Harley in the Sky

Akemi Dawn Bowman

Mar 2020 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

“Earnest, poetic.” —Booklist
“Raw, engaging.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Greatest Showman meets This Is Us by way of Sarah Dessen in this heart-wrenching, hopeful contemporary novel about a multiracial teen who risks it all to follow her dreams by joining the circus, from the award-winning author of Starfish.

Harley Milano has dreamed of becoming a trapeze artist for as long as she can remember. With parents who run a famous circus in Las Vegas, she spends almost every night in the big top watching their lead aerialist perform, wishing with all her heart and soul that she would be up there herself one day.

After a huge fight with her parents, who continue to insist she go to school instead, Harley leaves home, betrays her family, and joins the rival traveling circus Maison du Mystère. There, she is thrust into a world that is both brutal and beautiful, where she learns the value of hard work, passion, and collaboration. At the same time, Harley must come to terms with the truth of her family and her past—and reckon with the sacrifices she made and the people she hurt in order to follow her dreams.

From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes a luminous, unforgettable examination of love, loyalty, and the hard choices we must make to find where we truly belong.

Ratings and reviews

The book follows Harley Milano, a mixed-race teenager as she wants to be a trapeze artist in her parent’s circus, Teatro della Notte, but her parents don’t want her to be an aerialist. Her parents want to play it safe and have a back-up plan of going to college but Harley wants to go head-first into being an aerialist. I found this aspect to be very relatable, because parents usually want their kids to stick to a safe plan because of their own struggles. There’s a complexity to Harley’s struggles with her family and you can both sides properly and the way its portrayed as dysfunctional and complex. Harley runs away from her parents and joins the rival circus, but achieving her dream isn’t easy. She has to make a lot of tough decisions and she can act impulsively but there’s a lot of depth portrayed in her character. This is quite a character-focused novel and you end up rooting for Harley as the underdog and its eye-opening when different themes are discussed in the book. When she joins the rival circus, she has a tough time fitting in and she does make friends along the journey. One person in particular, Vas, is the love interest and I absolutely love him. He’s not there to change Harley but to support her. It’s not a book about love saving the day but a story that explores Harley’s growth through it all in a realistic way and that is Amazing. The book has a fair share of twists and conflicts to keep the story interesting and always moving forward. It’s a well-written novel with Akemi’s usual artistic and beautiful writing and there’s even aspects of it written in email format. It’s a story of family, growth and how things can fall apart when you’re focused solely on your dreams. A realistic, raw book and I loved every single aspect of it.

About the author

Akemi Dawn Bowman is a critically acclaimed author who writes across genres. Her novels have received multiple accolades and award nominations, and her debut novel, Starfish, was a William C. Morris Award Finalist. She has a BA in social sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She overthinks everything, including this bio. Visit Akemi online at AkemiDawnBowman.com, or on Instagram @AkemiDawnBowman.