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Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard Release Date: March 13, 2012 Source: NetGalley Rating:   Buy It: Amazon |
| It all begins with a stupid question:Are you a Global Vagabond?No, but 18-year-old Bria Sandoval wants to be. In a quest for independence, her neglected art, and no-strings-attached hookups, she signs up for a guided tour of Central America—the wrong one. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are hardly the key to self-rediscovery. When Bria meets Rowan, devoted backpacker and dive instructor, and his outspokenly humanitarian sister Starling, she seizes the chance to ditch her group and join them off the beaten path. | |
Review
I wish I could rate this novel higher than 3 stars, but it took two weeks for me to get through it. That’s an exceptionally long time for me. There are a few books that I have to read when I don’t feel like reading anything on TBR and can come back to and those take me ages to read, but not something like this that should be right up my alley. I’ve travelled a lot in my life – not an exorbitant amount, but more than most people my age – and this story just appealed to me on so many different levels. Traveling in foreign countries? Fall in love with boys in foreign countries? Count me in.
The story starts out pretty slow though and I find it hard to relate to Bria, the main character, at all. She’s a very pitiful character and not in a good way. It wasn’t until half-way through the book that I finally began to like her but at that point, it was too little too late. She mainly went on the trip to Central America to escape her problems. I can respect that to any extent – sometimes you just need to get away – but she truly is running away from her problems. She avoids thinking about them, she avoids talking about them and she even avoids drawing, part of her problems. There just comes a point in the book when you want to smack Bria and tell her to get over it. She does learn that life goes on but it takes her a damn long time, if you ask me.
I almost don’t even want to talk about the love story. It’s a big factor in the book though, so I guess that I should. Rowan is the boy du jour for Bria and they spend most of their time trekking through Central America strictly as friends. There is chemistry but they both deny it and then poof they’re making out. Of course there’s some drama but it’s very melodramatic and doesn’t exactly make the most sense, in my opinion. There’s not much wrong the couple or how they’re written, but there’s nothing very exciting about them either to keep you interested. If you love to travel or love Central America, this book is for you. My roommates are from Honduras so it was interesting for me to compare cultures and food. If none of that interests you, however, you can pass on it.
