Braver Than You Think

March 1, 2020
Journalist Downs dedicates a trip around the world to her dying mother. In 2010, newly married and having just quit a 10-year job as a reporter in Palm Springs, the author took a relatively low-budget trip to places her mother, who was suffering the late stages of Alzheimer's disease, had always wanted to see and others that were on her own bucket list. The first couple weeks were a sort of honeymoon, with Downs and her husband, Jason, staying in Peru at a freezing-cold hostel, facing dangers while climbing the Inca Trail, and getting attacked by mosquitoes in the Amazon rainforest. Then Jason returned to work, leaving Downs to make her way through South America, Africa, and Asia, sometimes on her own and other times with companions she met along the way--and often without internet or phone access to communicate with her family and friends. She often paid for her food and lodging by volunteering or working, sometimes teaching English and one time working as a DJ playing American country music in Uganda. When her mother died, Downs was staying at a yoga retreat in Egypt. "Word of my mother's death," she writes, "spreads quickly through the dozen or so long-term residents, and they rush to take on some of my pain." She returned home for the funeral and then set off again. At multiple points, the author seems to be trying to assure herself that her travel is truly for her mother and not a form of escape. Recounting a whitewater rafting trip on the Nile, she writes, "I knew she would take chances if she had the opportunity. I have to do this, because she cannot." Downs has a fluid, conversational writing style, zooming in to particular anecdotes that illuminate her experience rather than trying to cover the entire year. While the segments devoted to her mother and her disease are integrated rather awkwardly into the narrative, the travel sections are compelling and lively. A poignant tale of connection and disconnection through travel.

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April 1, 2020

When travel writer Downs's mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the author vowed to travel the world to see the places her mother always wanted to visit. Her travels bring her to a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, a circumcision ritual in Uganda, and a yoga camp on the Sinai Peninsula. While her mother's health grew progressively worse back home, Downs reflected on her mother's life while visiting places many Westerners would claim are unsafe for a solo female traveler. She takes the trip not only to assert her independence but to honor her mother, who told her she is "braver than you think." VERDICT Part travelog, part grief memoir, this is for readers who want to experience the thrill of solo travel as experienced by someone slowly losing a parent.--Erin Shea, Ferguson Lib., CT

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April 1, 2020
As her mother slipped into the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, Downs left her newspaper job to travel "for the sake of living deliberately and passionately." She hoped to embody her mother's unrealized dreams; mostly, though, the trip was a way for her to do something when so little could be done to help. With her new husband's blessing, she left the U.S. South American adventures include hiking to Machu Picchu, volunteering (and sustaining monkey bites) in Bolivia, and sampling Argentina's rich food culture. From South Africa's Wild Coast, she travels to Egypt and survives a harrowing white-water rafting trip, then visits memorials to genocide in Rwanda. Later, as the Arab Spring erupts around her, she takes refuge in a yoga camp with friends. After leaving Africa, she pushes on to India,Thailand, and Vietnam. Every chapter is shot through with thoughts and memories of her mother, whose death forces Downs to decide whether to return home or not. Fans of Eat, Pray, Love (2006) and Wild (2012) may find this a satisfying next read.WOMEN FOCUS(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)