Love love LOVE this book! I picked it up from the library after having seen it on BookRiot's list of best books they had read for the month (awesome blog, by the way. You all should check it out. www.bookriot.com). It's about a high school girl in small town America realizing that she is gay.
I love the way this book handles the confusion that the main character experiences as she comes to this realization. She spends most of the book putting off telling anyone that she's gay, less out of fear and more out of a desire not to be boxed into any one category. When her parents ask her point-blank if she's gay, she doesn't deny it, but she doesn't affirm it either. She recognizes that identifying as either gay or straight would result in everyone around her boxing her into a particular category and she doesn't want that. I had never thought of it from that viewpoint before. This book goes beyond the issue of gay pride or shame and deals with the fact that, however we identify ourselves, the people around us will box us in and make assumptions about us accordingly. And that's not always a good thing.
I also think this book did a brilliant job of handling small town high school gossip. The main character knows everything that is being said about her and her family because, somehow, it always makes its way around back to her, as gossip in the real world tends to do. When she talks about a rumor she says, "They say: blah blah blah" which, to me, seems pretty much exactly how gossip works. She doesn't seem to let it get to her too much though, and I have an enormous amount of respect for her for that.
I also deeply respect her habit of sending out love to perfect strangers. Hence the title. She likes to lay on her back and watch the planes fly overhead and, when she sees one, she sends up her love to all of the passengers on the plane. Every second or third chapter has a short vignette with a passenger on a plane who seems to feel the love that has been sent to them. It's adorable but (IMO) not overly mushy. The end of the book I found particularly delightful. I won't ruin it for you here. Just read the book.
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