I loved Kate Folk's short story collection, Out There. I was wary of trying her novel, however, because the concept didn't appeal to me. It's narrated by Linda, a woman in San Francisco who is attracted to aeroplanes and feels it is her destiny to marry one via a fatal crash. This is weird but not in the speculative sense that I enjoyed in the short stories, unless you consider the use of vision boards (posters with images representing what you want the universe to manifest) slightly paranormal. I decided to give the book a try, because I like the author's writing style.

I found the book to be unique, memorable and disturbing, although not dark. I'm not convinced that I enjoyed the book, but I appreciated the skill put into it. I liked how the reader is persuaded to root for this odd, twisted, but kind of relatable character. If you're looking for something very different to read, or if you're a planespotter, I suggest this strange book!

this book is weird. and wild. and so unique. but somehow in all the best ways. and its so much more(like many things) than the title or identity we give to it. its full of warmth, hilarity and a rare view on just how we judge or learn or show ourselves.
i thought the premise was a great way to learn more and think more. and Linda was such a character that i just wanted to get to know, and listen to what she had to say. there is friendship, and grief and loss. and moving on and learning. its a little unexplainable because the plot points are so very their own. but its great. and i think many people should delve into this book and come out feeling just a little bit lighter somehow.

4.5 stars! A well-written and witty book that had me captivated from the first page. I saw a review that described it as “Moby Dick as plane,” and yeah, that sums it up (if Ahab was REALLY into whales).

Sky Daddy takes a bold and bizarre concept - Linda’s sexual attraction to planes (and her desire to marry one) - and uses it to explore themes of identity, grief, and coping mechanisms. At its heart, though, it’s a tender story about female friendship. I really loved the attention to detail, not just in the characters but in bringing the planes to life.

For me, this has definitely earned its place in the ‘weird girl lit’ hall of fame. A thoroughly enjoyable read that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon!

This book had such an original premise - I can confidently say I have never read anything like this before! Interesting and sad in equal measure, I found myself absorbed and I really loved learning more about Linda. Strange in the best way.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I LOVED Folk's short story collection, so was willing to trust her enough to give the novel a go even if I wasn't fully sold on the premise, and, sadly, it didn't quite live up to what I'd hoped it'd be.

I found Folk's writing and character study to be brilliant, but there was a bit of a disconnect between the metaphorical and literal in the book for me. It wasn't quite weird enough to be for the weird lit girls, and it wasn't quite grounded enough to be for the litfic reader, so I think the target audience lies somewhere in between (in a space that wasn't quite for me). I thought that the core metaphor was a bit obvious (and was buying into it), up until cca. the 80 something % mark when it was explicitly named in the text, and kind of lost what made it a compelling study.

This could've lived slightly higher in my mind if I didn't find the ending to be such a hopeless (to me, if not the protagonist) cop-out.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This novel focuses on our main character, who has a sexual attraction to planes. On the surface, this would be considered a 'weird girl' book, but this has so many layers to it that it goes a lot further.

This novel ended up being quite sad, the characters have so much depth and I really connected to the protagonist. This is my first time reading Kate Folk, but I will keep an eye out for any of her works in future.

I would highly recommend this one!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.

I love it when books make me actually root for the main character to die in a plane crash – but, you know, in a positive way. This one was a wild, fun, and freaky ride. Unhinged characters, female friendship, social awkwardness, obsession, and of course, planes. If I ever board a plane again, I’m definitely going to think of you, Linda.

Now, I’ve got to clear my search history of all those plane reference photos.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Kate Folk, and the publisher for the eARC!

I loved Kate Folk's short story collection Out There and I was very much looking forward to her debut novel and Sky Daddy soars high.
The funniest novel I've read in a long while until it because a very sad novel. Linda is a fascinating character and a narrative voice is uniquely funny.
Fantastic.

Fun, quirky, and deliciously weird. A testament to friendship, belonging, and creating your own destiny. There’s a perfect balance of plot and character development, with some hilarious and heartful moments. I loved it so much!

This is absolutely my kind of book, so I knew going into it I would love it. Kate Folks writing never misses; it's vivid, bright and razor sharp. At points it's laugh out loud funny and at other times there's a real emotional tenderness to both the story and the character of Linda. On the surface, Linda's love affair with planes piques your interest as a reader and it's just as bizarre and interesting as how that sounds. However, the book is truly about perspectives on societal norm, expectations of women, friendship and isolation. And for that, I loved it.

There was something so addictive about this book. The story follows our main character who is attracted to planes, which sounds extremely odd at first but as we learn more about her character we begin to understand her more. I loved our main character Linda and all of the other side characters who we got to know. The story is unexpectedly heartwarming and very funny.
I will be anticipating Kate Folk's further works and exploring some of her past novels.

Call me deranged myself, but I feel like this could have been more unhinged, or, since we're dealing with planes, unwinged.

Linda is a content moderator with a rather strange secret: she's attracted to planes. Yes, I'm being serious. She spends her Friday nights plane watching at a bar, and any of her disposable income is put aside for a monthly regional flight, which she refers to as a "date."

It's clear that some of her enthusiasm for planes is directly linked to her mental state, since in the aftermath of her father's death, she goes on a bit of a rampage when it comes to flying, and she does the same later in the novel when her life starts unravelling.

I don't actually know how to rate this book. It wasn't the best or worst thing I ever read, so it gets three stars from me, I picked it up out of pure curiosity. I think in order for it to get a higher rating for me it needed to either focus in on mental health and grief a bit more, or be even more deranged and unhinged. If you're going to go there, go there. Otherwise you end up with a book that I'll remember for being the one where the main character loves planes, but not much more besides that.

I am interested in reading more from Kate Folk though because I think her ideas are interesting.

