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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
Part travel memoir, part love story, this read was deliciously scandalous yet also brilliant, funny, and touching. A few mothers may find the author's title offensive, but those willing to delve deeper won't let that prevent you from reading—as with many great writers, the element of surprise and poignancy are some of Kristin Newman's greatest strengths, and I found myself moved by how, in this book (as in life) all things eventually come full circle.
Let me start by saying I read this book in less than 36 hours. From the title (which is cheekier than her actual view on having children) and the thought of stirring up some travel hopes for this year and beyond, I was hooked. If you're looking for something beyond the extremely linear and terrifying "marry your HS sweetheart, buy a house, get pregnant and be a mom the end" I would say this book is for you. I wouldn't say this book was as "yay be child free and travel the world!" as I expected, but I appreciated the duality of her desire to have kids "one day" but that it didn't need to be any time soon at all because hello, she was traveling the world. Her adventures are hilarious and I so appreciated the open love of Latin countries and places folks don't always visit. In the dead of winter here in the Northeast, where all one can do is dream about traveling, I loved this book.
If you've ever fantasized about being very free and taking on a Latin lover but realize this will not be in your card set but you'd like to pretend it could be, also recommend. Just saying.
If you've ever fantasized about being very free and taking on a Latin lover but realize this will not be in your card set but you'd like to pretend it could be, also recommend. Just saying.
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I found this book a little slow at first, but really did enjoy it towards the middle and end.
This book is funny and entertaining and had me literally laughing out loud more than a few times. But it tries so hard to be meaningful and deep when it seemed to be devoid of any meaning. Maybe I just had a hard time relating to her because most of her issues were self made and she lives a truly envious life. The ending seemed rushed. I was expecting a book about a single girl who was living her life and content with being single—- instead I got a book about a privileged whiny writer who creates her own chaos and is awful to everyone around her. Happy you’re now happy Kristin… but damn.
Kristin writes in a very relatable way to the wanderlust and confused adults of the world. I think how she’s written about her adventures while she was navigating through how she feels she fits into the societal expectations of relationships with herself, her family, friends and lovers.
I absolutely loved this book. I ate it up. I finished it in like two days. Although the ending was somewhat predictable (I don't want to spoil anything), I found this book hilarious. There were a few moments when I was on the bus laughing out loud. I think a lot of single gals will find this book fun to read and not all that serious.
Meh. This was a mostly fun autobiography. The trials-of-the-thin-pretty-privileged-white-woman narrative was a bit grating at times, but most of the stories were funny and much of the author's experience and insight can be universally appreciated. As a person who really DOES believe that "happily ever after" can be achieved whether one ends up in a long term relationship with kids or not, my only real take-away from this book is a sharper longing to travel.
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2017: Read a travel memoir. 3.5 stars. This book inspired mixed feelings for me. It's certainly a travelogue, but it's also a relationship memoir: Kristin travels not just because her friends are settling down and she isn't (as implied by the title), but because I struggled to root for her until she reached some self-awareness:
"...I was normal. Years later, Lena Dunham’s character on Girls would have a similar moment when she broke down and wept to a nice, handsome doctor with a beautiful house, “Please don’t tell anyone this, but I want to be happy … I want all the things everyone wants.” I was embarrassed to be a thirty-five-year-old woman who was looking for true love, and a family. It was so freaking typical."
Her travel philosophy (which I like) of "do the thing you're supposed to do in the the place you're supposed to do it" includes sex partners (which I don't identify with at all). I'm glad this approach worked for her, but I did find myself thinking it was pretty unsafe, and there was no mention that she was aware of the cachet of being American -- i.e., the possibility that guys hooked up with her not for a "vacationship" but in hopes of marrying into better life opportunities. Maybe they were always on the same page for a short-term fling, but I wondered, especially about her Spanish teacher whose confession of love she shrugged off.
I identified a lot with her takedown of "moo cows" (her name for when you discover something in common with someone that seems so unlikely that IT MUST BE A SIGN, and you cling to it in spite of obvious other signs that you aren't compatible), and her realization that finding love is really all about timing.
I really liked these parts and have been thinking a lot about them:
"Life is almost never about choosing between one thing you really want and another thing you don't want at all. If you're lucky, and healthy, and live in a country where you have enough to eat and no fear that you're going to get shot when you walk out your door, life is an endless series of choosing between two things you want almost equally. And you have to evaluate and determine which awesome thing you want infinitesimally more, and then give up that other awesome thing you want almost exactly as much. You have to trade awesome for awesome. Everyone I knew, no matter what they chose, was at least a little in mourning for that other thing.”
“I always say that I need to travel to keep from dying of boredom from my own internal monologue. I think that, generally, most of us have a total of about twenty thoughts. And we just scroll through those thoughts, over and over again, in varying order, all day every day.”
“She told me that since they date exclusively [in Judaism] with the intent to marry, the conversation is very direct right from the start. You’re not sitting quietly next to each other at a movie wondering if you can get over his awful shirt. You’re interviewing. And from your first date, you’re focusing, apparently, on only three questions: Do we want the same things out of life? Do we bring out the best in each other? Do we find each other attractive? That’s it. In that order.”
Spoiler
she is avoiding "the void," a big piece of which includes untreated family trauma and fear that she will, indeed, end up alone in spite of desperately pretending she doesn't care."...I was normal. Years later, Lena Dunham’s character on Girls would have a similar moment when she broke down and wept to a nice, handsome doctor with a beautiful house, “Please don’t tell anyone this, but I want to be happy … I want all the things everyone wants.” I was embarrassed to be a thirty-five-year-old woman who was looking for true love, and a family. It was so freaking typical."
Her travel philosophy (which I like) of "do the thing you're supposed to do in the the place you're supposed to do it" includes sex partners (which I don't identify with at all). I'm glad this approach worked for her, but I did find myself thinking it was pretty unsafe, and there was no mention that she was aware of the cachet of being American -- i.e., the possibility that guys hooked up with her not for a "vacationship" but in hopes of marrying into better life opportunities. Maybe they were always on the same page for a short-term fling, but I wondered, especially about her Spanish teacher whose confession of love she shrugged off.
I identified a lot with her takedown of "moo cows" (her name for when you discover something in common with someone that seems so unlikely that IT MUST BE A SIGN, and you cling to it in spite of obvious other signs that you aren't compatible), and her realization that finding love is really all about timing.
I really liked these parts and have been thinking a lot about them:
"Life is almost never about choosing between one thing you really want and another thing you don't want at all. If you're lucky, and healthy, and live in a country where you have enough to eat and no fear that you're going to get shot when you walk out your door, life is an endless series of choosing between two things you want almost equally. And you have to evaluate and determine which awesome thing you want infinitesimally more, and then give up that other awesome thing you want almost exactly as much. You have to trade awesome for awesome. Everyone I knew, no matter what they chose, was at least a little in mourning for that other thing.”
“I always say that I need to travel to keep from dying of boredom from my own internal monologue. I think that, generally, most of us have a total of about twenty thoughts. And we just scroll through those thoughts, over and over again, in varying order, all day every day.”
“She told me that since they date exclusively [in Judaism] with the intent to marry, the conversation is very direct right from the start. You’re not sitting quietly next to each other at a movie wondering if you can get over his awful shirt. You’re interviewing. And from your first date, you’re focusing, apparently, on only three questions: Do we want the same things out of life? Do we bring out the best in each other? Do we find each other attractive? That’s it. In that order.”