Flight (Alexie)

Now Zits is fifteen, and his pattern of crime and misbehavior is about to escalate. Just as Zits attempts to rob a bank, he is transported back in time. Zits journeys through several historical events involving Native Americans. He experiences human tragedy from the perspectives of Native Americans, those who hate them, and even his own father. When Zits finally returns to his own time, he’s gained knowledge about how to let go of his anger and improve his life. 

I really enjoyed reading this book. Sherman Alexie does a great job of making his narrator very angry, troubled, and brutal, but also funny, enduring, and sympathetic. I found myself really feeling and rooting for Zits throughout the book, despite his often unacceptable behavior. Also, the book did a great job of demonstrating how futile and all-consuming anger and violence can be. If I had one complaint, it would be that I was not super fond of the book’s ending. It seemed to be a little too unbelievable and positive considering all of the negativity and mistrust Zits feels and encounters. 
 

Title: Flight
Author: Sherman Alexie
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Grove Atlantic Black Cat
Release Date: 2007
Format: Available in hardcover, paperback, audio and ebook formats
Pages: 181 pages

The best-selling author of multiple award-winning books returns with his first novel in ten years, a powerful, fast, and timely story of a troubled foster teenager — a boy who is not a “legal” Indian because he was never claimed by his father — who learns the true meaning of terror. About to commit a devastating act, the young man finds himself shot back through time on a shocking sojourn through moments of violence in American history. He resurfaces in the form of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, inhabits the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Big Horn, and then rides with an Indian tracker in the 19th Century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own contemporary body, he is mightily transformed by all he’s seen. This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant — making us laugh while breaking our hearts. Simultaneously wrenching and deeply humorous, wholly contemporary yet steeped in American history, Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and again, groundbreaking Alexie.

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