Learning to Fly: A Thriller

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down!
Review: A friend loaned me "Learning to Fly: A Thriller" and said that I wouldn't be able to put it down. Well, she was right! Once I started reading the story of Free Meeker, I didn't want to stop.

Free is a 19 year old alternative girl (nose ring, shaved head) living in a small town in Oregon. When she finds out she's pregnant, she realizes that she has to go to Portland to tell her parents. Her boyfriend will be of no good, because she knows he's been cheating on her.

So Free is on her way to Portland, stops to pick up a hitch hiker (Lynda) to keep her company, and then a huge dust storm takes over the road and results in a huge pile up of cars. Lynda ends up dead. Free encounters a bleeding man who is frantic to find his duffle bag. They find the bag, but the man dies.

Free leaves the accident scene with the duffle bag and Lynda's wallet and checks into a motel. She flips on the television and discovers that she is listed as having died in the accident. This gets her mind swimming. She is listed as dead, she has Lynda's identification... and lo and behold that duffle bag is loaded with lots and lots of money! This is the perfect scheme to start a new life for herself. She will go to Portland as Lynda and have a whole new life.

Of course, "Learning to Fly," is a thriller so things will not end all tidy as Free hopes!

Lynda was out hitch hiking that day because she was running away from her abuser and now he's after Free.

The duffle bag full of money belongs to a drug dealer and he wants it back.

So Free gets more than she bargained for, but don't give up on her just yet! She'll take you for quite a ride!

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down!
Review: A friend loaned me "Learning to Fly: A Thriller" and said that I wouldn't be able to put it down. Well, she was right! Once I started reading the story of Free Meeker, I didn't want to stop.

Free is a 19 year old alternative girl (nose ring, shaved head) living in a small town in Oregon. When she finds out she's pregnant, she realizes that she has to go to Portland to tell her parents. Her boyfriend will be of no good, because she knows he's been cheating on her.

So Free is on her way to Portland, stops to pick up a hitch hiker (Lynda) to keep her company, and then a huge dust storm takes over the road and results in a huge pile up of cars. Lynda ends up dead. Free encounters a bleeding man who is frantic to find his duffle bag. They find the bag, but the man dies.

Free leaves the accident scene with the duffle bag and Lynda's wallet and checks into a motel. She flips on the television and discovers that she is listed as having died in the accident. This gets her mind swimming. She is listed as dead, she has Lynda's identification... and lo and behold that duffle bag is loaded with lots and lots of money! This is the perfect scheme to start a new life for herself. She will go to Portland as Lynda and have a whole new life.

Of course, "Learning to Fly," is a thriller so things will not end all tidy as Free hopes!

Lynda was out hitch hiking that day because she was running away from her abuser and now he's after Free.

The duffle bag full of money belongs to a drug dealer and he wants it back.

So Free gets more than she bargained for, but don't give up on her just yet! She'll take you for quite a ride!

Rating:
Summary: exciting thriller
Review: Free Meeker is coming home from visiting her sister when she becomes involved in a fifty two-car chain-reaction accident. Although the nineteen-year-old woman is unharmed, her car is totaled and her passenger, a hitchhiker Lydia is dead. Free tries to help an injured man who is looking for a lost bag but when she finds it, the man is already dead.

When Free opens up the bag, she finds it contains $740,000 and some drugs, which she promptly throws away. She concludes that she is holding drug money and there is no way to trace it to her. She takes it intending to start a new life for herself using Lydia's identification. She isn't aware that Lydia's husband is an abuser who will do anything to track her down or that the owner of the money will kill to get it back. While these two men are tracking down "Lydia" Free lives a peaceful and secure life in Portland, never dreaming that she is in any danger.

LEARNING TO FLY is an exciting thriller that will keep readers enthralled because the action never stops happening. April Henry manages to sustain a high level of tension throughout the book without any real violence so cozy fans will appreciate this unusually refreshing story.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A superior character driven thriller
Review: Free Meeker, a nineteen-year-old free spirit and soon to be an unwed mother is involved in a fatal pile up on a highway blinded by a dust storm. She survives but a fellow passenger, a hitchhiker, named Lydia, is killed. Lydia was running away from an abusive relationship with her husband. After finding a gym bag filled with drug money, Free decides to assume Lydia's identity and run away to start a new life for herself and her, as yet, unborn child. Of course, life is never so simple. Looking for Lydia is her enraged husband and Don Cannon, a drug dealer who desperately needs the money that Free has found or he will, himself, be killed.
April Henry has written a stand-alone novel with the subtext of "a thriller", Actually, LEARNING TO FLY should be more properly called a novel of suspense. April's novel is character driven while most true thrillers would be considered plot driven. The difference, as I see it, between the two is that the pacing would be much more rapid with the plot driven thrillers. The character driven thrillers must, by definition, move slower to allow the reader the time to get to know the character. April succeeds in creating an interesting yet sympathetic figure in Free Meeker. There are some character motivations that were not completely explained such as why a young policeman would be interested in an unwed pregnant woman. Otherwise, LEARNING TO FLY is a well-written novel that should appeal to readers on the beach or in the air. Personally, I would like to see a bit of a tighter plot but this one certainly succeeds as is.

Rating:
Summary: A WHAT IF STORY-NOT A TRUE THRILLER
Review: Henry scripts a fast paced page turner filled with multi dimensional characters. I couldn't stop reading this book and I loved the protagonist, Free. She reminded me of just what it was we might have done wrong with all that political correctness a while back, raising our children to be back to the earth in the fanatical hippy fashion. I also was impressed by the way Henry smoothly created a remarkably believable bad guy in Don.

Rating:
Summary: A Thrill Ride
Review: I picked up Learning to Fly: A Thriller because I am originally from Oregon and get a kick out of reading books based in or about my home state. I didn't know what it would be about nor have I read any of April Henry's other books, so I blindly started reading the story of Free Meeker.

Free is a teenager who makes her living as a pet groomer, she shaves her head and is (obviously by her name) the child of hippie parents. Free is also dating a not so nice guy who is cheating on her. Things don't seem to be going so great for her when she finds out that she is pregnant. She decides to drive to Portland to tell her parents.

The five-hour drive from Medford to Portland is usually uneventful, but on this day! Free picks up a hitchhiker, a woman named Lynda, and there's a dust storm that causes a huge horrible pileup on the freeway. Lynda is killed in the accident. Free swipes her wallet and then meets a man who is desperate to find his bag, so she helps him. They find the bag, but then the man dies.

So what's in the bag? A whole lot of money!

Free discovers herself in a unique situation. Her name is on the list of those who perished on the freeway, she has a wallet with Lynda's identification and a bag full of money ($740,000 to be exact). With not much to leave behind, she decides she'll take this opportunity to reinvent herself, buy a wig, get an apartment.

Only there are people who want that money back. And a man who is pissed that his wife Lynda left him. They have their sights on Free and are hot on her tail.

Oh wee! This book is a thrill ride! I had such a good time reading it and rooting for Free to make a clean getaway with all that cash. If this is any indication of what April Henry's other books are like, I'll be buying them as soon as possible.

Rating:
Summary: I vividly remember this book 2 years later
Review: If you are a fan of Henry's cozies, this is not quite the right book for you - but it does have a happy (kinda, sorta) ending. The writing is crisp, vivid, and effective. Oregon actually experienced the kind of dust-storm disaster so horrifically described in the opening. All of the characters are a little larger than life, which is why they are so memorable, including the City of Portland. I remember this book, enjoyed it a lot and hope you do too.

Rating:
Summary: Free, but not so Easy!
Review: Nineteen-year-old Free Meeker is the child of Hippie parents, who named their daughers Free and Moon. Free shaves her head, has a nose ring, a lousy two-timing boyfriend, a secret desire to be normal and she's pregnant. She's on her way from Medford (a good town to be from, I know, because I just left for greener pastures) up to Portland, Oregon to tell her parents. She picks up a hitchhiker named Lydia and is driving along when a freak dust storm causes a fifty-two car pile-up on the freeway. Lydia is killed. A bleeding and desperate man wants Free to help find his Nike bag, she does, but he dies.

Free leaves the scene with Lydia's wallet, goes to a motel, then finds out she's been mistakenly listed among the dead. The gym bag has $740,000 in it. So with Lydia's ID and the money, Free goes to Portland, buys a wig, moves in with a roommate and makes plans for her new life.

However, Lydia was fleeing a sadistic, abusive lout who now wants to find her so he can kill her. And that money belonged to a very unhappy drug dealer, who wants it back. They are both hot on Free's trail in this book that you will be up all night reading. Ms. Henry has severed up a delicious thriller and garnished it with characters who seem all two real. I just loved this book. It's a keeper, one I'll read again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Formulaic and disappointing.
Review: The comparison another reviewer makes with Mary Higgins Clark is apt. Shallow characters, predictable plot twists, and writing on the level of a high-school junior. It is incredible how the author runs out of gas for the final chapter and brings all the threads together in a couple of pages. If one didn't know better, and I don't, it would appear that the publisher told her she had only two more pages to use so she'd better finish it up. Or maybe the author was just too lazy to write a credible ending.