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A review by sockielady
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart
4.0
I was very tempted to give this 5 stars, because it was mostly a very enjoyable book, but there were two things which stopped me from doing so. The first is Mr. Peart's obvious but inexplicable prejudice against people of size. He makes several comments throughout the book using an inverse relationship to equate a person's physical size and fitness to his or her worth as a human being; i.e., the fatter a person is, the more worthless he or she is as a human (in Mr. Peart's estimation, at least). I did notice that these comments were more abundant in the first half of the book, so perhaps it was mostly the grief talking; still, I found these comments to be offensive and unnecessary, especially since all these comments were made about total strangers.
The other thing that prevented me from giving this 5 stars is the fact that the narrative dragged a bit during the three chapters wherein he went on hiatus from traveling and holed up on his lake house in Quebec. During this time, he mostly wrote letters to friends about his mental/emotional state at that point in his grieving. While I'm sure this was very interesting to any diehard Rush fans who read the book, I came to this book as a fan of travel writing, not as a fan of Rush (right now, at least five of my friends are standing up with their fists clenched in rage, screaming "HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE RUSH?!? THEY'RE THE GREATEST BAND EVER!!!" to which I say, to each his own). I mostly skimmed these chapters, and got back to the traveling parts as quickly as possible (although I must say I was very entertained by his ongoing battles with the birdfeeder-raiding squirrels and garbagecan-raiding raccoons). I am looking forward to reading his previous book, The Masked Rider about cycling in Africa.
The other thing that prevented me from giving this 5 stars is the fact that the narrative dragged a bit during the three chapters wherein he went on hiatus from traveling and holed up on his lake house in Quebec. During this time, he mostly wrote letters to friends about his mental/emotional state at that point in his grieving. While I'm sure this was very interesting to any diehard Rush fans who read the book, I came to this book as a fan of travel writing, not as a fan of Rush (right now, at least five of my friends are standing up with their fists clenched in rage, screaming "HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE RUSH?!? THEY'RE THE GREATEST BAND EVER!!!" to which I say, to each his own). I mostly skimmed these chapters, and got back to the traveling parts as quickly as possible (although I must say I was very entertained by his ongoing battles with the birdfeeder-raiding squirrels and garbagecan-raiding raccoons). I am looking forward to reading his previous book, The Masked Rider about cycling in Africa.