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emerlea's review
4.0
Not a Bad Ride strolls the reader through a not so average Joe's not so average life.
Mr. Smith starts his memoir out with an anxiety inducing medical event which happens later in his life. Such a smart beginning! As an only occasional reader of memoirs, I was grabbed in by this event and looked forward to discovering its conclusion.
The author then transports us into his younger years and takes us through his adventures...misadventures...during his childhood and on to the time of hippies, Vietnam war protests, the draft, hitchhiking, free love, and drugs.I enjoyed the author's low key approach to writing and his wicked wit. Sprinkled throughout, and often in places you wouldn't expect humour, Mr. Smith drops in one liners that had me laughing out loud. Seriously...I laughed out loud...in the presence of others.
A majority of the memoir takes place a generation before mine, and I was left thinking how different life was then, how it was for my parents, and how my children's generation faces such different circumstances.
As the author "grows up" during the course of the book, the reader is given breadcrumbs leading back to the opening of the book. All is then revealed, a major series of events too early in a man's life that alter his life forever. I was left with a profound level of respect for both the author and the woman who has stood by his side when a typical spouse might not.
To the author...I thank you for letting me stroll through your life and experience it through your perspective, humour, and humility.
Mr. Smith starts his memoir out with an anxiety inducing medical event which happens later in his life. Such a smart beginning! As an only occasional reader of memoirs, I was grabbed in by this event and looked forward to discovering its conclusion.
The author then transports us into his younger years and takes us through his adventures...misadventures...during his childhood and on to the time of hippies, Vietnam war protests, the draft, hitchhiking, free love, and drugs.I enjoyed the author's low key approach to writing and his wicked wit. Sprinkled throughout, and often in places you wouldn't expect humour, Mr. Smith drops in one liners that had me laughing out loud. Seriously...I laughed out loud...in the presence of others.
A majority of the memoir takes place a generation before mine, and I was left thinking how different life was then, how it was for my parents, and how my children's generation faces such different circumstances.
As the author "grows up" during the course of the book, the reader is given breadcrumbs leading back to the opening of the book. All is then revealed, a major series of events too early in a man's life that alter his life forever. I was left with a profound level of respect for both the author and the woman who has stood by his side when a typical spouse might not.
To the author...I thank you for letting me stroll through your life and experience it through your perspective, humour, and humility.
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