Leaving Earth Paperback – 18 Feb. 1999

I agree that some of the writing had a poetic quality to it but overall I just found this book to be irritating. There was no real fluidity in the writing style and the story itself was rather weak. I have to wonder what was the point of the little girl and her family and then there was the development of the two main characters. I was expecting something romantic, a flow of emotion obviously building as the book progressed, but it just seems to jump at you from nowhere toward the end of the book, it's basically a one sided view with a semi confirmation in the last line of the final chapter. I feel like I've wasted my time and money with this book I'm sorry to say.

Pioneering aviatrix Grace O'Gorman takes young pilot Willa on a record-breaking 25-day endurance flight. She is trying to break her husband's record. She depends upon him for refuelling and for all communication with the ground. While flying, they learn that the husband is dictating a completely fictitious account to the press. Willa gradually falls in love with Grace. And as the plane flies round and round above the lake shore, a little girl watches, adoring. The quality of the writing is like nothing else I have read. It is poetic and gripping from beginning to end. The best book I read in 2000.