Love With A Chance of Drowning: A Book Review

Before we begin, I should probably warn you: this post may get a little awkward.  It's quite possible - nay likely - that we'll find ourselves half way through this weblog, and you'll start to notice that I'm blathering on and on about a woman whom I've never even met, a person who exists to me as only a two-dimensional website and twitter handle, and yet, somehow, seems to have engrained herself in my consciousness, her calls for adventure reverberating through my bones like a call to prayer in an empty market (and just like that, we've begun with a run on sentence...).

I started following Torre DeRoche's delightful blog, the Fearful Adventurer, in December, and was immediately smitten. To me, a fantastic travel blog is just like travel: I gobble it up, not even giving thought to that tragic moment when I'll run out of words to read, or road to follow, and be left desperate for more. In the Fearful Adventurer, Torre's sense of humor is apparent -- anyone who chooses to liken Bangkok's admittedly oppressive heat to being hugged by an ass crack is okay in my books -- and her personality comes through with her stories and illustrations. But what I love so much about her blog is that it imparts upon me a sense of possibility and adventure, a feeling that I too can spend a year with a handsome man in a $5 bungalow, or sail across the Pacific, pausing for months at a time on miscellaneous islands, jewel-toned and forgotten by time.

Seriously...I dare you to watch this trailer for Love With a Chance of Drowning, Torre's new book, and NOT experience even the teensiest yearning, deep down inside of you, and possibly buried in a forgotten place, for a larger than life adventure:

Now that it's been established that I'm a huge fan of Torre and her work, you can imagine I was pretty much ecstatic when I received a copy of Love with a Chance of Drowning from Torre's publicist before the May 14 North American release. I awoke groggy on a grey Monday morning like any other, opened my email, and began reading. I read and read and read; then I read some more. I laughed out loud. I was late for work. When I finished work, I came home, poured a glass of wine, and kept on reading. I drank. I laughed. I cried. I read until I fell asleep, and then I awoke and read until it was over. And then I was sad, because the adventure was over, and I'd felt as though it'd just began.

To put it more succinctly: Love with a Chance of Drowning is a page turner. If you haven't watched the above video yet, now would be a good time. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Ready? Good. Now that we're all on the same page, let's examine some of the pictures from Torre's and Ivan's adventure. If these alone aren't enough to make you buy the book, I don't know what will:

This book was truly a pleasure: honest, hilarious, and somehow heart-wrenching, all at the same time. It contains stories of peeing one's pants, eating poop-fed snapper, and accidental gun violence (spear guns, that is). Most of all, it is a love letter: a story of two people who push each other beyond their comfort zones;  a middle finger raised to the sky against convention and fear; a gentle reminder that when you push yourself, amazing things happen. I enjoyed this book so much, I'm going to go read it again. And since I'm being honest, I'm probably going to take up sailing, too.