Rating: 
Summary: Shooting the Shallows
Review: A band of adventure lovers tries to be the first to raft down the Boh River in Borneo. You'd think it would be a ripping good adventure story: they're out in the middle of nowhere with no rescue radios to call for help, on an uncharted river without good maps, riding in rafts that flip over when they hit the rocks wrong. They barely miss going over a waterfall, the three-day trip is on day nine, they're running out of food, and foot rot is making it really tough to walk.
But incredibly, the author downplays all these dangers and instead gives us a book-length musing on her fading youth and beauty.
She's endlessly fascinated with co-tourist Sylvie, a twenty-something fashion model whose reason for being on the trip is never adequately explained. She carefully documents Sylvie's laughing comments in French, the way she sleeps, her videotaped snapshots of the beautiful people on the trip, and her every mini-bikini and clean, dry shirt. With Sylvie around, says the author, "I could see that men were ignoring me and I didn't like it."
She gives us every nuance of Sylvie's jungle romance with Mike the hunky boatman, from his initial attentions to their every disappearance later on. The pair could have been used to good advantage, giving the author a chance to reflect on her own marriage to a man who doesn't accompany her on adventures. Kelly Winters is frank about her personal life in WALKING HOME, because her personal life has everything to do with why she's on the trip.
But not Johnston. Not even the onset of hot flashes crack her. Proof that her childbearing days are over (even if she does survive the trip) provoke no thoughts on the choices she's made. We are given no information as to whether she has kids or not, or whether her career has worked out the way she'd expected. Menopause hits and she never once thinks about what might have been. She never once wonders if she's made the right choices.
Indeed, her major annoyance is not her hot flashes (or the bees, leeches, or poisonous snakes) but the fact that Sylvie is consistently failing to loan her an air mattress. Of all the nerve, can you believe it? An air mattress, the one thing she cannot live without.
And why doesn't Johnston have an air mattress? Well, her luggage never made it to Jakarta. She went out shopping for replacement supplies, but was apparently too jetlagged to remember anything that she'd spent months acquiring back at home. She only manages to buy tennis shoes ("too large"), a flashlight ("too powerful"), a towel ("the size of a doily"), a pair of shorts, and unsatisfactory flowered bedsheets.
But sirrah! The intrepid adventurer doesn't turn back, she goes anyway...and spends the entire trip begging foot powder and flashlight batteries from everyone there, even the river guides who need them. She makes no attempt to adequately explain her problem to anyone, and when they react badly, she wants us to pity her.
Oh, and she'd injured her back a month before the trip and can't do any heavy lifting.
She was no more revealing about anyone else on the trip, either. Not once is anyone shown to be, for example, *afraid*. No one is described in any revealing detail. Her big revelation has nothing to do with death or life, but rather that Sylvie's constant body checking for blemishes, and her huge wardrobe packed in double plastic bags is a good set of living skills for the rain forest.
Meanwhile, all the real dangers are waved away; they're the guides' problem. It's all too clear that this tourist has paid her money and will sit in the raft and be one with the rain forest and write in her journal until it's time to beg for stuff. An unsatisfactory adventure all around.
Rating:
Summary: Shooting the Shallows
Review: A band of adventure lovers tries to be the first to raft down the Boh River in Borneo. You'd think it would be a ripping good adventure story: they're out in the middle of nowhere with no rescue radios to call for help, on an uncharted river without good maps, riding in rafts that flip over when they hit the rocks wrong. They barely miss going over a waterfall, the three-day trip is on day nine, they're running out of food, and foot rot is making it really tough to walk.
But incredibly, the author downplays all these dangers and instead gives us a book-length musing on her fading youth and beauty.
She's endlessly fascinated with co-tourist Sylvie, a twenty-something fashion model whose reason for being on the trip is never adequately explained. She carefully documents Sylvie's laughing comments in French, the way she sleeps, her videotaped snapshots of the beautiful people on the trip, and her every mini-bikini and clean, dry shirt. With Sylvie around, says the author, "I could see that men were ignoring me and I didn't like it."
She gives us every nuance of Sylvie's jungle romance with Mike the hunky boatman, from his initial attentions to their every disappearance later on. The pair could have been used to good advantage, giving the author a chance to reflect on her own marriage to a man who doesn't accompany her on adventures. Kelly Winters is frank about her personal life in WALKING HOME, because her personal life has everything to do with why she's on the trip.
But not Johnston. Not even the onset of hot flashes crack her. Proof that her childbearing days are over (even if she does survive the trip) provoke no thoughts on the choices she's made. We are given no information as to whether she has kids or not, or whether her career has worked out the way she'd expected. Menopause hits and she never once thinks about what might have been. She never once wonders if she's made the right choices.
Indeed, her major annoyance is not her hot flashes (or the bees, leeches, or poisonous snakes) but the fact that Sylvie is consistently failing to loan her an air mattress. Of all the nerve, can you believe it? An air mattress, the one thing she cannot live without.
And why doesn't Johnston have an air mattress? Well, her luggage never made it to Jakarta. She went out shopping for replacement supplies, but was apparently too jetlagged to remember anything that she'd spent months acquiring back at home. She only manages to buy tennis shoes ("too large"), a flashlight ("too powerful"), a towel ("the size of a doily"), a pair of shorts, and unsatisfactory flowered bedsheets.
But sirrah! The intrepid adventurer doesn't turn back, she goes anyway...and spends the entire trip begging foot powder and flashlight batteries from everyone there, even the river guides who need them. She makes no attempt to adequately explain her problem to anyone, and when they react badly, she wants us to pity her.
Oh, and she'd injured her back a month before the trip and can't do any heavy lifting.
She was no more revealing about anyone else on the trip, either. Not once is anyone shown to be, for example, *afraid*. No one is described in any revealing detail. Her big revelation has nothing to do with death or life, but rather that Sylvie's constant body checking for blemishes, and her huge wardrobe packed in double plastic bags is a good set of living skills for the rain forest.
Meanwhile, all the real dangers are waved away; they're the guides' problem. It's all too clear that this tourist has paid her money and will sit in the raft and be one with the rain forest and write in her journal until it's time to beg for stuff. An unsatisfactory adventure all around.
Rating: 
Summary: Shooting the Boh : A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River
Review: An "explorer" does not an author make, and this is certainly the case here. I was very disappointed in this book. The trip was certainly full of excitement, terror and sheer surprise on all the participants' parts, but what we mostly read about is the author's lame exploration into her suddenly having a natural life experience(the sudden and inexplicable onslaught of menopause at age 40 in the middle of a tropical jungle). She did not develope the characters on the trip, including herself, so that when something happened to any one of them it was a predictable yawn. I would love to read about this trip written by anyone of the others that were along for the ride of their lives - someone a little less shallow, a little more involved with the group, a lot less whiney. This author was the person that one will find on organized trips, and the one you spend time trying to avoid. Granted, she lost her luggage, but her personality type would be the one to have lost her luggage! If it wasn't centered around her, it wasn't worth a mention. I nearly threw the book down when she finally gets ahold of some foot powder (of which there was a very limited supply), and she proceeds to slather it on so generously that the person generous enough to offer it to her had to tell her to stop wasting it! At another point, her flashlight dead in the water due to battery failure, she finally begs some batteries, (again, in short supply), and proceeds to read in her tent with the thing lit! Absolutely clueless on what it takes to think ahead! Drove me nuts. I kept asking myself, what has she contributed to the group? Answer? You read it and see if you can figure it out.
Rating:
Summary: Shooting the Boh : A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River
Review: An "explorer" does not an author make, and this is certainly the case here. I was very disappointed in this book. The trip was certainly full of excitement, terror and sheer surprise on all the participants' parts, but what we mostly read about is the author's lame exploration into her suddenly having a natural life experience(the sudden and inexplicable onslaught of menopause at age 40 in the middle of a tropical jungle). She did not develope the characters on the trip, including herself, so that when something happened to any one of them it was a predictable yawn. I would love to read about this trip written by anyone of the others that were along for the ride of their lives - someone a little less shallow, a little more involved with the group, a lot less whiney. This author was the person that one will find on organized trips, and the one you spend time trying to avoid. Granted, she lost her luggage, but her personality type would be the one to have lost her luggage! If it wasn't centered around her, it wasn't worth a mention. I nearly threw the book down when she finally gets ahold of some foot powder (of which there was a very limited supply), and she proceeds to slather it on so generously that the person generous enough to offer it to her had to tell her to stop wasting it! At another point, her flashlight dead in the water due to battery failure, she finally begs some batteries, (again, in short supply), and proceeds to read in her tent with the thing lit! Absolutely clueless on what it takes to think ahead! Drove me nuts. I kept asking myself, what has she contributed to the group? Answer? You read it and see if you can figure it out.
