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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
I absolutely loved this book! Best written memoir I've read to date. Brianna is a captivating author to read and her experiences make it that much better. Her writing is well thought out and make you feel the emotions and surroundings that she is portraying to encapsulate you in the story. It really felt that every sentence was written with a purpose and the book was well paced.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
If you remove all the 1 star ratings from Reddit haters, this book has a 4.5+ rating and that exactly what I think it deserves.
The book is beautifully written and Madia’s style is just haunting. This book reads more like a series of short stories or essays. It left me wanting to know more about her and her life.
Does she have to tell us everything just because she’s “famous”? Nope. And I prefer that she doesn’t tell all the terrible tales of a life only partially lived.
I learned a lot from this book and encourage others to give it a shot. It’s an easy read, though from pages 211 to the end made me sob uncontrollably.
The concept of living in a van is not unique but then again, none of our stories truly are unless we’re the first to do it. Briana’s story is beautiful none the less and worthy of being heard. Thank you for telling it and I’m excited to see what’s next.
The book is beautifully written and Madia’s style is just haunting. This book reads more like a series of short stories or essays. It left me wanting to know more about her and her life.
Does she have to tell us everything just because she’s “famous”? Nope. And I prefer that she doesn’t tell all the terrible tales of a life only partially lived.
I learned a lot from this book and encourage others to give it a shot. It’s an easy read, though from pages 211 to the end made me sob uncontrollably.
The concept of living in a van is not unique but then again, none of our stories truly are unless we’re the first to do it. Briana’s story is beautiful none the less and worthy of being heard. Thank you for telling it and I’m excited to see what’s next.
I listened to this as an audiobook on a road trip and highly recommend it in that context.
It is heartbreaking to hear the author tell her story in her own voice at particularly raw moments.
It is heartbreaking to hear the author tell her story in her own voice at particularly raw moments.
This short memoir is about how a woman finds her place in the world when she never feels that she fits in the binary of normal society: rich or poor, 9-5 job or artist… The string that should have held this book together - substance abuse - seems lost. The parallels between the author’s husband and father are blatant, but never fully explored.
I don’t know how unconventional her life is… my parents lived in a van in 1968 after they got married. They backpacked and camped and had adventures with their dog in tow. They had me after 8 years of adventures and sleeping in fields and campgrounds all over the US and Europe.
I have followed her on social media and again the binary of life strikes again. Honest or liar, exploitation or pleas for help, real life or shiny for the gram…. Life is never so black and white. As a dog person I do not blame her for doing everything possible to save her dog - there is a desperation only a dog lover can understand. Also the Reddit people are strange… just like the obsession over Dooce and her life… a group of people have decided to troll and discuss every detail of this person’s life. Everyone needs a hobby right? That just will never be mine.
Also the publishers missed an incorrect word use. “Transgendered” is an outdated term and should have been corrected. https://www.glaad.org/reference/trans-terms
The writing itself is lovely with sweeping descriptions of the desert around Moab. Descriptions of canyoneering and driving on unpaved roads are well told events. These descriptions are not enough to carry the plot without a better thread to hold the story together. As memoirs go it is a decent one but feels rushed and incomplete. Maybe without a publisher deadline more time could have passed between the events of her life so more reflection and distance could be used to tell the story. The book seems to have been planned prior to her dogs injury and her subsequent divorce.
I don’t know how unconventional her life is… my parents lived in a van in 1968 after they got married. They backpacked and camped and had adventures with their dog in tow. They had me after 8 years of adventures and sleeping in fields and campgrounds all over the US and Europe.
I have followed her on social media and again the binary of life strikes again. Honest or liar, exploitation or pleas for help, real life or shiny for the gram…. Life is never so black and white. As a dog person I do not blame her for doing everything possible to save her dog - there is a desperation only a dog lover can understand. Also the Reddit people are strange… just like the obsession over Dooce and her life… a group of people have decided to troll and discuss every detail of this person’s life. Everyone needs a hobby right? That just will never be mine.
Also the publishers missed an incorrect word use. “Transgendered” is an outdated term and should have been corrected. https://www.glaad.org/reference/trans-terms
The writing itself is lovely with sweeping descriptions of the desert around Moab. Descriptions of canyoneering and driving on unpaved roads are well told events. These descriptions are not enough to carry the plot without a better thread to hold the story together. As memoirs go it is a decent one but feels rushed and incomplete. Maybe without a publisher deadline more time could have passed between the events of her life so more reflection and distance could be used to tell the story. The book seems to have been planned prior to her dogs injury and her subsequent divorce.
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Separating the author from the book here is difficult. Clearly, she creates a lot of energy around herself, drawing many to her, which has led to her deep following and the popularity of this book, but creating some seriously motivated detractors along the way. That is evident both in the book and here in reviews, but I find myself falling in the middle.
I’ve long enjoyed following her life on social media, and found her captions to be refreshingly well written, so I had high hopes for this book, but to find out it is a sprintingly short memoir of this woman’s first 30 years of life? I wanted more. More color, more depth, more soul.
I’ve definitely read portions of this book before on her Instagram, and in some ways the book felt like copy pasted captions all strung along together in many short chapters. And why lay out the book in parts? Like another reviewer suggested, a collection of essays may better suit her writing style than another memoir.
I’m glad if reading this book inspires other young women to go live the life they want, recklessly figuring it all out along the way, but I came away from this book less than touched. It feels like a book for people who don’t otherwise read books, and there is a place for that, but I’ll have a hard time recommending this one to my friends.
I’ve long enjoyed following her life on social media, and found her captions to be refreshingly well written, so I had high hopes for this book, but to find out it is a sprintingly short memoir of this woman’s first 30 years of life? I wanted more. More color, more depth, more soul.
I’ve definitely read portions of this book before on her Instagram, and in some ways the book felt like copy pasted captions all strung along together in many short chapters. And why lay out the book in parts? Like another reviewer suggested, a collection of essays may better suit her writing style than another memoir.
I’m glad if reading this book inspires other young women to go live the life they want, recklessly figuring it all out along the way, but I came away from this book less than touched. It feels like a book for people who don’t otherwise read books, and there is a place for that, but I’ll have a hard time recommending this one to my friends.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
The author writes well and is a great story teller. This was just not the type of book that holds my interest.