The subtitle for this book should be "Love Affairs ON Five Continents" because instead of a travelogue, it's 300 pages of a privileged woman having afThe subtitle for this book should be "Love Affairs ON Five Continents" because instead of a travelogue, it's 300 pages of a privileged woman having affairs with a dozen different guys she meets in other countries over several years, and it's boring as hell. I'm not slut-shaming anyone, I just simply don't care about her boyfriends or fiances or hookups in hostels or her domestic life or her boring jobs. I picked up this book wanting to read about a woman travelling solo around the world. Some of it I could relate to, that feeling of wanderlust and not wanting to settle down for a conventional life. And yes, romance happens on the road and that could be interesting and dramatic to read about...but NOTHING HAPPENS in this book except hookups and her whining about breakups. The only remotely interesting thing she writes about is getting caught in a storm while working on a sailboat in the South Pacific. Somehow she manages to make a trek through the jungles of Papua New Guinea boring because all she writes about is having sex with her boyfriend and then there's some drama involving his jealous ex. I DON'T CARE, UGH. I skimmed the last quarter of the book, it was all angst about her relationships and her exes.
Also, she comes across as a privileged snot. When you're only in a country because of a diplomatic internship, and you live behind walls and gates, and join the yacht club, you need to acknowledge that privilege. She basically uses whatever country she's in as an exotic backdrop while she immediately finds a guy to bang. Again, I'm not slut-shaming if that's what she wants to do with her life -- I just don't want to read about it. It's boring. ...more
For any reader who finished the book and was confused or disappointed by the title, refer to Chapter 14. The cannibals on Kiribati are the feral dogs,For any reader who finished the book and was confused or disappointed by the title, refer to Chapter 14. The cannibals on Kiribati are the feral dogs, who not only breed indiscriminately until the island vet comes along to castrate them, but they also kill and eat each other for sustenance. It's a hard life for an island dog. Granted, the book's salacious title will make anyone expect that it's going to prominently feature human mating and culinary rituals instead of a chapter about nuisance animals, but the title is also an homage to Tim Cahill (Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, etc.) as well as early anthropological works in the South Pacific region which featured exploitative titles (referring to indigenous people as savages and cannibals)....more
This book was self-published, and it shows. There's a complete lack of editorial oversight. Even if you can ignore the author's many grammatical errorThis book was self-published, and it shows. There's a complete lack of editorial oversight. Even if you can ignore the author's many grammatical errors and odd, stilted use of the English language (even though it is his native tongue), it's tough to slog through this 150-page narrative that was probably lifted directly from his journal. For example, there are walls of tedious text detailing the minutia of making flight arrangements. (In fact, the book is entirely walls of text, there is no dialogue.) Shulman seems both self-absorbed and irresponsible. He joins a mountaineering trip completely unprepared -- no gear, no experience. He gets lost in the jungle (because he wants to go off on his own for some spiritual Zen reasons) and injured several times. I felt bad for the other climbers and the team he was with, for having to put up with this useless twit who doesn't seem to ever apologize for being completely selfish and unprepared. Throughout this book there's no self-awareness of the trouble he was putting himself in, and the burden he was placing on the other members of the climbing team. Plus, he gets facts wrong about the Dani tribe and Irian Jaya itself; it's clear he did very little research (the bibliography in the back of the book actually lists "The Jungle Book" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". What.) Avoid this mess....more
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