Infinite Sky by C. J. Flood

Infinite Sky by C. J. Flood
Release Date: February 14, 2013 (UK)
Publisher: Simon and Schuster UK
Source: Publisher
Goodreads Stars: 2
Rating: Bland

Iris Dancy’s free-spirited mum has left for Tunisia, her dad’s rarely sober and her brother’s determined to fight anyone with a pair of fists.

When a family of travellers move into the overgrown paddock overnight, her dad looks set to finally lose it. Gypsies are parasites he says, but Iris is intrigued. As her dad plans to evict the travelling family, Iris makes friends with their teenage son. Trick Deran is a bare knuckle boxer who says he’s done with fighting, but is he telling the truth?

When tools go missing from the shed, the travellers are the first suspects. Iris’s brother, Sam, warns her to stay away from Trick; he’s dangerous, but Iris can no longer blindly follow her brother’s advice. He’s got secrets of his own, and she’s not sure he can be trusted himself.

Infinite Sky is a family story about betrayal and loyalty, and love. - Goodreads

I was expecting Infinite Sky to be a beautiful and captivating read, but unfortunately it didn't live up to those expectations. It was pretty dull. Despite being bored for most of the book, I did get kicked right in the feels towards the end.


One of my main issues with this book was that there was a lot of telling rather than showing. I know people say this a lot, and often don't elaborate, so I'm going to try to go into more detail here. Trick and Iris met early on, which was to be expected, but while they were talking and supposedly building a friendship, we were simply shown that they were talking. There wasn't any of the usual banter or fun dialogue. There was a lot of "I told him this and he told me that and then we were best friends". It just didn't feel real to me, and since the friendship between Trick and Iris was meant to be the very foundation of this book, I couldn't get into it.

The characters are young for YA, and if we were going by them alone then I would say that this is definitely for younger audiences. However, due to the things that occur in Infinite Sky, I think YA readers would really enjoy and appreciate it more than younger readers.

There is no denying that this book is heartbreaking. I felt no connection with the characters whatsoever, and yet I still got upset and teary eyed when certain things came about. It was very sad, and the author dealt with those scenes really well.

Infinite Sky deals with such an interesting subject matter. I've never read a book about travellers before, despite the amount of focus put on them in the UK right now, so I was really interested in diving into this. Sadly, it lacked that connection that should have kept me interested.