Skye Falling

Skye Falling (2021) by Mia McKenzie was both hilarious and heartbreaking in nearly equal measure. Bad things happen, as they do in the world, but Skye’s perspective and ability to find humor made me laugh through the tears.

Skye owns a Black travel agency, leading groups traveling around the world, living her best life. She’s nearly forty, and comes back to Philadelphia every few months for a couple of weeks between trips. She stays with her best friend, who owns a bed and breakfast, and her family–brother and mother–live nearby, but she rarely sees them as their relationship is complicated. Skye isn’t really good at relationships. One day, when Skye is hung over, at an art show for another friend, a twelve-year old girl who had stalked her on social media finds her and declares “I’m your egg.”

Vicky is the child of Skye’s friend Cynthia, who had paid Skye to be an egg donor when she couldn’t get pregnant. She picked Skye because she was intelligent, funny, and they had some of the same physical features. They had been friends at summer day camp for years, but lost touch as they got older. Vicky tells her that her mother had breast cancer and died, and now she lives with her father and white stepmother. Overwhelmed, Skye tries to ditch Vicky by escaping through the bathroom window, but is caught.

A few days later, Skye has been talked down by her best friend, and agrees to try to find Vicky and apologize, try to get to know her. While waiting for school to let out, at a record store, Skye tries to pick up a woman who is wanting to buy a vintage Etta James vinyl, but is rejected. A few days after that, we find out that, of course, that woman is Vicky’s Aunt Faye, Cynthia’s older sister that Skye did not know.

Skye has her assistant lead the next few trips so that she can stay in town for a bit, and get to know Vicky. She feels for her, having lost her mother so young, although Skye never wanted to be a mother. She thinks about Vicky that “there has never been a more perfect human being” and, after some snags, even Faye agrees that getting to know Skye is a good thing for Vicky. Vicky stays with Faye most of the time, spending weekends with her father (who Skye thinks of as a “boring Obama lookalike” she calls in her head No-Bama.)

But Skye has a lot of personal development to do if she’s going to be a responsible adult for Vicky. McKenzie nails it, and adds in a Philly rapper backstory for Aunt Faye and a romance for Faye and Skye. It’s really well-done and the sense of place is awesome–it makes me want to go to Philly, although my being there would be more of the gentrification that makes Skye feel like the Philly where she grew up is no more.

I highly recommend it. It was also weight-neutral, leaning towards fat-positive. There were few outright body descriptions, except for thick thighs described in a positive way.