basically confident gay person meets confused gay person and they’re outed against their will and there’s homophobic slurs tossed around like candy and wow i just think it’s all the same. there wasn’t anything special about ask the passengers but it wasn’t bad. 

i liked astrid, i guess - i liked that she remained overwhelmingly positive even though her world was crashing down around her. that’s cool. the plot, as i said, was pretty much the same, and it sort of dragged. 

you know what us queer kids need? we need kids in fantasy and action and sci-fi and dystopia and anything that isn’t real-life coming out fiction who just happen to be queer and kick ass with the straight kids. we need like, a girl and her girlfriend and a boy kicking ass, and though the girl and her girlfriend get shit sometimes they have more things to worry about. 

i’m tired of coming out stories, this book was no different from all the other ones i’ve read and frankly i want something new

Charlotte 

Flavia Louise

3.25 stars
I just really wasn't too impressed with this one at all. It was still fun at times and touched on some interesting things but not always in an appropriate way.

Katie Kite

I listened to this on Audible and I think that may have informed my experience just a tiny bit. I’ve been having a rough time with audio books lately I gotta get better with those. 
I have a huge tolerance for any YA book with queer representation and also a huge tolerance for a coming to self acceptance queer story so already I knew I was at least going to like it a little. 

And I did! I liked it. I don’t know if I love it, I think I’m going to try and get a hard copy from the library and read it again and see if I like it better that way as well. 

I really found the familial relationships just truly insufferable. I hated the mother I hated the sister I was bored and annoyed with her father more than once I just could not be there for the family. 

But! I literally loved everything else, the small town gossip felt very resonant and real to me and the relationships and confusions were lovely and well done. But man the family just dragged it down so much for me

Georgia Carr

I can't explain how awesome this book is. Honestly, if you're a young adult and need to find some common ground with an annoyed and confused character, this is the book for you. It's witty and unique; the structure is nothing I've seen before. The tie-in with the airplane passengers is beyond awesome, and the main few characters all develop really well through the book. It's just fab, okay.

Destiny J Tamayo

I thought it was really good and you see astrid grow a lot as a character. Overall the book was awesome I think everyone should check it out.

Megan

Elad Schulman

Wow. I have no words for that book. The plot was beautiful and the connection between Astrid and the passengers on the plane was beautiful. Dee was such an amazing character, who showed that even supporting characters can have major character development. This was my first LGBT novel and I enjoyed it so much.

Wren Hardwick

What I got as the main idea of this book:  No one is perfect andperfection is in the eye of the beholder.

Which I completely agree with, by the way.

I didn’t really like this book. Astrid, the heroine, seems to be attacked by everyone and their families, including her gay friends (what?). It’s like a cartoon where the bad guy is blue and the hero is all “woah is me I am so picked on” and it makes you feel sorry for them. 

That being said, I did feel sad for Astrid. She was trying to find her way in life and figure out her own sexuality. Her family didn’t really pay any attention to her, her experimental lady friend was really pushy, her friends were bossy and she didn’t really have any good relationships besides the one she fakes with passengers in the planes that fly over her house.

Yes, that is something in this book.

I thought that part was weird and really pushed. I didn’t care for the random story-slips of passengers. To be honest, sometimes I would read it and didn’t know what I read because in my mind I was thinking “why is this one relevant? Are any of the five I read before relevant?”

I haven’t read A.S. King, and I am not sure I am a fan of her writing. Obviously she has fans and by all means we are all entitled to our own opinions. I just don’t see her as an author I am going to look up and see what else she has written.

This is an important topic and I feel as if it should be in more stories and that people need to chill and let everyone feel their way through life at their own pace. It is something that this story does touch on and that I did like.

But, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to people.

Erin 

I don't know. I started this book as part of Pride and I'm still not getting into it a month later. I'm at nearly 50% and not only do I not feel like I'm getting to know any of the characters at all, but I'm having to force myself to read even a few pages, which is never a good sign. I've read reviews of it by other people whose opinions I generally trust and a lot of them seem to enjoy it, but I do notice that a lot of them are from several years ago. We all grow as readers - that's the best part. So perhaps it's not just me. I do see this as a nice idea for a story, as LGBTQ+ stories always need to continue being told, and especially those of people who aren't quite sure where they fit in yet, like Astrid. I just wish it could have been done in a more interesting way that makes me even care about the characters a little bit. I'm disappointed, but I know there are a lot of books out there that might do it a bit better.

Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl. As her secret relationship becomes more intense and her friends demand answers, Astrid has nowhere left to turn. She can't share the truth with anyone except the people at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even know she's there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers' lives--and her own--for the better. In this truly original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking real love.

Giulia 

Around the year in 52 books - 22. A book by an author you haven't read before

Non posso dare più di tre stelle, la protagonista mi è stata sui nervi per metà libro con questa cosa che lei, povera ragazza di città, si era dovuta trasferire e fare la vita di paese. Ecco, io vivo in un paesello e sinceramente mi sono sentita offesa da questa tipa che credeva di essere migliore solo perché nata in una grande città. Come mi verrebbe da dire se fosse un discorso colloquiale: oh bella abbassa le arie! 
Ci sono stati dei capitoli interessanti, ma tutto sommato non l'ho trovato nulla di eccezionale.

Sunky

kelsey

Amy Sarig King

Astrid Jones, who realizes that she is a lesbian, deals with the gossip and rejection she faces by sending love up to the people on airplanes as they pass over her.

Ask the Passengers

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