Download All Over the Place Adventures in Travel True Love and Petty Theft Geraldine DeRuiter 9781541724655 Books

Product details Paperback 288 pages Publisher PublicAffairs; Reprint edition (July 16, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1541724658

All Over the Place Adventures in Travel True Love and Petty Theft Geraldine DeRuiter 9781541724655 Books Reviews

• This is not just a run of the mill hilarious book that relies on relentless peeks into life’s impossible logic or scenes that rival “I Love Lucy’s” most deliciously hilarious antics. It’s not merely delightfully surprising in its author’s willingness to be vulnerable by exposing her insane thinking and mishaps. It’s not even only mildly shocking in its sheer volume of poop that’s referred to (I just said “poop” on ). So much that if added up might casually be interpreted as a pretty big pile of it. But there’s absolutely no BS here. Nope. This book is sincere.
  
  It’s a deep, heartfelt, brutally honest memoir that will make you feel like you’ve been invited into the inner circle of love belonging to one very brave human being. Someone who clearly knows that laughing and crying are two sides of the same coin and we could all do with more of each.
  
  I loved every moment of it and was terribly sad to finish it and had to console myself by reading the addendum from Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-at-large of publisher, PublicAffairs, which was pretty cool in itself.
• I'm not sure how many reviews I have written, but I do know that it's not easy to convey how you feel about a book in writing. This one is worth the effort. I suppose that I could say that Geraldine's book isn't really "All Over the Place" as the title suggests. Sure, she touches upon some interesting locations across the globe, but this book is about love, a bit about her life, fears that come with traveling, and family. Okay, it's all over the place, but it's so very well connected. The adventures, shall we call them, take place in various locations, but to me they all seem to touch upon her love of Rand, her husband, and her family. If you get to know Geraldine through her travel blog, then all the better, but you don't need to know her past efforts in order to enjoy this book. If you love someone, this book can certainly remind you of how a partner can encourage you to take risks, even if those risks are as simple as leaving the hotel room of a foreign city, alone, with no sense of direction, and an irrational fear of being abducted the second that the locals figure you out. A book like this can certainly make a connection with those that have traveled, but it's far more than that.
• Thanks to Geraldine, I've embarrassed myself numerous times on the subway. This is the kind of book that leaves you laughing uncontrollably, even at inopportune moments, where fellow subway riders think you are crazy. Geraldine says the things you wish you had the courage to say out loud (poop stories, non-Hollywood stories of marriage, crazy parents, etc.), but she does so with such humor and wit. I highly recommend this book. I promise the only reason you will put it down is to compose yourself after a serious laughing fit.
• This book made me laugh so hard I cried, and then made me cry so that I had to laugh. It is hilarious. It is touching. It was a pleasure to read. I finished and then I immediately started it again. Geraldine is SO real, and I mean in that she isn't cultivating a false perfect self; she let's it all hang out in real time. She is funny, moving, poignant, flawed, and entirely perfect in her humanness.
• I loved this book. I've been a fan of Geraldine and her blog for years, and the book did not disappoint! It feels like a cliche to say "I laughed and I cried," but there were several laugh-out-loud funny moments and at least a couple points where I was decidedly misty-eyed.
  
  More than just a travel memoir, All Over the Place has a lot to say about how travel can connect you to your family and your history in ways you'd never expect; and how love (wuv, twoo wuv) is just as much about putting up with another person's uncontrollable vomiting, alarming family members, and crushing life stress as it is about sparkly-eyed selfies in front of scenic attractions. If you've ever had a trip with your beloved ruined by food poisoning, or gotten lost in a foreign country due to an unwarranted self-confidence in your ability to get places, or opted to spend an entire vacation eating cake and pottering around instead of Learning About Important History, this book is for you.
• I devoured this book as if it were a cupcake that the author loves so much. As a long time fan of the author's blog The Everywhereist, I have followed Geraldine's (mis)adventures for years, and have enjoyed them all immensely. She is an amazing writer, filled with humor and spice and a love of all things food, and things named Jeff Goldblum, or Rand. Her book is so enjoyable. It is warm and honest and moving and hilarious and BEAUTIFULLY written. It is not, as the author explains, a true travel memoir, in that it won't teach you how to travel. But Geraldine has never claimed to be a travel writer, she's a writer who happens to travel a lot, and gets to talk about what she learned while doing it. Her story is about discovering yourself, and what happens along the winding and sometimes dead-end road that you take to get there. I reread several passages over again, because they are so profoundly insightful about what it means to know who you are and how you came to be that person. I wish I could read it again for the first time, but I'll just have to settle for buying it for everyone I know and then getting to revisit the story over and over again with them.
• I read this book while riding the train from Portland to Seattle yesterday for the U2 concert, which was amazing, btw. What a fun read! I've been a fan of the Everywhereist blog for years now, and it was fun to gain a little more insight on what makes Geraldine tick. I love her sense of humor, willingness to expose her vulnerabilities, and even her graphic depiction of what is at times, a very angry colon. I feel I know you so well - you're the friend with no filter that makes me laugh my ass off every time, while completely grossing out lesser mortals. Don't ever change!