Book Review: Cruising Attitude by Heather Poole

Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crewe Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet is exactly what it sounds like - an insider's look at what it's like to work for an airline.  Heather Poole is a veteran flight attendant who started by posted her stories on a blog, and has now collected them into a book.

Writing
I was actually really pleased with the author's writing.  She is incredibly funny and her stories were collected well and written in an engaging way.  I felt like I got to know her as a person through her stories about life as a flight attendant and I saw the job in a way I hadn't seen it before.  Like customer service, but in a place where you're stuck with the customer for hours on end!  What a nightmare...

Entertainment Value
Like I said, the book was hilarious.  Most of the stories predate 9/11, so customers had a lot more leeway then than they do now - and it sounds like many of them took serious advantage of that.  I hate travelling, so being a flight attendant has never appealed to me, but I was really impressed by what a good glimpse of the life I got from the book.  The author did a really good job of showcasing the positives and negatives and showing the reader what the job really entails.  I have a lot of respect for what flight attendants do!

Overall
Yeah it's a good read.  I definitely recommend it, even if non-fiction isn't usually your thing.  This is light and funny and reads more like a novel or a memoir than like serious non-fiction.