Helpful Score: 5
This short book is a gem. While Bennie's flight to his daughter's commitment ceremony is delayed in Chicago, he writes a letter to American Airlines to demand the money he paid for this flight be returned. What begins as a rant soon digresses into observations about his life that is alternately very funny and very poignant. I love Jonathan Miles' writing style - his words are precisely placed for maximum effect on, and reflection by, the readers of this novel. I hope he has another book in progress.
Helpful Score: 4
i have been looking forward to reading this since i became a flight attendant over 3 years ago. i have been on the waiting list for my book swap group since then and finally recevied it.
my excitement dwindled after getting it and i learned two important lessons- never judge a book by its cover- or its title!!!!
i thought this was ging to be a book of letters to the airline from unhappy customers, or just one letter ranting about all of his awful experiences flying. i was so wrong.
its a fictional book about a guy on his way to his daughter's wedding. he gets stuck in chicago and decides to write a letter to american airlines. of the entire book- maybe a page is about his bad experience. the rest is his life story. and a not exciting life story at that. i kept waiting for the good stuff to come- and it never did.
the main character is also a translator so throughout this very long letter he includes translations of his current project. which bored the heck out of me.
at points it was painful to read (but i can never not finish a book). maybe if i knew what i was getting into i wouldve enjoyed it, but i had expectations which were not met.
such a disappointment.
my excitement dwindled after getting it and i learned two important lessons- never judge a book by its cover- or its title!!!!
i thought this was ging to be a book of letters to the airline from unhappy customers, or just one letter ranting about all of his awful experiences flying. i was so wrong.
its a fictional book about a guy on his way to his daughter's wedding. he gets stuck in chicago and decides to write a letter to american airlines. of the entire book- maybe a page is about his bad experience. the rest is his life story. and a not exciting life story at that. i kept waiting for the good stuff to come- and it never did.
the main character is also a translator so throughout this very long letter he includes translations of his current project. which bored the heck out of me.
at points it was painful to read (but i can never not finish a book). maybe if i knew what i was getting into i wouldve enjoyed it, but i had expectations which were not met.
such a disappointment.
Helpful Score: 2
Yep, we've all been inconvenienced by airlines, and sometimes too long, but that lament in the form of a letter turns to a life story of a drunk. Sorry, I have no real interest in listening to a self-destructive drunk who screws up his own and everyone who loves hims lives. Funny and tragic, and heart warming as some lines were, it kept hitting me that this is a drunk, lamenting one more time, poor me, if only! I did not enjoy this book
Helpful Score: 1
Odd little book. First of all, it is fiction. It begins as a rant about how a cancelled flight causes a man to miss his estranged daughter's wedding. It rather quckly becomes a lament about his life and many choices he made. There are large sections about a book the main character is translating, which rather bored me. I'm sure there was material there that related to the main story, but I just couldn't stay interested in that side story. I did find the book interesting, in an odd sort of way.
