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A review by beate251
One Year and a One-Way Ticket by Danika Smith
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Thank you to NetGalley and Atmosphere Press for this ARC.
Canadian Danika Smith, 23, decides to travel the world for a year after being rejected by vet school. This is her travelogue, concentrating mainly on parts of Asia (Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia).
She's travelling through parts of Europe as well (Germany, Switzerland and Spain), but it feels oddly bloodless. While the Asian countries are described in luminous colours, she only stays in Barcelona for two days and doesn't write a word about this magnificent city with its amazing art and architecture, instead we get a lot of agonising over a waste of space called Evan.
I did like the travel descriptions and especially how she connects with people around her, however I do think the writing style is telling rather than showing, always spoonfeeding us how she's feeling and what she's learned. She sounds like a very naive 23 year old at the beginning, and at the end she sounds like a marginally less naive 24 year old who has caught the travel bug and learned about herself.
What I've learned is that you need to be young, healthy and fit, eat anything, like spicy food, not be afraid of unsanitary lodgings, not care about lost phones, be prepared to be flexible, use Workaway jobs to get round without spending too much money, and need no medication that could run out.
So if you like reading about others travelling and sharing their experiences, this is for you. It's interesting enough to wile away a few hours reading about exotic destinations and young people gap yearing their way through them, and it's a lot more real and less overblown than Eat, Pray, Love.
Canadian Danika Smith, 23, decides to travel the world for a year after being rejected by vet school. This is her travelogue, concentrating mainly on parts of Asia (Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia).
She's travelling through parts of Europe as well (Germany, Switzerland and Spain), but it feels oddly bloodless. While the Asian countries are described in luminous colours, she only stays in Barcelona for two days and doesn't write a word about this magnificent city with its amazing art and architecture, instead we get a lot of agonising over a waste of space called Evan.
I did like the travel descriptions and especially how she connects with people around her, however I do think the writing style is telling rather than showing, always spoonfeeding us how she's feeling and what she's learned. She sounds like a very naive 23 year old at the beginning, and at the end she sounds like a marginally less naive 24 year old who has caught the travel bug and learned about herself.
What I've learned is that you need to be young, healthy and fit, eat anything, like spicy food, not be afraid of unsanitary lodgings, not care about lost phones, be prepared to be flexible, use Workaway jobs to get round without spending too much money, and need no medication that could run out.
So if you like reading about others travelling and sharing their experiences, this is for you. It's interesting enough to wile away a few hours reading about exotic destinations and young people gap yearing their way through them, and it's a lot more real and less overblown than Eat, Pray, Love.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Medical content, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail