Faith: Taking Flight

Written by Julie Murphy

Narrated by Joy Nash

From Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin’, comes the first in a two-book origin story of Faith, a groundbreaking, plus-sized superhero from the Valiant Entertainment comics.

Faith Herbert is a pretty regular teen. When she’s not hanging out with her two best friends, Matt and Ches, she’s volunteering at the local animal shelter or obsessing over the long-running teen drama The Grove.

So far, her senior year has been spent trying to sort out her feelings for her maybe-crush Johnny and making plans to stay close to Grandma Lou after graduation. Of course, there’s also that small matter of recently discovering she can fly….

When the fictional world of The Grove crashes into Faith’s reality as the show relocates to her town, she can’t believe it when TV heroine Dakota Ash takes a romantic interest in her.

But her fandom-fueled daydreams aren’t enough to distract Faith from the fact that first animals, then people, have begun to vanish from the town. Only Faith seems able to connect the dots to a new designer drug infiltrating her high school.

But when her investigation puts the people she loves in danger, she will have to confront her hidden past and use her newfound gifts—risking everything to save her friends and beloved town.

Plus don't miss the follow-up, Faith: Greater Heights!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063003217

Julie Murphy

Julie Murphy splits her time between North Texas and Kansas with her husband, who loves her, and her cats, who tolerate her. She is the author and coauthor of over twenty books for all ages including Dumplin’ (now a Netflix original film) and the Christmas Notch series cowritten with her best friend, Sierra Simone. When Julie isn’t writing, she’s hunting for the perfect slice of cheese pizza, discovering a new hobby that she will soon discard, and planning her next travel adventure.

[Megan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed listening to this super hero “origin story” with plenty of nerd culture references. It felt modern without being forced, with diverse characters. While the “who done it” mystery isn’t unpredictable, it’s a fun little story. My on ly complaint is that I’d like to see more of this world. This feels like a first couple episodes in a series.

[dragonfreak · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 “Hey, you know, this isn’t a whole lot of fun.”“Ain’t is it? Not hardly worth playin’. Funny too, ‘cause the rules are simple and easy.”Louie Banks doesn’t have the worst life. His friends and people he knows have it bad with abusive parents and bad influences, but compared to them, Louie lives like a god. With great friends, a fantastic football player, and the most wanted girlfriend in the school named Becky, who’s eyes makes guys ache for her. What can go wrong?Apparently a lot. In a big game, Louie fights against the coach who ordered one of his players to hurt the star player on the opposite team, and what he gets for that is getting kicked out of the team. It’s still not that bad. He has supporters that love him and care for him including Becky, but as things start to look better, Louie’s life is running loose.All of Chris Crutcher’s main characters have relatively good lives. They always do compare to their best friend or one of their enemies. Also, Crutcher makes you want to root for the main character, because every other one ticks you off, including any/all Catholics. That and with drugs, abuse, language, and other suggestive themes, no wonder people want to ban his books, but each books has their own lesson, but you have to look inside yourself to figure that out. I highly recommend all of his books. They’re short, and to me, guarantee satisfaction.Rating: Four Stars ****

[mrshillreads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first Crutcher book I ever read and I loved it! It is still relevant for students today.

[Jay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fun read! Hoping for a sequel to this fun adventure.

[holson15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Deadline by Chris Crutcher What if you found out you only had a year to live? What would you do in that short time? Early one summer, Ben soon to be a senior in high school; faced the most difficult year of his life. He found out when he went to the hospital for his annual physical for school that he was slowly dying. Ben had to make the biggest decision of his life: try live the most normal year he could, or go through treatment and extend his life a little and have everyone feel sorry for him. He chose to live life. Ben had always dreamed and felt that he would never live past eighteen. He wanted to make a difference in the world before his time ran out, but how? How could an eighteen year old boy that lives in Idaho do anything? How will his death affect his family? Will and can he make a difference? All he can do is try, and that’s what he does. I enjoyed this book a lot it made me really think how important it is to live your life like it’s your last day. Ben finds out that he is actually the lucky one because he knows that he only has a while to live unlike us. We never know when it’s our Time. So live life.By, Hannah Olson

[stephanie.dicesare.7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a good book! I chose from a pile of books, to read this in tenth grade.

[madhamster_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Louie is in his final year of high-school and life is going well, but a confrontation on the football field results in his dropping out of the team and a subsequent suspension from school. Louie's girlfriend, Becky, supports him through this time. Becky dies in a car accident, which adds to Louie's stress and he reacts badly at the funeral. Louie's grief is realistically drawn, and he is supported by his parents and Becky's father during this time. Some of the best advice offered is from Louie's boss, Dakota, who tells him that "the reason some things happen is just because they happen."

[hefruth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting attempt at making a substantial teen female into a super hero, but the plot falls flat when it is revealed that Dakota, who Faith falls in love with, only sought her out to find out about her psiot ability, proving, accidentally, Faith's fear all along--fat girls are not attractive. Not exactly the message this writer had wanted to send, I don't think.

[olegalca · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Thank you to Edelweiss for making this book available to me for free in exchange for my honest review.

I'm not a big fan of the superhero genre but I know enough to see that Julie Murphy has created a unique hero that stands out in the genre. Unfortunately, I found the story itself boring and confusing. I didn't understand the purpose of Faith's summer away, or what exactly what happening in her hometown. It will not be my choice for Indigo's July Teen Pick of the Month. That's a shame because I've loved (and I own) all of Julie Murphy's other books.

