Review: The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

The Art of Crash Landing

by Melissa DeCarlo

Publisher: Harper

Pages: 416

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  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 eight hundred 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 thirty-five 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.


Kritters Thoughts:  Mattie Wallace from page one is a disaster, but she knows it!  She is pregnant and not talking to the father of the child and not even sure if she wants to remain pregnant and she is dealing with the recent death of her grandmother and the diminishing health of her ex step father who is a major figure in her life.  She returns to her deceased mother's childhood home and ends up finding a lot about both her mother and grandmother after they are both gone.  

This book was all about Mattie.  Mattie had a rough childhood and unlike some people she didn't try to escape her childhood she became her mother and was still in a mess when she ends up finding out real secrets about her mother before she was a mother.  I had a hard time understanding how Mattie didn't know about her mother's upbringing - I know that I have asked my mom many times of stories from her childhood and would have been surprised not to hear and know those stories now.  

If you love a very sad character that has a long road to redemption, then stop what you are doing and pick this one up.  If you have no patience for characters who are needy and self involved then you may want to pass on this one.  I had moments where I definitely wanted to knock Mattie, but I was able to read through and find her redemption.


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.