Freefall Summer

by Tracy Barrett

WHUFFO: Someone who hasn't made a skydive (yet), especially a spectator. Supposedly derived from "What for do you jump out of a perfectly good airplane?"

Sixteen-year-old Clancy is no stranger to extreme sports. Her father runs a skydiving dropzone, but after her mother dies in a freak accident, her father grounds her--permanently. Clancy is resigned to being a whuffo and packing parachutes for her dad's latest girlfriend until cute college freshman Denny starts taking classes at the drop zone. Denny assumes Clancy is eighteen, an innocent mistake that gives her a rush--and that she doesn't correct.
But the lies snowball, relationships are damaged, and suddenly Clancy isn't the person she wants to be. She wants to make things right . . . but it seems the more Clancy imagines the life of a skydiver, the more she imagines she can escape her dull reality of life outside the drop zone. Will Clancy make the jump?

• ISBN10: 1580898017
• ISBN13: 9781580898010
• Publish Date: 3 April 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 272
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781580898010

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Clancy had been tiptoeing through life. She "colored between the lines", because she knew how deeply affected her father was by her mother's death. She could not do anything that would put her life or future in jeopardy. However, in her 16th summer, Clancy was through being treated like she would break. She was through letting other people make decisions for her. She was through having no voice in her own life, and she was ready to start living on her own terms. This was her coming-of-age, and I found Clancy's story to be quite enjoyable.

Who knew I would be saying something like this, but I really enjoyed learning about skydiving. A good chunk of this book takes place at the drop zone. I got to mingle with novice and seasoned skydivers, and I must say, I thought it was so interesting. I also got peeks at entries into Clancy's book, The Whuffo’s Guide to Skydiving. These entries were both informative and entertaining.

I also really appreciated the setting. I am doing a 50 states type reading challenge, and what I am noticing, is that the bulk of the books I have read take place in New York, California, or another coastal state. I was so delighted, that Barrett took me to Missouri. I feel like the middle states never get any love, and I enjoyed seeing some of them getting a little attention.

This father-daughter relationship needed a total makeover. Clancy's dad wasn't just overprotective, he also underestimated his daughter. Although Clancy went about it in the wrong way, she was able to show her father that there was a lot more to her than what he thought. Clancy was also able to open a line of communication between her and her father, that had not seem possible prior to this summer.

There were some wonderful and colorful characters at the drop zone too, many of whom were part of Clancy's defacto family. I loved meeting them all, and liked the support they gave to Clancy.

The book was a fairly quick paced read, with some action, romance and family drama, but my heart was won with the ending. There is nothing I love more than a jump-ahead ending, and Barrett's was so lovely. It gave me a ton of closure and put a huge smile on my face.

What I did know was that from now on I'd be in charge of my own life - the good parts and the bad parts - and if things didn't work out the way I planned, I'd pull my own serve and land on my own two feet.

Overall: I really enjoyed this story of a girl trying to find her voice and come into her own.


*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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[readingwithwrin]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

"What I really wanted was to see what it felt like to not always be a good girl, to do something that would upset my dad if he knew about it."


Clancy works at her dad's skydiving business packing up the parachutes while she saves for college. A lot of the book happens at her dads business and is around skydiving in general. Her best friend Jules is also around a lot but doesn't always give the best advice when it comes to relationships. She also has a boyfriend who gets along great with her dad but doesn't always ask her opinion on things before asking about them. (This bugged me so much.) Then we also have Denny who is a skydiving student who Clancy becomes friends with.

Okay, so let's get to the not so great parts of the book first:

The communication between Clancy and her dad, not the best, but realistic in my opinion. For a change, a parent was involved, but he took helicopter parent to the extreme.
Clancy's boyfriend is rather controlling and it's obvious that they just aren't going to work out long-term.
Clancy's secretiveness and not telling the full truth about certain things that leads to some problems.


Now for the things I did like:

Clancy's friendship with the other people at her work.
Her friendship with Denny, it was really nice and I liked how Clancy really got out of her little bubble that he dad had made for her.
At the beginning of each chapter, there was a rule from the Whuffo's Guide to Skydiving which she had been writing since middle school.
How the loss of Clancy's mother was dealt with in a very real way for a lot of people (in my opinion) we avoid the topic in general or just glaze over it and that's what's happened for most of Clancy's life.
I also liked how Clancy mostly stuck to who she was deep down and didn't give into certain pressures.


"What I did know was that when people say your life can change in an instant, that's only half the story. It's not just your life that changes. It's you. You become a whole different person."

Overall I enjoyed most of this book. I read contemporary's for fun and if it has a realistic element to it I'm even more likely to read it. This book deals with three different elements a loss of a parent, an overly involved parent and relationship problems. These were done fairly well and in a realistic way, yet this book was still fun and a rather light read. I also liked learning about skydiving because I really don't know much about it and it kind of scares me and interest me at the same time.
I can't wait to see what Barrett writes next for YA as this one was pretty good.


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