Ask the Passengers in ENGL 596 / EDCI 551

Mar 30, 2015 Morgan rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ask the Passengers by A.S. King hits home in a way that every person can relate to. We follow Astrid Jones, a 17-year-old high school senior who is questioning her sexuality. Astrid struggles with her home life and pushy friends as well. School is mostly safe, with escape into her humanities class. As the novel progresses and Astrid loses control of her worlds, she relies more and more on the philosophy she has learned in that same humanities class. In the end, Ask the Passengers will make you l Ask the Passengers by A.S. King hits home in a way that every person can relate to. We follow Astrid Jones, a 17-year-old high school senior who is questioning her sexuality. Astrid struggles with her home life and pushy friends as well. School is mostly safe, with escape into her humanities class. As the novel progresses and Astrid loses control of her worlds, she relies more and more on the philosophy she has learned in that same humanities class. In the end, Ask the Passengers will make you laugh, cry, kick something, and ultimately fall in love with the imperfect people within its pages.

Ask the Passengers has more to offer than just a sexually confused teenager. While the story revolves around and is driven by Astrid's sexual questioning, there is the story of the passengers she diligently send her love to. These passengers' lives generally correlate quite well with what is happening in Astrid's life. Or, in the case of the last passenger, what may have been Astrid in another life. While Astrid does not know these people and they do not know her, the correlation between them receiving her life and finding peace is mirrored nicely by Astrid receiving the love from the last passenger and finding her own inner peace.

I had mixed emotions concerning this novel. Yes, it was wonderful. King captured the frustrated emotion of a high school senior, especially a gay high school senior living in a small town, perfectly. Small towns can be the most judgemental places on Earth. However, there was fault in King's beautifully crafted story: She gives Astrid only one view of her tormentors. Astrid only sees them as negative, bigots, stuck in boxes. She refuses to understand they are questioning their way of living just as much as she is. Coming from a small, diversity-deprived town, I once struggled to define my way of life in terms of different groups of people. Astrid does not understand that having grown up in a big city, she is free from the stereotypes ingrained within small-town minds. It takes a lot of mental effort and open-mindedness to overcome those chains. While this can be witnessed in Ellis (who indeed struggles mightily with Astrid's sexuality), we see Astrid write off her sister as being just like the others in this town. Astrid refuses to see it from a different light because she is too wrapped up in her own light. And that is fine. It is the purpose of the story to question the shadows we as a society see dancing on the walls. However, there are always at least two sides to every story.

Ask the Passengers offers students an inside view of homosexuality and the frustration, fear, anger, involved. They are able to see the hurt that comes from the bullying. Not everyone has an escape like Astrid. Not everyone can fight through the pain and frustration and anger and hurt and fear like Astrid.
However, this isn't a book written simply for the sake of convincing adolescents to open up about homosexuality. The philosophy imbedded within the novel offer students a different way to view life. King seems to be telling them, "Don't just take my word for things. Here is how Zeno of Elea thought and here is how Socrates thought. Oh, and here are a couple of random fellows, such as Aristophanes." King is questioning society and our limited views in this novel. there are a few moments in the novel where Astrid replaces the term "gay" with other "lesser" groups. King is questioning how our society treats everyone, not just homosexuals.

What does that mean for students? It means that they can study this novel through the context how society judges and stereotypes individuals. In most middle schools and high schools, stereotyping leads to bullying. Astrid's paradox, Nobody is Perfect, introduces a question that students of any mentally apt age can argue and form opinions on. Would I introduce this novel to my students? Absolutely. Would it focus solely on the "homosexual agenda?" Absolutely not. This novel offers so much more than that. ...more

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Apr 02, 2015 Michelle rated it liked it

This book was an intriguing read right from the moment I read the little synopsis snippet on Amazon. Maybe it's because I adore flying, but I loved the idea of a girl laying on a picnic table in her backyard sending love up to airplanes she spies overhead, or maybe its just because that's a quirk that I've never come across before and I appreciate the uniqueness of it. Either way, it put me in a positive mental state from the get-go of the novel.

Astrid's struggle was a heartfelt one. She had my ...more

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Apr 02, 2015 Hannah Alexander rated it really liked it

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King is a wonderful novel. This is not my first venture into LGBTQ literature and I believe that this text has moral value that can reach any person no matter how they identify. This novel allows readers to see and observe what they may have otherwise not understood. I also appreciate how this text does not command a change in opinion, but it does command equality and respect.

I come from a very Catholic family and even though my political views are often liberal, I fi ...more

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Apr 01, 2015 Mykala rated it really liked it

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King follows Astrid, a high school girl who is trying to define herself in relation to the ideal perfections that are prescribed in her new town. Astrid doesn’t have all the answers but she does have love to give, so she sends both her questions and love to the passengers of overhead planes. Navigating relationships with her friends and family, Astrid struggles to identify where she fits in among her small town Unity Valley residents. Her love for philosophy, especiall Ask the Passengers by A.S. King follows Astrid, a high school girl who is trying to define herself in relation to the ideal perfections that are prescribed in her new town. Astrid doesn’t have all the answers but she does have love to give, so she sends both her questions and love to the passengers of overhead planes. Navigating relationships with her friends and family, Astrid struggles to identify where she fits in among her small town Unity Valley residents. Her love for philosophy, especially Socrates, alters the way she sees the world around her and allows her to wrestle with some of the hardest questions of life. Throughout the novel Astrid searches for love, belonging, acceptance, and her own internal truths.

I think this novel did a great job of presenting the internal struggles we all face when trying to figure out who we are in relation to the world around us. Astrid’s internal dialogue as well as her interactions with others allowed the reader to see that identity is fluid, ever changing, and something that shouldn’t be confined.The collection of characters in this novel is diverse and contributes to Astrid’s journey in multiple ways. The one character that I wanted more from was Astrid’s mother. I wanted more depth and dimension in their relationship and felt like it would’ve contributed to the overall composition of Astrid’s family. We are left to make up our own story about the history between mother and daughter, which I found to be slightly lacking.

This novel addresses tolerance and bullying issues that I think many young adult readers can connect with. I also think this novel could spark discussions in relation to sexual identity as well as homophobia. The way in which the novel discusses the complexity of sexual identity is something that needs to be discussed because not everyone fits into confined boxes. Overall this book made me feel the power of love for others as well as for one’s self, which spoke to the overarching theme that we all deserve to be accepted regardless of labels or stereotypes.
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Apr 01, 2015 Nancy C rated it really liked it

Ask the Passengers, by A.S. King, follows the story of seventeen year old high school girl, Astrid Jones. The Jones family, originally from New York, was uprooted by Astrid’s mother, Claire. Her reasons behind the move were to buy back her mother’s childhood home and also to raise her daughters, Astrid and Ellis, as “small town” girls. This is what starts all of Astrid’s problems—she has difficulty fitting in with her peers, who are all from thw small town, Unity Valley. Things only become more Ask the Passengers, by A.S. King, follows the story of seventeen year old high school girl, Astrid Jones. The Jones family, originally from New York, was uprooted by Astrid’s mother, Claire. Her reasons behind the move were to buy back her mother’s childhood home and also to raise her daughters, Astrid and Ellis, as “small town” girls. This is what starts all of Astrid’s problems—she has difficulty fitting in with her peers, who are all from thw small town, Unity Valley. Things only become more complicated when Astrid’s mother Claire, starts pushing Astrid to have a boyfriend and to be like the other kids in town—the only problem being that Astrid isn't sure of her sexual orientation. The way she copes with her troubles is by sending out her love to passengers on airplanes that fly above her picnic table, and also by talking to make believe Frank Socrates.

I thought this story was very realistic. Astrid is faced with real problems that teens face today, and it doesn't have to necessarily just apply to gay teens. There is much intolerance in society of other religions, values and cultures--the weird and different in general.

Astrid's coping mechanisms against all the "cray" in her family and with her friends is very interesting. She might make things up, which could be seen as juvenile, but she thinks about her problems critically, through the help of making up different entities with different points of view.It makes her considers different scenarios and things that people or her family will murmur about her. Astrid, as a character, is very well rounded out, and even her mother is too, but I feel like there was a lot lacking for the other characters who are a big part of Astrid's life.

