I am so excited to be part of the tour for BEFORE TAKEOFF!
Born and raised in Mexico City, Adi Alsaidis the author of several young adult novels includingLet’s Get Lost,We Didn’t Ask For This, andNorth of Happy, a Kirkus Best Book nominee. He’s also the editor ofCome On In: 15 stories of immigration and finding home. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and two cats, where he occasionally spills hot sauce on things (and cats).
Title: Before Takeoff
Author: by Adi Alsaid
Genre: Young Adult Literary Romance
Publishing Date: June 7, 2022
The Sun Is Also a StarmeetsJumanjiwhen two teens meet and fall in love during a layover-gone-wrong at the Atlanta airport in this thrilling new novel from the author ofLet’s Get Lost!James and Michelle find themselves in the Atlanta airport on a layover. They couldn’t be more different, but seemingly interminable delays draw them both to a mysterious flashing green light–and each other.
Where James is passive, Michelle is anything but. And she quickly discovers that the flashing green light is actually... a button. Which she presses. Which may or may not unwittingly break the rules of the universe–at least as those rules apply to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta.
Before they can figure up from down, strange, impossible things start happening: snowstorms form inside the B terminal; jungles sprout up in the C terminal; and earthquakes split the ground apart in between. And no matter how hard they try, it seems no one can find a way in or out of the airport. James and Michelle team up to find their families and either escape the airport, or put an end to its chaos–before it’s too late.
This was the weirdest, most wild book I have ever read. Little known fact: I love books set in airports. There is something exciting about being in one, never-mind being stuck in one during an apocalypse or in this case, something even stranger. I loved the narration of the story as well as the connections to all the characters (even the minor ones) and I found myself laughing out loud multiple times.
If you want a book about human nature with a deeper message despite the chaos going on around them, this is the book for you. If you're like me and love books that isolate people in a certain place during an apocalypse, pandemic etc, this is also the book for you.
This was a wild ride of a book and I had the most fun reading it. This book lived up to all my expectations.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
