The Girl Who Could Fly

My entire childhood is swamped with books and games and well, dreaming about being able to fly.  I even wrote a story about it in third grade.  I was fascinated with planes and the airport, and to this day I still am in love with Peter Pan.  

Although I mostly review young adult, when a friend of mine recommended this Middle Grade book, I thought "what the heck" considering I had wanted to read it for a while.  I even got smiles from another friend who thought that I should read the book too.  So read I did.

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

Blurb:

You just can’t keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods.

Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. Easy as pie.

Sure, she hasn’t mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she’s real good at loop-the-loops.

Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma’s at her wit’s end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents’ farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities.

School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. (Plus all the homemade apple pie she can eat!) But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences.

Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore.

Review:

*SPOILERS*

Funny, is that I don't remember Middle Grade books being so obvious.  This book was obvious.  But I'll get into that more a little bit later.  

Piper McCloud is a lovely protagonist because of her character and spirit.  However, she remained to be naive and was duped by Dr. Hellion and Conrad.  The only thing that made Piper a little different than any other naive protagonist was her amazing power to forgive.  She forgave Conrad in a heart beat.  After realizing what had caused Dr. Hellion to behave the way she was she pleaded with her to fly, but to no avail, because Dr. Hellion insisted to be normal, and thus she fell to her death.  

The premise is interesting enough.  A high tech school where living things, human, plant, and animal are sent to to become "normal".  The only thing that I don't understand is what the government really had to do with it.  What was I. N. S. A. N. E. funded on anyway?  Taxpayers money? 

*MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS*

The plot was where it got to be obvious.  So she starts out at home, gets shunned by her community, goes to the school, shunned there, makes "friends" with Conrad, plans to escape, refuses to go without everyone, Conrad rats them out, they get caught, Piper severely punished, Piper comes back, discover Jasper's power, revolt, Dr. Hellion is killed, Piper goes home and brings Conrad.  They all live Happily Ever After.

Exciting, yet see through.

I found that the entire time I was wishing that Piper and Conrad would kiss or something.  I guess I've been reading too many YA books these days.  : )  

Hey, a fan fic about Piper and Conrad when they got older would be fun!  I may have just gotten an idea!

Overall, this book was cute!

✎✎✎✎

~Remedyleaf