The Art of Crash Landing

A Novel

By: Melissa DeCarlo

Narrated by: Johanna Parker

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

From a bright new talent comes this debut novel about a young woman who travels for the first time to her mother's hometown and gets sucked into the mystery that changed her family forever.

Mattie Wallace has really screwed up this time. Broke and knocked up, she's got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags and nowhere to go. Try as she might, Mattie can no longer deny that she really is turning into her mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn't make.

When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she's never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around. Leaving the Florida Panhandle, she drives 800 miles to her mother's birthplace - the tiny town of Gandy, Oklahoma. There she soon learns that her mother remains a local mystery - a happy, talented teenager who inexplicably skipped town 35 years ago with nothing but the clothes on her back. But the girl they describe bears little resemblance to the damaged woman Mattie knew, and before long it becomes clear that something terrible happened to her mother, and it happened here. The harder Mattie digs for answers, the more obstacles she encounters. Giving up, however, isn't an option. Uncovering what started her mother's downward spiral might be the only way to stop her own.

Hilarious, gripping, and unexpectedly wise, The Art of Crash Landing is a poignant novel from an assured new voice.

©2015 Melissa DeCarlo (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

Family Matters

I enjoyed the character development in this novel. Story of love, loss, and forgiveness. Deals with breaking family scripts.

A must read debut novel

Where does The Art of Crash Landing rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is a must read for this year. Past must reads for me were the Alan Cumings autobio, and Gone With the Wind, and the long Eisenhower bio.

What did you like best about this story?

I didn't want to like Mattie, but I ended up really admiring her unapologetic vitality. Actually, the book is full of flawed characters just trying to adjust to their own humanity. The book is very well written: I learned much about writing and editing in this book, and I always appreciate that. That allowed the story to shine through.

Which scene was your favorite?

Right in the beginning, when Mattie is riding in the tow truck, and I'm realizing that I'm rooting for her to just catch a break, and recognize it, and capitalize on it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

I love Johanna Parker's narration. She is one of my favorites because she reads the books: I can distinguish the characters because of her different voices and inflections, and she doesn't over-dramatize the readings. Some BOTs I have to quit and read the paper book because of the reader's over-dramatization. Johanna Parker is one of my go-to readers when I need a sure thing.

Easy read

For the most part an easy read that kept me interested. I’d go 3.5 but not sure it’s a 4.

Humorous story of a charming klutz in search of her family story

Mattie Wallace is a self-proclaimed magnet for misadventures. Yet our spunky heroin always lands on her feet when she finds herself in trouble. Broke, separated from her husband, and mourning her mother's death, she leaves Florida for Oklahoma in search of her roots. Her grandmother has left a house and 2 dogs. Her arrival is mostly unsettling to the local folks who knew her mother and grandmother. After following various leads, she finally learns the truth. In the process, she meets eccentric characters with hilarious results. This book tells a poignant, funny and vivid story of Mattie's search for her mother's story. The narrative is very well written. The chapters alternate between the past and the present. I was eager to know the end, but I enjoyed letting the author put together the pieces of

Simple but realistic and funny

The character knows she’s not ok and she’s lucky to make the best of the opportunities she has. She’s talks about a lot of gritty realities so I guess that’s why she’s “unlikeable”. The book is not complex or hard to follow. I enjoyed hearing the story on bike rides with my kids, except the narrator. Her voice is wrong for the character. She uses the same contrasting voice for all other characters and the first was Asian so I heard everyone else as Asian. The character is kind of a bad girl but the narrator pronounces every syllable with a crisp and high voice and prolongs a random word hear and there. I couldn’t place her accent but it wasn’t Florida, maybe Delaware.

Sass, heart and refreshingly unpredictable.

If you could sum up The Art of Crash Landing in three words, what would they be?

Poignant, Sassy, Vibrant

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Art of Crash Landing?

Her last conversation with Queequegq, her stepfather.

Which character – as performed by Johanna Parker – was your favorite?

Mattie herself.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

This review I have pasted below particularly sums up the satisfaction I felt after listening to this amazing first novel. The narration by Johanna Parker swept me right into the story and had me rooting for Mattie all the way through.
“I fell in love with Mattie, with all her sass, her snark, her bad ass ways. The best compliment I can give this talented new author? I wish I had written this novel. You nailed it, Melissa DeCarlo. And you deserve legions of very happy readers.” — Ellen Sussman, author of A WEDDING IN PROVENCE and FRENCH LESSONS

Unlikable character

The main character, Maggie, was so unlikable that it distracted from the story. It also felt like this first-time author put every social and family issue she could think of into the story, and this overloaded the plot. Narrator was good but the book itself, not so much.

A beach read, if there are sharks in the water

I finished it only because my women's book group was discussing it at my house. It wasn't our first, second, third, or any choice really. Our discussion leader was born In Oklahoma, where the book is mostly set, and that was why we were reading it. The down and out heroine was its only appeal because she was a sympathetic character.