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Hey everyone! Thanks for stopping by and reading today. Below you will find my review and star rating for the book “Braver Than You Think” by Maggie Downs.
But first, as always comes the description. I hope that you enjoy and have a wonderful rest of your day. ❤️
*Disclaimer : I received a copy of this ebook for free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Description :
Newly married and established in her career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, Maggie Downs quits her job, sells her belongings, and embarks on the solo trip of a lifetime: Her mother’s.
As a child, Maggie Downs often doubted that she would ever possess the courage to visit the destinations her mother dreamed of one day seeing. “You are braver than you think,” her mother always insisted. That statement would guide her as, over the course of one year, Downs backpacked through seventeen countries visiting all the places her mother, struck with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, could not visit herself encountering some of the world’s most striking locales while confronting the slow loss of her mother. Interweaving travelogue with family memories, Braver Than You Think takes the reader hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, white-water rafting on the Nile, volunteering at a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, praying at an ashram in India, and fleeing the Arab Spring in Egypt.
By embarking on an international journey, Downs learned to make every moment countâtraveling around the globe and home again, losing a parent while discovering the world. Perfect for fans of adventure memoirs likeWild andWelcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube,Braver Than You Think explores grief and loss with tenderness, clarity, and humor, and offers a truly incredible roadmap to coping with the unimaginable.
My Review :
I’m not one who experiences wanderlust, like ever, (hello – I’m an enneagram 6w5 and travel takes way too much planning!), but this book made me seriously want to throw caution to the wind and pack up my belongings.
Maggie’s travels around the globe are so inspiring – she just grabs life with both hands and goes to experience it. I find that pretty incredible.
Her journey starts as an ode to her mother, who is in the beginning suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Maggie decides to leave her new husband at home for a year while she sets out to accomplish the trips she and her mother used to dream about taking.
Not everything goes smoothly or as planned (monkey bites, anyone?!) but overall her trip turns out to be a success. Although it does include on unplanned trip back home, and quite an abrupt end.
Maggie’s story is so refreshing to read. She’s not just giving you a bulleted list of things to do to be more brave – she’s showing that she took the actual steps to make that happen for herself. I admire that, because even though I say reading this book made me want to head out – I know that I never would.
But I definitely enjoyed reading about the way she did.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️