30 before 30 Traveling Under the Influence by Angie Banicki

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Vook (October 25, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1629214337
• ISBN-13: 978-1629214337

(Summary)

“Have you hit that moment in life when it's time to change things up-but you're not sure where to start? Meet Angie Banicki: 29, travel virgin, burnt out from her career in entertainment PR. Before turning 30 she set out on a 30-day solo adventure in search of new life direction on a fun journey around Europe. Then she added a twist, planning an itinerary inspired entirely by travel moments gathered from the most influential people in her life, many of them celebs. From the back of a Eva Longoria's friend's moped in chic Paris to the tattoo parlor of David Arquette's best buddy, each of Angie's travel moments reads like a thrilling extended postcard that encourages you to travel, not just to reconnect with yourself, but to reconnect with the people in your life back home. Lighthearted, playful, and funny, this pop culture-infused, free-spirited call to adventure is the perfect book for anyone planning their first big trip abroad” ~Book Summary

Chapters are set up in a format that provides destination location, inspiration for destination, diary like information about her adventure that day, tidbits of information on the destination, and Bio on the person who inspired that particular destination. It reads like a diary and a scrap book all that the same time. Each entry is about a day in that location and how she felt about it.

(Review)

I requested this book because I too was about to turn 30 and was feeling like I needed to change this up in my routine and life. I didn’t have the money or means to go traveling so I was hoping that this book would help me live through her experience. I found it hard to read and not at all an inspirational, live through the book sort of experience.  The details were lacking in the descriptions and it was hard to picture yourself there with her.  I found that the scrapbook layout hard to read, trying to find where the rest of the paragraph was on the next page was a hinder to being able to read it smoothly.

This book would be better published or reviewed as a travel complain to anyone going to Europe and wanting to hit the spots she did. That way you could literally experience something at least similar if not exactly what she did.

I did find some of the inspirations behind interesting. And would recommend it to anyone traveling to London, Paris, Barcelona, Italy, or Amsterdam as a traveling companion.

DISCLAIMER: I received this book free of charge from Goodreads Frist Reads Giveaway in exchange for my unbiased review of it. All opinions are mine and were not coerced upon me to provide a favorable review

Mating for life by Marissa Stapley

• Print Length: 336 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books (July 1, 2014)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00GEEB3W0

(Summary)

Marriage, love, family, motherhood, finding yourself all of this is touch upon in blunt honesty Mating for Life.

Helen Sear, a former folksinger, proudly disdained from marriage, and raising her three daughters –all with different fathers- on her own. In her older years Helen falls in love with a traditional man who wants to marry her. Will Helen go against all that she has believed in as far a marriage or will she hold on and loose that man she loves? Meanwhile, Helen’s youngest daughter Liane is head over heels for a man that just might be her soul mate, but he has two girls and an ex-wife. Can Laine find her way in her new role as “step-mom or something” it doesn’t come with an instruction manual? Isla, Helen’s middle daughter, is an artist and is trying to hold on to her second marriage but she might have to disrupting her two young children and breaking free. Fiona, Helens eldest daughter, is a stay at home mom of three boys. She works hard to make the kid’s world pristine but she seems not to be at peace with it all. When her husband comes out with a secret that rocks the boat will Fiona be able to hold on?

(Review)

Many roles that women play through out there life are depicted in the book with such clarity that any women can relate to one of the characters and how she feels. Roles including being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a lover, a friend, and a sister. It made me feel that I am not alone and understood where the character was coming from since I had been there too.

I had a hard time in the first part of the book, jumping from on characters story to the next but Marissa did a wonderful job connecting all the stories together in the last half of the book. She also but an animal and its mating habits at the top of each chapter. At first I thought this took away from the story itself until I realized that she incorporated the animals or their behavior into the chapter. Which ended up adding to the magic of the story.

I will admit I have rarely cried when it comes to books (laughing yes, crying not so much). I cried with this book. The characters spoke to me though I thought the backdrops need a little more detail. All in all a good book. Only complaint I had a hard time in the beginning jumping for person to person. The author does a wonderful job taking places she knows well and using these for the backdrops of her story.

(Author)

Marissa Stapley is a writer and former magazine editor who contributes to Elle, The Globe and Mail, and National Post among others. She also teaches writing at the University of Toronto.

DISCLAIMER: I received this book free of charge from Goodreads Frist Reads Giveaway in exchange for my unbiased review of it. All opinions are mine and were not coerced upon me to provide a favorable review