Rating: 
Summary: Infiltration by fraud.
Review: Where does one begin when talking about Pitcairn? The audience I speak to most likely has never set foot there. Do you dream of it perhaps? Maybe you have a notion all your own about this remote sub-tropical paradise in the middle of nowhere. Don't make Pitcairn out in your own likeness. If you do, maybe you will be let down as Ms. Birkett was. Pitcairn can represent an ideal, an abstract thought all your own relative to your day dreams. Pitcarin, however, is a tangible and real place. Humans occupy it, people like you and me. Therefore, the human experience is like it is anywhere whether Bangkok or along the Thames.
I regret buying this book. I did so out of curiousity and the fact that my library didn't carry it. Ms. Birkett took the intimacies she had with the locals and made it into income. Have you ever had an intimate honest conversation with a friend, a visitor, a lover? Now answer this...would you like them to make a book out of it for the publics dissemination?
If you are interested in Pitcairn I guess it might be an interesting read. I read it one afternoon beginning to end. I love Pitcairn, I think I always will. My journey took me three weeks to get there, only a short stop in Mangareva broke the endless blue horizon. I never tried to be a Pitcairner, as I knew I never would be maybe thats why I had such a beautiful time. Ms. Birkett tried to fit in and be one of the locals as she details in her book but to no avail. It's no surprise, Pitcairners are a heardy bunch, unique in themselves and as a group. If you werent born into it, you'll never be one, don't try.
I give this book 2 stars just becuase I am interested in Pitcairn and anything about it and its familiar places. If you are looking for a fair and balanced apprasial of the island don't buy into this. In fact, don't by into what I say....experience it for yourself if you are so lucky. Cheers
Rating: 
Summary: An unfortunate slight
Review: You have probably already read the other (mostly negative) reviews, so I'll spare you an exhaustive retelling of the plot. I was astonished at the blithe way Dea lies on her application to get on to the island-she seems to relish the idea that she "pulled one over" on the natives and beat them at their own game, when it is exactly people like her that they are trying to filter out. She then spends her time on Pitcairn alternately trying too hard to fit in (thus coming across as smarmy and over-ingratiating), or else trying to recreate her Western, more liberated life through the island's few rebellious members ( and coming across as self-centered and insensitive). Her writing style is excellent-she can carry a story beautifully. What a shame then, that her teenage-level emotional maturity causes the story to fall flat. What could have been a great insight into a slowly decaying, yet rich and colorful, society is instead a nasty, "dear diary" high school tittle-tattle. It makes sense that Dea earns her living writing for women's magazines-the dirt she dishes reads just like a Cosmo Hollywood gossip column; except the Pitcairners have absolutely no recourse to Dea's book-some of them can't even read. Dea did want to become a Pitcairner-on her terms only. When the rules became too strict for her tastes (No drinking?! No bacon?! No sex with married men?!) she simply flaunts them, hoping that her "specialness" would win the islanders over. I think the author hoped that the islanders would come across as backwards, strange, and hopelessly out of it, yet I found myself developing an affection for them-especially the ones she most disliked such as tough-old-broad Royal and the sweet misguided Dennis and his doting worrisome mother. Too bad Dea is one in a long line of screwy women who come to Pitcairn hoping to recreate themselves as goddesses of paradise and instead infest the land with their own bitter unrealized dreams.
Rating:
Summary: An unfortunate slight
Review: You have probably already read the other (mostly negative) reviews, so I'll spare you an exhaustive retelling of the plot. I was astonished at the blithe way Dea lies on her application to get on to the island-she seems to relish the idea that she "pulled one over" on the natives and beat them at their own game, when it is exactly people like her that they are trying to filter out. She then spends her time on Pitcairn alternately trying too hard to fit in (thus coming across as smarmy and over-ingratiating), or else trying to recreate her Western, more liberated life through the island's few rebellious members ( and coming across as self-centered and insensitive). Her writing style is excellent-she can carry a story beautifully. What a shame then, that her teenage-level emotional maturity causes the story to fall flat. What could have been a great insight into a slowly decaying, yet rich and colorful, society is instead a nasty, "dear diary" high school tittle-tattle. It makes sense that Dea earns her living writing for women's magazines-the dirt she dishes reads just like a Cosmo Hollywood gossip column; except the Pitcairners have absolutely no recourse to Dea's book-some of them can't even read. Dea did want to become a Pitcairner-on her terms only. When the rules became too strict for her tastes (No drinking?! No bacon?! No sex with married men?!) she simply flaunts them, hoping that her "specialness" would win the islanders over. I think the author hoped that the islanders would come across as backwards, strange, and hopelessly out of it, yet I found myself developing an affection for them-especially the ones she most disliked such as tough-old-broad Royal and the sweet misguided Dennis and his doting worrisome mother. Too bad Dea is one in a long line of screwy women who come to Pitcairn hoping to recreate themselves as goddesses of paradise and instead infest the land with their own bitter unrealized dreams.
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