Review
Astrid, the main character in A. S. King's new novel,
Ask the Passengers, explores questions about herself, her friends, her family, and her life. The seventeen-year-old is smack in the middle of figuring out her blossoming sexuality, and so this is, truly, her coming-out story. This always-puzzling process is made even more confusing by her very dysfunctional family - a mother who takes her younger sister out drinking and a father who smokes pot in the garage. It is also complicated by the fact that she carries the secret of her best friend Kristina's own lesbian sexual identity (she helps perpetuate the lie that Kristina and Justin - both the most popular kids in their small town of aptly named Unity Valley - are in love) but can't talk to Kristina about her own new burgeoning love.
Did you catch that? That word?
Love? It is
love that skyrockets this...
Beyond the Book
Amy Sarig King was born in Reading, PA in 1970. No, I won't go into lots of detail about her younger years, suffice it to say she is a Pisces and, as she says, she "believes in that stuff." I will say that as a child she spent a good deal of time in her "office" (aka her closet) staying up late and reading books.
King did not go to school for writing but, instead, got a degree in traditional photography from The Art Institute of Philadelphia. After she finished school and did some work as a photographer, she moved to Ireland. She lived in...