Rating: 
Summary: Very honest
Review: Anyone looking for "The Perfect Storm" or a rollicking whitewater adventure will be disappointed by this very honest account of a woman on a rafting trip. The trip itself is almost a complete disaster, but the compelling story is how a normally strong, self-sufficient woman suddenly finds herself coping with her changing role in the group dynamic, and the very important factors of physical beauty. Anyone who has been on a group adventure tour will recognize the diversity of personalities and realize that getting down the rapids is only half of the challenge!
Rating:
Summary: A Woman's Adventure Story
Review: Had this book been written years ago, it would have been authored by a man! But now, here's a seemingly "normal" almost menopausal woman, who shares so many of our everyday thoughts, having an adventure that, had she not written the book, we would have wondered whether she lived to tell the tale!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not earth-shattering
Review: Her account of a wild trip down a river in Borneo was entertaining, and a light, pleasant read, but I found much to be annoyed by. The whole trip seemed like a disaster waiting to happen: inexperienced "clients" going down an unfamiliar, unknown river, with insufficient food and supplies. It's just pure luck that they didn't have any serious problems, injuries, or fatalities. I get tired of reading about modern people trying to "get back to nature" and find "adventure" when what they're really doing is risking their own and other's safety. I was also really annoyed by the author's fixation on good looks, her own sense of being "over the hill" at age 40, and her dependence on the others in the outfit. I am only giving this book a 3 because it's fairly well-written, and it's a light entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: I felt like I had really been there on the river.
Review: I enjoyed this book because it gave me the feeling of having actually gone down the river with the author. I also liked hearing about it from the point of view of a woman in her forties.
Rating:
Summary: Very honest
Review: I had intended to read a chapter or two of this book and ended up reading it in one sitting. It really was an interesting trip, and the descriptions of life in the rain forest are just amazing. The author slips in a fair amount of history of the earlier explorers and travel writers in the area but mostly manages to interleave things enough to keep the pace up. I almost didn't buy the book after reading some of the earlier reviews so I think I'd better address some of their points. There are maybe two pages about the hot flashes (out of 256) and a few mentions -- basically along the line of mentioning her spider bites, bee bites, foot rot, hot flashes, bad back, etc. It's really no big deal, and this is coming from a 30 year old "basic guy". I do think a responsible tour company would have stopped her from going on the trip after the airline lost her luggage instead of assuming she could borrow everything, but then again I think a responsible tour company would have brought a radio (duh) and had some plans as to what would have happened if, say, somebody had broken a leg. This trip could have turned into a real disaster. And while the author was often wasting resources, so was the whole group. They really didn't realize what a mess they were in until they were in deep over their heads. The whole interaction between the tour company (operating without a clue) the guides (competent but following the company line because they need the money) and the tourists (didn't ask the right questions before leaving or during the trip) is pretty fascinating. It's a real argument for independent travel. . . but not to the rain forest!
Rating:
Summary: She goes there so you don't have to
Review: I had intended to read a chapter or two of this book and ended up reading it in one sitting. It really was an interesting trip, and the descriptions of life in the rain forest are just amazing. The author slips in a fair amount of history of the earlier explorers and travel writers in the area but mostly manages to interleave things enough to keep the pace up. I almost didn't buy the book after reading some of the earlier reviews so I think I'd better address some of their points. There are maybe two pages about the hot flashes (out of 256) and a few mentions -- basically along the line of mentioning her spider bites, bee bites, foot rot, hot flashes, bad back, etc. It's really no big deal, and this is coming from a 30 year old "basic guy". I do think a responsible tour company would have stopped her from going on the trip after the airline lost her luggage instead of assuming she could borrow everything, but then again I think a responsible tour company would have brought a radio (duh) and had some plans as to what would have happened if, say, somebody had broken a leg. This trip could have turned into a real disaster. And while the author was often wasting resources, so was the whole group. They really didn't realize what a mess they were in until they were in deep over their heads. The whole interaction between the tour company (operating without a clue) the guides (competent but following the company line because they need the money) and the tourists (didn't ask the right questions before leaving or during the trip) is pretty fascinating. It's a real argument for independent travel. . . but not to the rain forest!
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