The Art of Crash Landing

Author: Melissa DeCarlo

It’s a dead end this time for Mattie Wallace.  Her mother, a raging alcoholic, is dead, and Mattie is terrified that her life will follow her mother’s horrid example.  She has no money and is pregnant; of course, the dad is a deadbeat who has left like the scent of a rotten pile of garbage.  On top of everything else, Mattie’s grandmother has died, the grandmother her own mother refused to talk about.  And worst of the worst, Mattie has inherited her grandmother’s house, her two French bulldogs both named Winston, and the house lives in a tiny godforsaken town in Gandy, Oklahoma.  As Mattie leaves Florida in her mother’s beloved car, a ’78 Malibu painted red, and drives across the country – 800 miles – she slides into Gandy as the car breaks down.  A nasty car garage owner tells her the car will cost 3,000 to fix and then ends up being her nasty neighbor when she finally gets to her grandmother’s house.  What a mess!

DeCarlo has set us up!  Instead of a boring coming of age tale of mothers and daughters, DeCarlo presents Mattie, a power in her own right!  Insouciant, memorable, brash and gutsy, Mattie aims her powers into discovering her mother as a child and adolescent.  What she finds surprises her: her mother used to be a beautiful, talented teenager before SHE got pregnant and ran away from Gandy.

As Mattie upends secrets and discovers herself in the person her mother was before life trampled her, we laugh and enjoy this totally unique character.

A high five for a novel that surprises and delights the natural disaster of Mattie Wallace.

Ratings are based on a 5-star scale

Overall: 4

Review by Broad “A” 

We received a copy of this title for our book review. All opinions are our own

The Art of Crash Landing LP: A Novel is available for purchase on Amazon.com and your local bookseller.