[yonitdm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story wasn't anything I expected and surprised me multiple places along the way. It starts like a simple YA rom-com with a little paranormal thrown in but then takes a twist and turns back on itself, Only to wind in and out between rom-com and dark adventure. I laughed out loud many times and grew to love characters I hated and hate characters I'd once loved. The author really took me on a ride.

[clrichm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was perfect in so many ways: the right amount of everything, from development to plot twists to the romantic arc. I loved Faith.

[salsabrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I came into this book not realizing it's a superhero origin story so at some point I thought, What the heck is this book supposed to be about?! The author always creates easy-going, compelling prose and highly relatable characters, so I did enjoy the book on that level.

[sjgirl-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was trying to be way too many things.

Faith has the power to fly. She works at an animal shelter. She works on a school newspaper. She’s a blogger/lifelong obsessive fan of a television series that’s suddenly shooting in her small Minnesota town. She’s having friend drama because although she met her friends super young, she didn’t meet them at birth so in her mind that makes her too late to the party and she feels like a third wheel. She’s having drama at home with her grandmother experiencing dementia-like symptoms. She’s having romantic drama as the guy she’s crushed on finally seems to be working his way up to making a move at the exact same time as Faith meets her favorite actress and experiences a seemingly mutual attraction. There’s also missing persons, missing dogs, and a party drug going around town.

This book isn’t nearly long enough to satisfyingly weave together that many story threads. It’s a superhero origin story yet much of Faith discovering her power isn’t even witnessed in this book. She makes a big deal of feeling left out of her friend group yet I don’t recall scenes that show the friends treating her like a third wheel. Faith spends one night intensely worried about her grandmother, however, other than that there wasn’t enough time given to honestly depict what would be a devastating blow to anyone’s life but especially to a teen who has no other family left. There were so many other things going on in this book, too many other things, so there wasn’t enough room to explore all the thoughts, the fears, the sadness that diagnosis would heap on someone’s shoulders, the challenge of getting/affording care for the grandmother, the reality of what Faith will face with her grandmother and without her. As for the romantic triangle, I just couldn’t seem to get behind either option, the guy barely received any page time (and I didn’t really feel sparks there) and the girl (while there were some sparks), the whole television star comes to the small town and without hesitation invites a stranger into her life thing, it rang false from the get go.

Ringing false, unfortunately, is a phrase that came to mind too frequently. I know it’s a superhero story, obviously I didn’t expect this to be entirely realistic, but it’s also a Julie Murphy book, an author who, with Dumplin and with Ramona Blue, displayed a gift for crafting characters, situations and settings that had so much truth in them. With Puddin and Dear Sweet Pea, I did sense a tiny bit of artificiality creeping in, but with Faith Taking Flight, its so very noticeable, maybe because it’s partially mixing in a genre that’s new territory for the author or maybe because it’s expanding on a graphic novel series rather than born solely from her own mind and heart, whatever the case may be, this never felt as emotional or as authentic as what I think of as Julie Murphy at her very best.

[acargile-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Faith: Taking flight by Julie Murphy reminds me of those weird CW TV shows. If you like those shows, you'll like this book.

Faith, a large girl, can fly after being "activated" although this ability has very little to do with the plot. The novel begins with her naively agreeing to go to a "camp" with someone she met online. We immediately see that she makes very poor decisions and isn't someone whose instincts you can trust or who engages her brain before her actions. She ends up as a number in a science experiment. More is learned in flashbacks as the novel progresses. The boy, Peter, who lures her to the lab for experimentation is almost a throwaway character--he is merely there to create that part of the plot. He has no development or otherwise purpose.

When Faith returns to her two best friends and her Grandma Lou, Faith keeps her ability a secret and resumes life. Bear in mind, she has escaped from a secret lab and returns home expecting life to continue as is. Faith is famous for one thing--her blog, which is barely mentioned with a huge number of followers, so we just have to believe she is famous for this blog. She's an expert on The Grove, a TV show that has been on for years with new actors taking over for the next generation. Coincidentally, the show moves to her hometown to shoot the next season and one of the main actresses, Dakota, meets Faith at a pet adoption event. They hit it off as more than friends. Faith finds herself attracted to Dakota as well as one of her co-writers at the school newspaper. She only feels mildly unsure of her sexual identity but feels that bisexual fits the bill. Faith truly doesn't struggle with identity issues. She follows her emotions and rarely engages her mind or analyzes anything. Her best friend practices witch-craft benignly and her other best friend is gay and just wants to be in love with a good guy.

Strange things begin to happen around town. First, a dog arrives at the clinic Faith works at and appears alive but unresponsive. Second, animals and people begin to disappear. As a newspaper reporter for the school, Faith considers investigating these stories. She really doesn't. She spends her time hanging out with Dakota and meeting the actors on set. Her best friends feel left out. As things become more dire for Faith with her Grandmother at home and what's going on in the city, Faith finds that she may have to use her flying skills to save her own life as well as others.

I didn't care for this book because it was too dark. I didn't like any characters before they weren't redeeming. I hate when teenagers are always described as stupid and unable to think before they speak. Faith runs about a lot and doesn't consider anyone else's feelings, saying that they just don't understand and she's doing what's best. She's a bit of a mean girl in the sense that she doesn't treat anyone well but expects everyone else to have sympathy for her. It was a struggle to finish. If you want a Julie Murphy novel, go with Sweet Pea--it promotes a happier, positive feeling. Obviously, if you like the dark, weird CW stuff, this book will suit your fancy well with it's fluff and lack of solid characterization or engrossing story.