This novel goes to many touchy subjects, even if it is for one second--like sexual harassment from the boys and school and Jeff, who is always groping on her. Intolerance and bullying, again from people at school. Stereotyping, labeling and overgeneralize a group of people. Underage drinking and doing drugs and that fact that teenagers aren't the only group of people who smoke a lot of pot.
I think these are all issues that young readers can connect with, and the language of the book isn't difficult to understand, or the thoughts and worries of the characters. I would say this is definitely a novel more intended for upper middle school/high school kids, because of some of the content.
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Apr 02, 2015 Michelle Parsons rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-lit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I had no preconceptions upon picking up King's novel Ask the Passengers. I thought that maybe it was about a girl with a penchant for watching airplanes dealing with a bad family situation. And while that was in fact part of the surface meaning, it was so much more than that.
This is a story about small-town, conservative America. This is a story about rumors and their effects on the listeners and their communities. This is a story about figuring out your own identity, sexual and otherwise. Figu I had no preconceptions upon picking up King's novel Ask the Passengers. I thought that maybe it was about a girl with a penchant for watching airplanes dealing with a bad family situation. And while that was in fact part of the surface meaning, it was so much more than that.
This is a story about small-town, conservative America. This is a story about rumors and their effects on the listeners and their communities. This is a story about figuring out your own identity, sexual and otherwise. Figuring out how to tell the truth and how to live with the truth. How to relate to your family, even when you don't know how.
This text reminded me in some ways of Julie Anne Peters' Keeping You A Secret. A young woman with an unusual first name (Holland in Peters' text, Astrid in King's) and a driven mother figure tries to negotiate her identity as she discovers her attraction to women, her first lesbian relationship, and her coming out process. There the superficial differences end, however. While in Peters' text, the disastrous consequences of coming out by accident are all family-based, the consequences of even the rumor of lesbianism affects Astrid's whole community, and only impacts her family upon that level. While Holland is left disinherited, Astrid's family eventually comes together to support her, albeit imperfectly.
The narrative strategies were what made this book brilliant. Astrid sends her love to various planes as they pass overhead, and asks questions of the imagined passengers. However, these passengers may not be so imaginary, as King writes in vignettes from the perspective of some airline passengers all passing over a lake in a mountainous region, which matches Astrid's description of her town. These passengers seem to react to Astrid's unspoken questions, using them as a way to consider and at least partially resolve their own personal relationship issues. When the last passenger goes overhead, she is, in turn, able to sent her own love to Astrid for safekeeping, since Astrid has largely resolved her own issues. The addition of the philosophical component and the imaginary interactions between Astrid and Frank Socrates made it a smart read. I felt the frame of the philosophy project gave Astrid a more concrete way of considering her problems through the lens of great philosophers. By placing the emphasis on Socrates in particular, whose reputation is only known through the words of others and who eventually was killed for his provocation of his society, King allows Astrid to reflect on the way that words and reputation work within her own community.
Astrid's relationship with Dee was very interesting, and the text overall felt like it both accepted and challenged the "stereotypes" of lesbianism and same-sex relationships. In some ways, Dee is a representative of the single story version of lesbianism; she is an athlete in an aggressive game (field hockey) whose previous relationships have all been sexual in focus. The Kristina and Justin cover relationship both emphasizes stereotypes (need for small-town teens to cover up their real sexuality) and undermines them (even star athletic males and popular, pretty girls can be gay.) Astrid, however, is the one who most undermines the single story. She is questioning, not driven entirely by sexual desire, unable and unwilling to define her sexuality in terms of the gay-or-straight boxes being imposed on her by her friends and family. Her eventual ability to decide that because she has a girlfriend means she is gay for the time being both seemed positive, as she was still implicating she wasn't shut into one of the boxes, and troubling. As someone who personally identifies as bisexual, I have heard multiple times that I'm straight because I'm in a heterosexual relationship, or that I can't be bisexual, I must choose gay or straight. Astrid's "gay for now" response was a troubling reflection of the attitude that your relationship status is the same as your personal identification, but that issue is one that is hard to deal with.
The book gives a horrifying view of small-town conservative attitudes, reflected in parental protests, in-class protests, graffiti, bullying, and even in the viewpoint of a lesbian girl on her way to "conversion" camp where they will try to make her straight. I wish I could say that I felt they were unrealistic, but as a resident of Indiana with its "religious right to refuse service" law, I know it can be all-too true. While I am not resident of a tiny town, it is clear that these issues are not being dealt with in a terribly progressive way. Ask the Passengers seems to be an accurate reflection of these attitudes.
Also, is it just me, or are there a lot more LGBTQ books dealing with L relationships than G relationships? At least at the YA level, as in movie culture, it seems more acceptable to see two women together than two men. ...more

