Review: The Paradox of Vertical Flight by Emil Ostrovski

The Paradox of Vertical Flight
Publisher: Greenwilliow Books
Publication Date: September 24, 2013
Book Format: ARC
Number of Pages: 272
Synopsis: On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, philosophy student and high school senior Jack Polovsky is somewhat seriously thinking of suicide when his cell phone rings. Jack's ex-girlfriend, Jess, has given birth, and Jack is the father. Jack hasn't spoken with Jess in about nine months—and she wants him to see the baby before he is adopted. The new teenage father kidnaps the baby, names him Socrates, stocks up on baby supplies at Wal-Mart, and hits the road with his best friend, Tommy, and the ex-girlfriend. As they head to Grandma's house (eluding the police at every turn), Jack tells baby Socrates about Homer, Troy, Aristotle, the real Socrates, and the Greek myths—because all stories spring from those stories, really. Even this one. Funny, heart-wrenching, and wholly original, this debut novel by Emil Ostrovski explores the nature of family, love, friendship, fate, fatherhood, and myth.

My Review:

I received The Paradox of Vertical Flight by Emil Ostrovski from the publisher, and this is my honest review.

The Paradox of Vertical Flight is a pretty intense road trip. From the beginning we meet Jack who finds out he is a father, not sure he’s ready to give up his rights to being a father he walks out of the hospital with his newborn son in tow. He enlists the help of his best friend Tommy, and eventually the newborn baby’s mother Jess jumps on ship too. Get ready for this entertaining adventure.

I really felt for Jack’s character as soon as I met him. He was seemingly lonely and ready to kill himself but the second he found out he had a son things completely changed. He went from suicidal teenager to caring dad in a matter of a day and I thought that was really sweet. Jess I wasn’t too fond of and I think most people would be on her side because Jack left. But I feel like if she really new Jack and she gave him more of a chance then she did she would have realized that he wanted to be there he was just really scared, which is understandable. If I was in Jess’ shoes things would have gone down differently.

Tommy is my all time favorite character in the whole book, he’s such a loyal friend and he is so funny. There were so many lines in the book where I was so mad that I didn’t have sticky notes to mark my place, and also there were a bunch of times when I laughed out loud like a crazy person this book really was amazing.

The only thing that I didn’t quite understand was all the gibberish when Jack was having his private talks with Socrates, I mean one or two of them  would have been okay but I constantly had no clue what they were talking about which made things a little boring but I got past them and the rest of the book definitely made up for it.

I’m really hoping that Ostrovski writes many many more books because after reading this one I so want to dive into more of his work in hopes that it will be just as amazing or even better than this book!