Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Sticking with the spooky theme that’s been running through my recent posts, today I’m sharing my review of the young adult paranormal thriller, Flight 171.
Synopsis
Devon Marsh is haunted by secrets. Like the identity of the person who killed her twin sister, Emily, in a hit and run accident last Halloween, which Devon has vowed to uncover. Like the things Devon said to Emily just before she died.
But she’s determined to start fresh when she boards a four-hour flight along with her classmates for their senior class ski trip. Devon never could have guessed those secrets would surface in the most terrifying way when a supernatural creature hijacks their flight and gives the students a deadly ultimatum:
Choose one among them to sacrifice before the end of the flight. Or the plane will crash.
As the clock ticks down, the creature slowly unearths the passengers’ deepest, darkest secrets—and reveals that one of the teens on the plane is responsible for Emily’s death. The students must agree on a sacrifice, or there won’t be any survivors. But can Devon find a way to stop the creature, or will she give in to her anger and let revenge take control?
Review
The horror and terror aspects of this book start within minutes of the characters loading onto the plane, and there’s absolutely no let up throughout. From people being stabbed with magical knitting needles to those hitting their own teeth out, this book is intense.
Devon is holding onto the loss of her sister and the grief of their last interaction. Just like in real life, there’s often no way to know it will be a last conversation, and we are all capable of saying horrible things we don’t mean. Devon’s way of coping with this is to make herself smaller and smaller, shrinking into a shadow of her sister. This was a great representation of the way grief can eat away at you in so many ways, and change your every waking moment.
When the students are left to fend for themselves against the monster hiding in the old woman’s body, part of it becomes a social experiment in just how quickly they will turn on one another, and in part how much self preservation will come into force. When the secrets start being revealed one by one, feelings and alliances shift and change like sands, fuelling the angst and anger that the old woman feeds off.
It was a great demonstration on how much we expect vengeance and justice to sometimes be the same thing, and how, really, sometimes neither is the right path, and all we can hope for is the strength to move forward.
Thanks for stopping by for this review. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something that will keep you up at night out of fear, and also thinking way too much in the best of ways.
I’ll be back again with another review soon!
And On She Reads 