Sky Daddy
Sky Daddy ~ Kate Folk
Linda works as a content moderator at a tech company in San Francisco, where she reviews comments to make sure they follow the standards of her company’s clients. She lives in the Outer Sunset neighborhood, where she pays $900 a month to live in a windowless (illegal) cube in a family’s garage (I feel like they could get more than $900). She has only one friend, coworker Karina, and a sexual obsession with commercial airplanes. Linda saves her wages to spend on flights to anywhere, because her desire is the flight, not the location. She masterbates on the flight, lands, spends her time in the destination airport walking around and leering at airplanes through the windows, then flys home again. Her desire is to ‘marry’ an airplane, which means that the airplane will recognize her, be overcome with love and lust for her, and crash.
Karina invites Linda to a vision board party, where she tries to disguise her abnormal attraction by using pictures of airplanes, pilots, and the CEO of a French airline. She tells the other women that her goal for the upcoming year is to marry a pilot…which actually doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea, because then she could use his discount to fly more often, increasing her chances of meeting the plane of her dreams.
Birchie read this book last year when she was in California on vacation, and the fact that she loved it was not enough to convince me that I would love it. Then Nicole gave it 5/5 stars, and I thought…huh. Then Birchie named it her best read of 2025, and Nicole said it was in her list of top reads too, and I started to think maybe I should give it a chance. Then Jenny chimed and said she loved it too. OK, guys, I’m starting to suffer from serious FOMO, you convinced me. And I’m glad you did, because while this book is deeply strange, it’s written in such a way that you cannot help but root for Linda. So clever, so weird, so well written. Highly recommended. Likely you guessed, but just in case you didn’t know, it’s raunchy.
16 Comments
Jenny
Oh good- I’m glad you liked it! I also didn’t want to read it at first because it sounded so strange, but somethow it all works. Your description is perfect- it’s clever, weird, and well-written. Yes, and raunchy. I kind of forgot to mention that in my review.
J
I’m glad you read it, your review put me over the edge (plus both Birchie and Nicole saying it was in their top books of the year). I really enjoyed it!
Margaret
It does sound very strange, but my current two book club books are also quirky and I’m enjoying them. I often wonder how authors get their ideas. This one sounds WAY out there. LOL
J
I read a newspaper article about the author, and she said one thing she was influenced by was the movie ‘Crash’ – There were (at least) two movies by that name, and there was a really bad one with James Spader with a group of people who were sexually aroused by car accidents. Really bad. But you can take a weird idea and make it great if you are an excellent writer, I guess!
Nicole MacPherson
I loved this wild book! It was just SO well done and so funny. The writing was so witty and clever, and I thought it was a really excellent book with deeper themes than the crazy premise might imply.
J
Agreed! I liked how at one point, the reader might be thinking that things were going to get conventional…but Linda is true to herself.
Michelle G.
Sooooo….I read Sky Daddy….and I just didn’t get it. I felt confused, and I didn’t understand the ending. Did she finally marry the airplane? However, your picture of planes landing at SFO made me laugh out loud! It was the perfect photo at the right time! I have landed there a few times, and it’s so beautiful.
J
Spoiler – Yes, I feel like she finally married the airplane at the end. Was it metaphorical or literal? I think literal, but who knows.
Allison McCaskill
I could have sworn you already blogged about this, because I thought I remembered seeing the title and thinking it was about God and feeling apprehensive lol. Must have been one of the other bloggers, I guess? Anyway, weird is very much not a deal-breaker for me (shocker, I’m sure), so it’s probably already on my list or I’m just having insane deja vu.
J
I hope if you read it that you like it as much as I did. So weird, but really good!
DB Stewart
Don’t sound like a book for me, but I do appreciate when an author pushes boundaries with an honest and odd protagonist.
J
This is very much NOT a book for everyone, I would say. You nailed Linda perfectly though, honest and odd.
Birchie
You are speaking my love language with Sky Daddy. As you say, “deeply strange, it’s written in such a way that you cannot help but root for Linda” – that’s my jam!
I have another 8 hours of car time left in my road trip and I’m running low on podcasts/audiobooks, so I took this post as a sign to check out the audiobook. Looking forward to revisiting it!
J
Oh, nice! I’m glad it was available for you right away! I’d be interested to know if it hits differently the second time. The audiobook was really well done, I thought.
NGS
I am starting to have FOMO, but I know myself and I know this isn’t the book for me. LOL.
J
I thought of you with the picture of the airplanes at SFO, that landing can be scary!