Wing Jones (You Were Made to Fly)

This review includes spoilers of WING JONES.

Initially, I was looking at this book and wondering what it was about. The blurb intrigued me, as I think it has with many people, due to mention of Wing's grandmothers, one being from Ghana, the other from China. Just reading that alone sets the curiosity of What sort of girl will Wing be with those sort of backgrounds? What kind of household does she live in? As a person who loved and lost her grandma at age 11, I picked it up and wanted to know Wing's relationship with them, immediately, purely because they were mentioned on the back. It had to be important. I had to know why they got the first line for the hook of this story. I bought WING JONES the night Katherine Webber came to my city of Liverpool to do a book talk on strong, female characters in Waterstones and have not regretted anything, even bringing it beyond my other books to read which have been waiting for months for me to pick them up. I couldn't ignore the curiosity to read it.

Now, I got told it was like a less pretentious version of The Perks of Being A Wallflower and again, my attention was caught. That was a very special book to me too. But during the time I've been reading WING JONES, I've found that to be less true. I can certainly see why a lot of people think that but to me, both books are now important and give me a very different feel.

WING JONES is a book that makes you want to laugh hysterically and cry without care and hug your mum and fly. It makes you want to dig inside the deepest parts of yourself and find out what further things there may be in your mind and body that you can do. It makes me want to find my flight. As the younger sibling, I grew up looking up to my talented sister and I can certainly relate to Wing in that sense with her brother. Due to that, the accident that lands Marcus in hospital and his family in a very difficult and life-altering situation, pulls at my feelings. I keep wondering how I'd feel if that was my sister, the girl I'd idolized and loved and admired for her talents and everything she stood for, all shattered and doubtful. What if there was this whole other side to her that I didn't know or see, as Wing doesn't with her brother? It plays on her mind; it drags her down into a terrible negative place.  And then Wing finds her wings. And she finds them at night, with nobody watching her but the moon and her dragon and lioness, and she runs. Something unlocks in Wing at her brother's accident and then it's an amazing amount of wonder pouring out of her as each foot hits the ground, speeding her up, her worries and life falling away and there's only the track and her own heartbeat and her freedom.

Even before these first chapters of seeing and experiencing Wing running and freeing her own potential by herself (which I find incredibly crucial), I was moved. Not in the awe-filled, breathless way that I am now, but by the terrible parts of the book. And by terrible I mean the bullying coming from every racist character in it, not that the writing is terrible. Because it's not. This book is a wonder-filled story and the only awful parts are realistic context. As a girl with a mixed-race background, Wing endures daily bullying at school for her hair, her eyes, her skin colour and especially by a nasty bitch called Heather Parker. The classic bully character that makes you want to claw at the pages to shut her up. Even down to Marcus's girlfriend's dad, there is racism towards the Jones' family and his disapproval of the relationship. There's a part where Marcus's own family is denied entry into his hospital room by a receptionist who eyes them with judgement, wondering how this Chinese mother could possibly be Marcus's family. But then Wing narrates, "The woman behind the desk purses her lips, stares at Granny Dee, stares at my mother. I step forward, the missing link. The thing that connects them," and every time Wing is in that situation, everything clicks with the people judging the family. WING JONES sees an incredible, unique family that have to work together to pull through and stay strong throughout the accident. With Granny Dee from Ghana and the no-nonsense grandmother and LaoLao from China and the softer grandmother, Wing has two different and helpful role models that all try to find their ways to help what's happened. There was a part where Granny Dee gets upset and obsessive and makes a batch of apple pies for the family that was also affected in the accident and that whole chapter made me cry my eyes out in coffee shop and clutch the book tightly because of how much it hurt to see them hurting. LaoLao, too-old-to-work LaoLao, goes to help out Wing's mother in a restaurant to bring in more funding for the family that barely has anything due to hospital bills and trying to live. They all do their part in surviving the mess they're in.

Wing makes herself small in school, just seeing herself as everyone else sees her: the little sister of Marcus Jones, the football team's loved quarterback. And when Marcus kills a woman in a car accident whilst driving under alcohol influence, her school life gets worse. She's shunned, she's yelled at, hurt, and every blame that people can't throw at Marcus, Wing gets. Even for going to school each day and enduring that, Wing is an incredibly strong female protagonist, an inspirational lead for this story. But then she finds her inner strength and running becomes the thing that makes everything better, that makes the comments and the hate and the nastiness of bullies fall right off her. She finds her power and importance. Wing finds herself on the track, in old Converse shoes, and her brother's oversized jersey.

But not only does running do wonders for her self-confidence and pride in herself, she then starts getting attention from the track team in her school, with the help and encouragement of her friend (and love-interest) Aaron, Marcus's best friend. Wing befriends Eliza, the school's most adored runner, and she starts getting invited to parties and to be around the entire team that belong there. Where I'm currently up to, Wing has just won her first race and smashed the school record and it's on her birthday. There's no father to watch her proudly, no big brother to see just how good she is at running and has found her own place in the world, but she has her mother and grandmothers to watch her, cheer for her. She has friends on the team, and Aaron. Through running, her and Aaron become closer and she stops seeing herself as he'd see her (again, as just the little sister) but starts believing she could be worthy of also being Aaron's crush as he is hers.

WING JONES is a book that's become so very important to me. Earlier this week, I sat in a park that held memories for me and contemplated the chapter I'd just read and then walked around the path that circled a play area for three hours, wondering if I could capture even a hint of the freedom Wing feels when she runs. I'm far from athletic; I enjoy dancing and think I could be better at it, but this book makes me want to run and fly and see if I can find what Wing does: my own importance and place.

I think that Katherine Webber is a very important woman to write such a novel that's touched me so deeply and so full of every kind of emotion and I've not even come to the end yet. Her words and creation of her story makes the world beyond it slip away for me and I love that I've found this feeling within her book. With her imagination and talent, Katherine has made me want to think better of myself and of my achievements and that even a small amount of progress stands for something. That there's always an unlocking in order to feel free and wonderful and like you can take on the world. It's always there, whether it's on the surface and easy to know and detect, or whether you have to experience one of the hardest things in the world, to fall into a pit of darkness and feeling so small that you delve into the lowest, hardest layers of yourself to find what it is you truly are.

Wing Jones--both the book and the character--is an inspiration. It's a book I want to read a million times over and know I'll still feel breathless and inspired.