I loved Kate Folk's short story collection Out There and so requested this ARC without fully reading the blurb (avoiding spoilers!). Turns out that was a stupid thing to do as I'm VERY scared of plane crashes.

I didn't want to leave you without a review so asked my non-plane-phobic partner, who also loved Out There, to read it and write a review in my stead. The following is his review. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to read and feed back on this - sorry I am too scared to read it!

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A turbulent flight as a young teenager awakens an unshakeable understanding in Linda: she is sexually attracted to planes and is destined to marry one in a fatal, fiery ceremony.

Linda’s entire life has been shaped to realise this dream. She lives paycheck to paycheck as a highly effective content moderator for a social media platform. She rents a windowless cube built inside a garage and subsists on cheese strings and ramen pilfered from the breakroom. She spends as little as she feels she can get away with on niceties such as clothes and personal grooming, so that every spare penny can be put towards flights to wherever. For most of us, flights are an inconvenient means to an end, but for Linda, each one is a sexually charged chance to meet the plane of her dreams.

I read Kate Folk’s Out There earlier this year and absolutely loved it. She has a knack for spinning completely believable stories around utterly fucked up concepts, in a way that makes you think ‘Oh, no. That’s going to happen isn’t it…’

Folk’s prose is hugely readable. The book is very funny, often morbidly so. I also found it by turns hugely sad and enraging, as Linda navigates the grimy, transactional, pathetic, patriarchal world. Linda herself is utterly believable, despite her unique obsession. The characters that flail through life around her are all also incredibly well rendered. Folk manages to make even the crummiest dorks and oblivious narcissists feel like real humans deserving of at least a little sympathy, if only for the ways they’ve been mangled by the stupid cultural and institutional systems we’re all subject to.

At times Linda’s descriptions of the various handsome planes she lusts over started to feel like a gimmick stretched too far, but I admired the dedication to the bit. Occasionally Linda’s observations feel like they have come from the author rather than from the character, though they’re generally devastatingly on point and very, very funny, so it feels churlish to complain.

More troublingly, I’m not sure exactly what to make of Linda’s portrayal. Unfortunately I’m ill-equipped to effectively articulate why or to fairly analyse it, but I’ll try. In short, aspects of Linda’s behaviour really reminded me of neurodivergent folks I know, and of characters who are coded as neurodivergent, specifically, autistic, in other media. I’m not sure if this was Folk’s intent here. If it was, the nuanced, empathetic portrayal of these aspects of Linda’s character sit uncomfortably for me alongside the more sensational elements that seem intended to shock or amuse. Folk has such clear love for Linda that I don’t believe she’s meant to be the butt of the joke. And yet… Frankly, I’m not sure how to reconcile this. This may be entirely a me issue.

Finally, the ending felt right and satisfying, but to be honest I can’t help but feel that something has gone over my head, so to speak. I feel like Folk might be saying something bigger here that I’m just not getting. I’m open to the idea that that’s just me missing the point, perhaps owing to my lived experience as essentially a straight, white, neurotypical man.

But on the other hand, maybe it doesn’t need to be about anything bigger than the simple idea that we’re all a bit fucked up in our own unique ways and it’s pretty nice to have a friend or two who gets that.

I had heard about this book coming out so much that when I saw it on NetGalley I had to pick it up! These weird books are getting more and more deep. Linda has an obsession with planes that - takes her to the mile high club?! - it’s so weird but goes into grief and mental health. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone but if you can handle the blob and the book with the fork, go for it!

A uniquely unlikely love story of sorts.

Once a month Linda boards a plane for a rendezvous with her mysterious lover. None of her fellow passengers realise that Linda's lover is the very plane they are travelling on.

Forced to appear 'normal' at work, Linda agrees to join a group of vision board enthusiasts using a ruse of wanting to marry a pilot to conceal the real object of her real desire; 'marrying' her lover whilst dying in a plane crash.


A riotous, incendiary of a novel.

This is one of my most anticipated reads of 2025 and boy did it live up to my expectations. Such a quirky book but really fascinating to read. I really loved the characters, the storyline, and just how damn right weird it was! 100% recommend if you love your books weird and wild. Well done again Kate Folk!!

Sky Daddy is a novel about a woman who wants to 'marry' a plane by dying in a plane crash, and what happens as she tries to achieve her apparent destiny. Linda works as a content moderator, ensuring comments adhere to a tech company's terms and conditions, but once a month she takes a flight somewhere, to be with her true love: planes. When her only friend, co-worker Karina, invites her to vision board brunch, Linda has to find a way to hide the fact she's attracted to planes and wants to die in a plane crash but still create a vision board that represents this, and as her life starts to be changed, she has to decide whether to follow her true dream or not.

This is the sort of book that you feel you need to read, because the concept is so weird, but then you actually read it and it is actually quite sweet and explores what it means to live the way you want and have meaningful connections with others. In particular, it has an underlying exploration of friendship between unlikely friends, and what it means to be there for someone. However, it does also live up to the weird, not shying away from Linda's attraction to planes and the fact she believes that she will find her soulmate, a plane in which to die.

I had a great time reading Sky Daddy: it's fun, it's occasionally sly and funny, and it takes something pretty weird at face value. It sits alongside other recent novels that take a weird concept and actually do something both fun and tender with it, without taking themselves too seriously.

This book is truly unlike anything I’ve read before. It is strange and wild and so enjoyable. Linda is a fascinating character and I loved getting a peek into her world. I’ve never made a vision board (and perhaps never will after reading this) but I thought it provided a great container for the narrative too.

Sky Daddy by Kate Folk is an imaginative and quirky read that is darkly humorous and explores themes of obsession and friendship.