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Apr 02, 2015 Lauren H. rated it really liked it

I found A.S. King’s novel Ask the Passengers to be illuminating and thought-provoking as a whole. Although her main messages, particularly pertaining to stereotypes, societal categories, and LGBTQ issues weren’t incredibly new or novel to me (as a graduate student), I can see this novel being positively striking and beneficial to Young Adult readers. Young Adult readers are especially prone to taking what their parents (and ideology) tell them, and this book offers what students might see as “a I found A.S. King’s novel Ask the Passengers to be illuminating and thought-provoking as a whole. Although her main messages, particularly pertaining to stereotypes, societal categories, and LGBTQ issues weren’t incredibly new or novel to me (as a graduate student), I can see this novel being positively striking and beneficial to Young Adult readers. Young Adult readers are especially prone to taking what their parents (and ideology) tell them, and this book offers what students might see as “alternative perspectives.”
The aspect that I appreciated the most out of this book was the understanding that labels are most certainly not indicative of the messiness of reality. Labels confine people based on definite labels. They don’t offer options. This book shows that LGBTQ labels, as well as other labels that define individuals, are not beneficial. They do not offer the full spectrum of humanity that could be present. In particular, I found that King makes an excellent choice by beginning the novel with Astrid’s questioning of her sexuality, instead of creating a cut-and-dry character who is simply concrete about her identity. Even those students who are straight can certainly relate to these of labels issues as well. For example, does a student need to be in one clique or another? Does a student need to side with one sports activity or another? In the end, the text asks: How can labels be blended in order to create individuals not boxes?
I also enjoyed the fact that we have a female protagonist who is struggling with her sexuality. When I was a young adult, I remember several television shows that specifically dealt with boys and their sexuality, and I don’t remember a single show (or book, for that matter) that addressed female characters in the same situation. It is no surprise that girls and women can have these same questions and realizations about their identities, and it was a breath of fresh air to see a YA book written about this. At the same time, though, King’s novel is far from a “chick flick,” and the writing, plot, and themes would be relevant and thought-provoking for both male and female readers.
The greatest fault that I saw in the book was the fact that it sometimes felt a bit cliché. Many of the conversations between characters felt a bit canned to me. However, I know that it is important to remember that I am a graduate student reading this text, not a YA reader that this text is targeted to. With that in mind, I believe the same conversations that I view as a bit cliché might be the same conversations that a YA reader sees as unique and profound.
In the end, I enjoyed this book, and although I didn’t find it completely riveting as an adult reader, I really appreciate the book’s messages and themes, especially in terms of how they would relate to the YA target audience.
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Mar 30, 2015 Jacob Mroczkiewicz rated it liked it

I think I'm overly invested in the Goodreads star-rating system. I've changed my rating roughly 14 times. My spring semester procrastination skills are truly impressive. (The struggle is real.) Anyways ... yeah, Ask the Passengers ...

follows the journey of Astrid Jones as she bears the weight of her own inner uncertainty while also weighing that with the secrets of her friends heaped upon her. Further muddling matters for young Astrid, she resides in a town and a house that are the furthest thin I think I'm overly invested in the Goodreads star-rating system. I've changed my rating roughly 14 times. My spring semester procrastination skills are truly impressive. (The struggle is real.) Anyways ... yeah, Ask the Passengers ...

follows the journey of Astrid Jones as she bears the weight of her own inner uncertainty while also weighing that with the secrets of her friends heaped upon her. Further muddling matters for young Astrid, she resides in a town and a house that are the furthest thing from a home to her. Feeling trapped between who she thinks she might be and the expectations of a town that operates as a spiderweb to the fly, Astrid frequently partakes in her favorite pastime: gazing at the sky and sending unconditional love to those who travel above. In Astrid's world, love is an easily transferable sentiment, but not until she actualizes herself can she bear the thought of reserving some of her own love for herself.

Ask the Passengers is easily the best book that I have which falls under the YA queer lit category. I have a classmate who recently complained that there does not seem to be an acceptable amount of worthy YA queer texts, and I have to say that I agree. Sure, Perks of Being a Wallflower has received some fanfare, but seemingly not until the film adaptation was produced (Sorry, Chbosky, I personally wasn't a fan). I see this text's greatest quality being the understated social commentary provided with the juxtaposition of Astrid's struggle with her sexual identity with the life and works Socrates, a topic of study in her school (yet another reminder that my high school kind of sucked). Among other things, such as setting up a considerably clear mirror/window experience for adolescent readers, King suggests that societal acceptance has not progressed all that far from persecuting a brilliant mind for speaking contrarily to popular belief. Some students need to be introduced to such a voice.

I didn't realize the potential pedagogical uses of this text until I started to write a paper arguing against its presence in secondary curricula. That paper wasn't going anywhere, so I decided to argue in favor of the text, and I found that this text lends itself relatively well to the secondary educational goals (there also isn't a lot of scholarship arguing against such texts, but that's for a different forum). If an educator wants to teach literary theory to secondary students (guilty as charged) then more accessible texts, i.e. that of the YA persuasion, are obvious choices for doing so. This text, surprisingly enough, lends itself well to scaffolding students' study of Queer Theory in canonical works. Astrid's hometown, for instance, can be compared to those who operate against Dracula in Stoker's turn-of-the-century monster novel. And for your weekly Moby-Dick comparison, Astrid's alienation and despondency can be used to analyze Ishmael early in the text. Why not use it to analyze public perception? A teacher could use Ask the Passengers to analyze current events (a certain piece of legislation comes to mind) or even the role that reputation plays in Shakespeare's works (think Hotspur/Harry, Cassio/Othello).

So, yes. Ask the Passengers -- although not necessarily geared toward my sensibilities as a reader -- exhibits enough merit to both function as a mirror text for adolescent readers and as a useful scaffolding tool in the secondary classroom. Stay tuned, though: I might change my star rating again. ...more

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Mar 12, 2015 Logan rated it really liked it

High school senior Astrid Jones spends her free time sending love to passengers on airplanes -- and unbeknownst to her, they send love back. In A.S. King's Ask the Passengers, love is a very real entity, capable of being transferred, sent, and received, even without the recipient's knowledge. This reflects the philosophical undertones shot throughout the novel, which emphasize the "love-and-be-loved" mentality quickly gaining ground in contemporary American politics.

Ask the Passengers follows As High school senior Astrid Jones spends her free time sending love to passengers on airplanes -- and unbeknownst to her, they send love back. In A.S. King's Ask the Passengers, love is a very real entity, capable of being transferred, sent, and received, even without the recipient's knowledge. This reflects the philosophical undertones shot throughout the novel, which emphasize the "love-and-be-loved" mentality quickly gaining ground in contemporary American politics.

Ask the Passengers follows Astrid through her senior year of high school, as she begins to understand more completely her sexual identity, her relationships with her friends and family, and who she is as a person. The novel, like so many young adult pieces before it, grounds many of Astrid's problems in communication -- she is at times unable to communicate with her mother, her father, her sister, her girlfriend, and even her best friend. Where many novels would reduce these communication problems to the fault of one side or another, however, Ask the Passengers instead leaves this up to the reader's interpretation, presenting Astrid's struggles as well as those faced by the people around her. Many of the characters in this book are nuanced and developed -- Astrid, Ellis, and Kristina perhaps the most so -- and it is these characters who make the book well worth the read.

Though at times I felt that Ask the Passengers might perhaps have strayed too close to a hyperbolic portrayal of high school life, the 'in-crowd,' and the conservative leanings of small towns, I was always reminded in the very next chapter of the book's capacity to capture the devastating realness of Astrid's existence. It may be that I was fortunate enough to escape life in such a shockingly conservative community, or that I managed to land in a high school whose popular crowd was less caricatured or who responded more kindly to sexual difference, but I cannot count own my own experience to be representative of the whole. Overall, Ask the Passengers is, if not a must-read for all teenagers, a must-purchase, as it is worth having on your shelf to provide developing young adults with an example of someone who may have experienced something similar. ...more

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Mar 13, 2015 Jung Han rated it liked it

A.S.King’s novel Ask the Passengers describes how young adults are struggling with their sexual identities and challenging the biases based on unrecognized norms. The protagonist Astrid Jones wonders about her sexual orientation and comes to realize she is not what she thought she was. She is struggling not only with her identity development but also with social discrimination and biases on her sexual orientation. Her friends, neighbors, and even her family do not appreciate her sexual orientati ...more

