Harley in the Sky

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

When I picked up Harley in the Sky, I definitely thought I was going to be getting a different kind of book. I must have missed all the chatter and conversation about it by the Street Team, which makes sense because I haven’t exactly been the most active on Twitter. I picked up this book so quickly because I love books about the circus.

But this isn’t a book about the circus. Not really.

In my opinion, this book is about living with untreated mental illness, and rising above it. And that is fine and good. Really. We’re not given Harley’s diagnosis, but it feels like something akin to manic depression. Nearly every chapter is a conversation about what it’s like to be Harley, trying to untangle her emotions and rise to her dreams. Some chapters are about her heritage and her family. A few chapters are about Vas and their blossoming relationship. What’s left… those chapters are about the circus.

It took me by surprise. I wish I had seen this book raised up more as a book discussing manic depression, or as a diverse book (Harley is part-Asian and spends some time discussing this in a few different places). Because everything I read was about Harley’s dream about being an aerialist, I went in ready for carnival magic akin to The Night Circus or Caraval. Because I was going into this one looking for a circus book as opposed to a rep-heavy contemporary, I think my takeaways were a bit muted.

Again, nothing wrong with a rep-heavy contemporary. They’re amazing! I just go into those with a different mindset. And I found myself getting impatient with chapter after chapter where Harley explains her life to others in convenient dialogue exchanges. These sections felt like huge info dumps and I was never able to immerse myself fully into Maison du Mystère. The atmosphere faltered under the weight of the conversation.

Then, there was Harley. I had a difficult time liking Harley, because she is so incredibly selfish. And I sort of feel like a terrible person for saying that, because the way her mental illness is discussed, it felt like that was used as a way to explain away her behavior. I empathize with Chloe, who tried to make Harley understand the consequences of her actions… and just gave up. Other characters are a little more likable – I liked Vas as first, but… I dunno. After a while I felt like we only skimmed the surface but that was all there was to him, a shell. Other performers at Maison had possibility as well – like Maggie! – but the story was so absorbed in Harley, everyone else disappeared behind her inflated sense of self-importance. We couldn’t spend too much time with the minor characters, because we had to spend all our time with Harley. And I didn’t like Harley? So that was a downer.

It worked for Harley’s personality, it really did. I just didn’t love it.

I can’t say this is a “bad book” – because it’s not! I think it accomplished what it set out to do – to provide a narrative for those who don’t have the support they need to find themselves in an oppressive world, and for those who struggle with mental illness but are not provided tools so they must build their own. For that message, Harley in the Sky was a success. But it wasn’t the circus book I was looking for, and I didn’t enjoy reading it.

And that’s okay! Not all books are for me. This one wasn’t. But it may be the perfect fit for someone else.