Although she later became a novelist and short-story writer, Hood views her youthful years as a flight attendant through such intensely rose-colored glasses that they seem to have obscured much of her vision.

Hood’s early ambitions to be a writer—she has published about 30 books since hanging up her uniform—clearly helped her to manage the job’s exhausting schedule and no less exhausting sexism, with an Ephronian approach of turning it all into copy. After all, there can’t be many better proving grounds for a student of human behavior than an airline. So it’s a shame that in her effort to keep things breezy, Hood sometimes pulls her punches, relying on surface detail to carry the story, and quickly shifting away from darker topics, as though she’s reluctant to go beyond the barstool anecdote.

... paints a vivid picture of the eight years (between 1978 and 1986) she spent criss-crossing America and the world as a TWA flight attendant.

Novelist Hood’s delightful memoir of her stint as a TWA flight attendant in the late 1970s is full of amusing trivia, hilarious stories, and all the warmth of her novels.

Despite occasionally didactic forays into the history of air travel , Hood’s companionable storytelling paired with her bold skewering an oft-glamorized world—riddled with surprise weight checks and aggressive male passengers—make for an enthralling account. Equally effective is her moving story of overcoming entrenched stereotypes—'glorified waitress, a sex kitten, an archaic symbol of women'—within the industry to become a writer, drafting stories late at night on long international flights 'as passengers slept' and powering through jet lag in 'hotel rooms in Zurich and Paris and Rome' to craft her first novel. From takeoff to landing, this entertains and inspires..