My favourite part of the book had nothing to do with flying funnily enough… The main character realises why the parents don’t love their baby:
“They never gave up anything, they never risked anything, and the less they did for him, the less they loved him. I thought it was the other way round, that they did nothing for him because they didn’t love him.”
This really made me want to stop reading and soak this in. So poignant and so true.
Finally, the author seemed to have such an amazing understanding and knowledge of flight that I was often left shaking my head in admiration of her writing and frowning in wonder – how did she do that? I was also impressed by her knowledge of clouds and cloud formations, weather patterns, air movements, and the science behind flight. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was a flier herself!
I really enjoyed living in Corbett’s cleverly created world – plants bio-engineered to glow in the dark at night eliminating the need for lights, buildings created for fliers, and especially the lion that was genetically engineered to grow to the size of a house cat. (Corbett’s creativity reminded me of reading Harry Potter for the first time, and wanting to taste all of the different lollies J. K. Rowling had created). I’d love to witness and visit some of the sites in When We Have Wings, if only they were real.
A fabulous debut novel for Australian author Claire Corbett, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for what she does next.
