Two women.
Two escapes.
One chance to disappear.
There are three lines of text like that on the cover of “The Last Flight”. I honestly have to say, they intrigued me and made me read it. Seeing them, I started to make theories about what it might be about. Of course, I thought women would run away from men or even their whole lives, but I wondered how fate would bring them together to take advantage of this one chance.
Let’s take a first look at the figures of the heroines. The first one is Claire, looking from the side, it may seem that she leads a perfect life with a wonderful and loving husband. The man is rich, ambitious, admired by others, dreams of a political career. Jedak is just a face for show, as soon as the door of their huge and beautiful house closes, he takes off his mask and shows his true face of an apodictic tyrant. What’s more, he’s an easily angered individual, which he used to unload on his wife. To top it all off, he hires people to follow Claire’s every step, so that she has as little contact with the uncontrolled outside world as possible, read: so that she can’t find help or support. However, the woman manages to outsmart her husband and, despite the fact that she is surrounded, she plans an escape.
The second of Eva’s heroines, at first, is presented as a mysterious person who tries to change her life with great determination. We learn more about her person, the past as we read. I won’t spoil your reading pleasure here.
It is completely by chance (surely by accident?) that women meet at the airport, fate (or Eva’s cunning) makes women make a crazy decision and exchange plane tickets. Claire flies to Oakland and Eva to Puerto Rico. Everything seems to look great, they both get a chance to disappear, but bad luck wants Eva’s plane (where Claire was supposed to be) to crash. For Claire, this means an unexpected possibility of appropriation of her identity. Will she decide to do it, and if so, will it not be a fall from the rain under the gutter? After all, Eva was running away from something or someone. In this situation, she could have changed the known evil into the unknown. You don’t know what’s worse. On the other hand, it’s a shame not to take that chance. If you want to find out what Claire did and what happened to her, you have to read it through. It’s really worth it!
The book itself is very addictive, and the ending makes it impossible to get away from it. I advise you not to start reading in the evening, because it’s going to be a broken night.
I liked Claire very much, her strength and determination made her able to gather strength and break away from her apodictic husband. She showed great courage here. She knew that if she failed, she would be in a much worse position than she was before. Nevertheless, she took a risk and put everything on the same page.
Despite the fact that the book is literary fiction, it shows very well the problems that women face today. In fact, they have probably been struggling ever since, only now it is beginning to get louder about it, which gives them hope and strength to fight. This story shows that if you are mobilized enough, you can fight. Of course, I understand that every situation is different, very difficult and it is easy to tell someone on the side that you have to get yourself together and that you do. However, it is worth talking about such problems, maybe they will help one or two women, and it will still be a success.
“The Last Flight”, despite its rather large volume, is a book that can be absorbed by two approaches. It’s read very quickly and pleasantly. I think this is due to the author’s good writing style and light language. As I wrote before, I advise against reading the end of the evening, emotions and lack of sleep guaranteed. Julie Clark is definitely the author I will be following and I will be very happy to get her next books if they come out.