Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

Cardi delves into issues of love, acceptance, loss and identity in her engaging debut novel. High school junior Alex Winchester is a pretty typical teenager. She fights with her mom, is annoyed by her baby brother and expects her younger sister to keep her secrets. Alex does have some problems, such as a paralyzing fear of driving. And she has been noticing an alarming change in her mom's behavior, which manifests as a delusional disorder. Mrs. Winchester begins to believe that she is the long-missing, presumed-dead aviatrix Amelia Earhart. After a brief hospitalization, Mrs. Winchester returns home with her delusion intact and treats Alex as one of her fellow female aviators. Alex attempts to adapt to her new role as Amelia's friend as she tries to keep her new reality a secret from her friends and classmates, as well as her new boyfriend, senior Jim Wiley. The author creates nuanced characters and presents them with their flaws and strengths intact, including a character with a mental disorder who never loses her humanity or becomes a caricature. Readers seeking yet another teen problem novel with an unrealistically positive ending should look elsewhere. This novel delivers something far more rare: a well-written, first-person narrative about negotiating life's curve balls that has a realistic ending. An honest, uncompromising story. (Fiction. 14 & up)

ALA Booklist (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Alex has always flown under the radar, and that's all right with her. But her junior year is hit with significant turbulence when her mother begins suffering a most peculiar delusion: she believes she is Amelia Earhart. This becomes increasingly difficult to hide from others, especially when Alex's foibles in driver's ed make her infamous and draw her toward Jim, a sweet guy who offers her free driving lessons. It may have a madcap ring to it, but debut author Cardi smartly casts it as serious drama, with Mom's every eccentric behavior (taking flight notes on maps, setting up her cockpit in the bathtub) feeling like another small tragedy. The getting-to-know-you banter between Alex and Jim is not overly fresh, though it does dovetail nicely with the main plot, which allows Cardi to exercise a number of effective metaphors about wearing disguises and disappearing. Mom-as-Amelia is an especially thorny character, one who delivers surprisingly solid advice while remaining heartbreakingly mad. For sure, a unique look at the effect of mental illness on loved ones.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

How could she think it was real? How could a few cogs and wires be more real than me?

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Cardi delves into issues of love, acceptance, loss and identity in her engaging debut novel. High school junior Alex Winchester is a pretty typical teenager. She fights with her mom, is annoyed by her baby brother and expects her younger sister to keep her secrets. Alex does have some problems, such as a paralyzing fear of driving. And she has been noticing an alarming change in her mom's behavior, which manifests as a delusional disorder. Mrs. Winchester begins to believe that she is the long-missing, presumed-dead aviatrix Amelia Earhart. After a brief hospitalization, Mrs. Winchester returns home with her delusion intact and treats Alex as one of her fellow female aviators. Alex attempts to adapt to her new role as Amelia's friend as she tries to keep her new reality a secret from her friends and classmates, as well as her new boyfriend, senior Jim Wiley. The author creates nuanced characters and presents them with their flaws and strengths intact, including a character with a mental disorder who never loses her humanity or becomes a caricature. Readers seeking yet another teen problem novel with an unrealistically positive ending should look elsewhere. This novel delivers something far more rare: a well-written, first-person narrative about negotiating life's curve balls that has a realistic ending. An honest, uncompromising story. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In Cardi's candid and multilayered debut, high school junior Alex Winchester already has a full plate when her mother begins to believe she is Amelia Earhart, writing letters to an imaginary family, studying maps, and building makeshift aeronautical devices for her "around-the-world tour." Overwhelmed by the transformation, which appears to have been sparked by the death of Alex's baby sister, Alex's father mismanages the situation and makes Alex responsible for sheltering her two younger siblings. With her own anxiety mounting, Alex begins to play into her mother's fantasy world, recognizing the immense hold that it has taken on her mother and believing that it may be the only means through which to reach her. Alex's crush on a senior provides some brightness, but it's eclipsed by her fear that he'll discover the truth about her home life. Alex's voice is caustic, honest, and studded with humor. Cardi weaves elegant metaphors and incisive dialogue throughout her chapters, concluding with a wrenching sentiment about the necessity of sometimes allowing a lost loved one to find her own way home. Ages 12-up. Agent: Taylor Martindale, Full Circle Literary. (Apr.)

School Library Journal (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 9 Up-Driver's Ed is turning junior year into a nightmare for Alex. She keeps having panic attacks when she gets behind the wheel. But that is nothing compared to home, where her mother has had a psychotic break and is convinced that she is Amelia Earhart. Alex is acutely embarrassed and desperate to keep her friends and new boyfriend in the dark about her home life. Her father needs Alex's help with taking care of her younger siblings while he tries to get his wife the care she needs. Alex often sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night to have heartfelt talks with "Amelia," in whom she can confide more easily than when she was "mom." It can be hard to sympathize with Alex and her family. Cardi has captured the all-consuming self-absorption of which teens are capable, and the family interactions read as very mean-spirited. The author has also given Alex a slightly older, slightly dangerous, enormously kind, and patient clich&3; of a boyfriend. But the novel's central theme is a clever, deft twist on the idea of leaving home. At a time of life when teenagers should be the ones departing, even just by learning to drive or going to dances, the author has Alex's mother threatening to abandon the family without ever saying it. As Amelia, she is looking over charts and maps, preparing for a final flight, and Alex fears that her mother may disappear and like Earhart, never return. A novelist to watch. Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT