The God of Driving : How I Overcame Fear and Put Myself in the Driver's Seat (with the Help of a Good and Mysterious Man)

Rating:
Summary: No fear here
Review: A delightful gift to pass along and recommend. As one of the 190 million Americans Collins cites who drives 2.6 times daily (aptitude smaptitude), I didn't expect to get sucked into Collins's story. But what a twist on escapism! Better than a hot mystery or historic fiction, Collins's beautiful life, as revealed throughout a few dozen fast-moving chapters, will lift you straight out of suburban realities, at least for a time. Her driving lessons are so many romantic adventures, and Collins's charming and mysterious instructor is sophisticated enough to appreciate her fantastic outfits and make-up. He even dresses the part himself. Together, experiencing various ultimate dream machines, they tool around New York City, and even journey to distant lands (not just New Jersey and Staten Island, but Germany, too). Collins's driving experiences, unlike those of us 190 million, are definitely book-worthy.

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional Book
Review: Amy Fine Collins puts a lot of herself in this wonderful book. It's beautifully written with great descriptions. Collins takes drivng to a whole new level in this fast-paced book. Everyone should read this book. I recommend this book to anyone with a driving phobia, to car lovers,and even to people who don't care much for cars. I also recommend it to any person who may learn something from the intelligent and magnificent Attila, Collins's driving teacher. Collins weaves an incredibly entertaining story that will make frightened drivers come out of their shells.

Rating:
Summary: There is a memoir in all of us
Review: Amy's beautifully written and wise memoir is truly inspiring. She shows us the beauty of the daily challenges we overcome and looks at the daily interactions of day to day life in a fresh way. Self-actualization come in surprising ways to all of us if we are open to it. Best bedside reading I've had in quite awhile. Highly reccomend this beautiful and fullfilling book .

Rating:
Summary: God help us!
Review: I can't believe so many people actually enjoyed this stiff and unbelievably abnoxious book. The book is centered around Amy's style and her and her driving instructor's so called knowledge. The two main characters (Atilla and Amy) spend the entire book philosophosizing and psychoanalyzing each other but instead of feeling uplifted and enlightened I felt more like I was in the middle of listening to the emotional ramblings of Brittany Spears. If you are interested in a book with zero style and no flare this is just the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: The Fast and the Spurious?
Review: If this book were a vehicle, it would be a gangsta-customized SUV: flashy and big on frills, yet cumbersome and pompous. It would have a small engine, and its suspension would be stiff, as Amy Fine Collins remains throughout this overlong, underpowered memoir. Those familiar with her pieces in Vanity Fair may enjoy Collins as a competent if sometimes unintentionally amusing writer. But after fifty pages of this tale, I couldn't believe something so precious and narcissistic had been published by Simon & Schuster. Yet, as I plowed on, the many solecisms, misspellings, and other misuses of language that got past its editors began to make me lose confidence in Simon & Schuster itself.

Indeed, the writing quality of The God of Driving suggests that what Collins really needs is a Deity of Diction or a Saint of Syntax. There are misspellings and typos: "supercede"; "prize open" instead of "pry open" (a door), and misuses of such words as "comprise," "intriguing," and "ethnic." Just as annoying, given the choice of a simple modifier or a genteelism, Collins generally goes for bloat: "diminutive" rather than "small"; "resided" instead of "lived"; "purchased" rather than "bought," etc.

It's also hard not to groan at her corny "art history lite" similes: a seatbelt "snaked itself around my chest like one of Laocoön's attacking serpents"; "Like an Olympian arrow launched from Diana's bow, he shot onto Park Avenue"; a Maserati engine "rippled beneath our stunned gazes like the abdominal muscles of a Roman god." Then there are Collins's inaccurate classical references--Terence, not Seneca, wrote "Nothing human is alien to me"--and her dubious pronouncements on academic matters: art history is a "field that deals in ideas more than things," I was surprised to learn. Overall, the writing tone is effete and bloodless, and the dialogue arch and unrealistic.

Some of these problems would be forgivable if Collins herself weren't so insufferable. Her conceit can be stunning...almost comic: "What were [Attila and I] doing together--and what would have happened to him if he had never met me?"; "Normally the kind of person who's invisible to me...[Attila] wanted to prove to me that he wasn't at the bottom of the food chain." (With her incessant name-dropping of celebrities, designers, and opulent car brands, it's clear that Collins, not Attila, is the one with something to prove.)

Coming as all this does from a middle-class Tennessean who married up to New York WASP money, one expects to hear more irony when Collins touches on class-related matters. Yet she takes herself quite seriously. She's led a "cerebral" life, after all, writing about divas, decorators, and glitterati for Vanity Fair.

It's no surprise that Collins finds Bentleys--ride of choice of hip-hop moguls and Mafiosi--so alluring. As her recitation of luxe goods reaches its apogee ("Into the secret compartments of the Vanson jacket I zipped my cell phone and a tube of MAC Viva Glam lipstick"), one wonders what Collins is trying to achieve...aside from evoking the envy of aspiring nouveaux riches.

As a quasi-romance, this book has little to offer. The Amy-Attila relationship never rises above infatuation, as the author's coy overtures are rebuffed by the smug, elusive Turk. Though there are a few moments of genuine, adult tenderness, Collins comes off as rather girlish for a woman pushing fifty...longing breathily for a dominant-yet-caring father-figure in Attila.

As a self-help text, will this inspire many people to face their fears and take driving lessons? It's unlikely. Like its author, the book is thin on substance and big on superficial externalities...mediocre goods decked out in lavish accoutrements. Could a sequel be in the cards? Nisht fur dich gedacht!


Rating:
Summary: Zoom Zoom Hurrah!!
Review: Learning to drive and learning to do it well become the means of defeating old fears and widening one's horizons in this highly enjoyable and extraordinarily inspirational nvoel. It is as much a journey through a mutually perceptive friendship as it is a paean to automobiles, driving and achieving greater self-reliance. The author's mysterious teacher and his adventurous teaching methods are as fascinating as the author's personality turns out to be. Personally speaking, it motivated me to move beyond memories of horrible accidents in my childhood (similar to events in the author's youth) and finally to begin to learn to drive. Recommended to everyone who loves to drive or wants to learn to do so!

Rating:
Summary: Eloquent, poetic, insightful, and wise
Review: This book professes to be the simple narrative of a woman learning to drive in midlife, but it is in fact a splendid examination of what it means to face down fear, how addressing a single problem (driving phobia) can open one up to a whole new life of excitement and opportunity. Amy Fine Collins is in her own description a woman of consummate glamour and style. But those very qualities have served for her as a shield against the world; they are the carapce that protects her vulnerabilities. When she started driving lessons, she began to examine and expose her much-protected inner self, and as her relationship with her sagacious driving instructor developed, she allowed herself entry into profound feelings and emotional revelation. The instructor is a fascinating, compelling character; I wanted to take driving lessons with him even though I know how to drive and have had a license for 20 years, and you too will want to meet him. But the real story is of the unfurling of Collins's inner self, a self that proves even lovelier than the perfectly constructed life she had led. This book is a romance between a man and woman; it is the story of what friendship really is, describing an intimacy that bridges class and context; it is the story of a patient discovering herself in the intense closeness of a para-psychoanalytic relationship. Collins' forbidding exterior gives way to show someone who is kind, loving, and deeply insightful. The writing is lively and often achieves real brilliance, and the writer's intellect and soul seem to come together in the many wise observations with which the book is littered. It is a gorgeous work. Reading it, I felt newly ready to face the aspects of myself and the world that had made me afraid, and saw how a frank reckoning with terror can be utterly transformative at any stage of life. This book will change your life and make it better. It will teach you courage and the reasons for courage; it will make you more alive.



Rating:
Summary: Finding the road you didn't travel
Review: Word alchemist Amy Fine Collins weaves a spellbinding tale of self exploration as she takes to the road to conquer her long-standing fear of driving. In tandem with her charismatic and confident instructor, Collins strips away the layers of phobia by hitting them head-on in a fresh, honest, and completely unguarded way. Collins's virtuouso journalistic style turbocharges this riveting tale, which is ultimately a universal one of redemption and homecoming.