Review: A good start, but needs a lot of work
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2012
I read this book over the course of just two settings. When the author contacted me with a copy of this book for review, I was pretty excited. I love memoirs and books that put the writer into a new country. I dug in... and put it down after 45 minutes the first time.The good: This guy has a story to tell.The bad: He never really gets around to the good parts.There's something here but the sloppy-looking execution of this book never really gets us to the good stuff. It feels very slapped together, unedited and unorganized. I'm okay with it being a narrative. I like narratives, but it very much needed someone to pull this story together, flesh it out and make me want to like the author more.This is more of a 2.5 star book that really needs some editing and an interview with the author by a ghost writer to make it great. I hope the author continues to grow and do more. There's definitely something there but the story and the culture were lost a bit in the translation to print.I'll look forward to the author's other works, he has a good style, it just needs work.Recommended for those die hard travel memoir folks.