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Jan 23, 2015 Jawaria rated it liked it

I initially didn't like this book at all ... It was an unhappy read and very conflicting. However, as I turned page after page, and understood the main character (Astrid) better, I followed her inner turmoil and gradual self-growth throughout the novel. A bildungsroman kind of journey. It is heart-breaking in several parts, where Astrid is lonely and unloved. This story maps her struggle to find real love and acceptance. A struggle to fit in - something every teenager, every adult, every person I initially didn't like this book at all ... It was an unhappy read and very conflicting. However, as I turned page after page, and understood the main character (Astrid) better, I followed her inner turmoil and gradual self-growth throughout the novel. A bildungsroman kind of journey. It is heart-breaking in several parts, where Astrid is lonely and unloved. This story maps her struggle to find real love and acceptance. A struggle to fit in - something every teenager, every adult, every person goes through. Astrid's experience is magnified by her identifying as a lesbian - something she herself is trying to make sense of and discover answers. Whether being gay or not, such struggles of finding oneself and how they belong in their surroundings is something common to everyone.

Hence, as I understood the story better and saw through the eyes of Astrid, the depth of the story grew on me. Then, with the whole philosophical element added in, the Socratic views and paradoxes, even the role of an imaginary 'Frank' Socrates; as well as the discourse with the passengers high above and the long search for how and where to place one's love, the reciprocal act of loving and journey of finding love - it became quite an enjoyable read. By the end of the book, I had gone up from a one-star to a three-star rating! I do feel this novel can play a pivotal role in awakening tolerance within young adult readers. High-school bullying is an all time mean area - and with such books teenagers have routes to identify with character/story/experience and also enhance understanding of others, be more tolerant.

Relationships are scrambled in this novel. Some characters are lacking of depth (dimension). Claire and Astrid have an uncomfortable, troubled relationship. One might think that is why Astrid is conflicted within herself. I was very disturbed by the sour relationship portrayed between mother and daughter. How can there be such a mother? There was also a huge gap in communication and relationships in the whole family itself, with Ellis in her own stuff and their Dad constantly stoned. Again, how can there be a family as such? I found all this unrealistic and disturbing - particularly the mother-daughter cases.

Astrid's conversations with passengers high up in the sky, were very meaningful. They explored her internal conflicts as well as bridged the physical gap between her and the people in the planes. Through the love she sent up and mental messages wrapped in it, she formed invisible links with each passenger's story. Her love impacted the life events of those random passengers above and gave them answers to their own quests. Thus, with sending love up Astrid asks the passengers of her belonging; and with receiving her love the passengers receive sudden revelations to their own stories. And finally the journey of love comes full circle when Astrid receives love instead, and has to keep it safe for a girl with a very similar struggle to her own. Love is made free without strings and very generous - exchanges of love heal everyone around. At first Astrid didn't see any need or want for her love in her own surroundings, so she sent it up above - but as things reconcile and fall into place, she finds many a use. The passengers that don't actually belong in Unity Valley help Astrid find her sense of belonging.

I found the connections made with Socratic philosophy most engaging. The paradoxes were a great way to question assumptions and put forward logical reasoning. Paradoxes made Astrid's own sexual orientation easier to neutralize among people around her. 'Equality is obvious' or 'nobody's perfect' arguments all embrace the richness of the diversity that everyone entails and the fact that we are all perfect in our unique 'imperfections' and similar in our inequalities under the oneness of humanity. It was interesting how Frank Socrates becomes her imaginary friend and invisible mentor. He is a mirror to the conversations in Astrid's mind and how Socratic philosophy provided explanations to her conflicts. When things become more resolved, she is unable to summon up Frank S. - just as the 'They say' voices in her disappear. It was all a search for where or how she could finally feel at home, in herself, her family and friends, her school, her town, community and surroundings.

Together, love, philosophy, internal discovery, external paradoxes - all combine to give Astrid the realization and courage to be herself, know her true self, and stand out as who she is with strength. It was the self-exploration, self-discovery, self-realization, self-disclosure, and perhaps even a little self-actualization that appealed to me most about this novel. I loved the use of philosophy and Socratic ideology as an intelligent means of reaching conclusions in the story and Astrid's journey.
"A time of thinking and not knowing" ...more

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