Rating: 
Summary: Absorbingly human and painfully funny travel diary
Review: Already a big fan of 'The Big Rumpus' and her 'East Village Inky' zine, I was more than pleased to get a signed copy of Ms. Halliday's latest work as a b-day present. I was not disappointed. After about two chapters, I could barely put this book down and looked forward to bedtime every night so I could delve into the next wacky misadventure. Maybe it's her self-depracating sense of humor, maybe it's her willingness to do the things I'll never have to guts to do, maybe it's her talent with the pen. It's probably all of those things, but I loved this book and laughed aloud often enough to alarm those around me. I loved every last bit, but especially connected to the chapters on Kosiya, Doggiepants, and, because I am a mother, what it's like to suddenly find yourself tethered to a little one. And the inclusion of the 'no touch monkey' sign at the beginning was priceless. Can't rave enough about this little gem, so please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Ayun Halliday is quirky, gritty, and smarty funny!
Review: Ayun Halliday's writing is seamless. Brave enough to publish even the most grizly of details, Ayun shows how even a seasoned traveler can be felled to her proverbial knees in the face of other customs, cultures, and uh, sewer systems. Her honesty, though shocking at first, makes this a good (okay...great) read. Ayun's humor is clever, her experiences outrageous, and her personality oddly beguiling. I am tempted myself to go have some offbeat, comic, low budget traverses of my own...except I'm now off to read her other book, the big rumpus!
Rating: 
Summary: News from a broad
Review: Filled with stories that invariably involve some combination of impromptu excursion, loose stool, and incipient jock itch, this book quickly grew tiresome. Lurching also between drunken fratboy whoohoo tedium and J.R. Peterman copywriting style self-promotion of the ain't I cool variety, it contains no substantive "travel lessons," unless one considers 'man was I stoned off my ass' type revelations insightful. In fact, considering her banzai buckaroo approach to risk assessment one wonders why Ayun hasn't been the victim of more serious misadventure than she describes. One hopes that any woman traveling alone would take more precautions, as while adventure can be had the world is not solely populated with quaint country folk willing to do you a good turn. This is not to say that Ayun isn't a proficient writer, one suspects though, as evidenced by the experiences of her petulant traveling companions, that these are fairly tame episodes written about in an interesting manner. That is to say, given her knack for storytelling and interesting metaphor, the lack of any real insight in her work is all the more disappointing. Written with real bravery, humility, and open-heartedness, Rita Golden Gelman's travelogue, Tales of a Female Nomad, is a more noteworthy read overflowing with revelations of the transformative power of cross cultural interaction.
Rating:
Summary: Hee hee hee
Review: Halliday's very funny, self-depricating and never-self-pitying travel memoir took me on the post-collegiate backpacker tour of the world that I was too lazy and unadventerous to go on myself. It's a perfect armchair travel read -- Halliday sleeps on trains, drinks mysterious drinks, takes risks, gets ill, gets filthy, talks to strangers; you get all the fun, while she did all the work -- and lived to tell about it with great wit and charm. A must-read for any young person heading out to see the world -- or for people like me, glad to hear about it from the safe harbor of middle age.
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Summary: Mudpants Returns
Review: I am quite sure I have found my long lost sister. She was never that tidy, or smart. Now she has proven my past observations to be absolutely true. I think she is why Ol' Dipper has never married after the tapioca incident with her 'girlfriends' when I was a sweet, tubby lad of nine. Girls can be really, really bad, and smelly. I last saw her in 1984 in the rear view mirror of my old Yugo as I drove away from a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop as she scurried towards the bathroom after insisting on chugging a whole bottle of ExLax for 'relief' after eating a whole pound of Quarter-Pounders in a Mickey Ds in Delaware. The adventures written in this book appear to pick up shortly after then and remain largely similar.
Rating: 
Summary: Ayun is whiney, self-absorbed.....and rocks!
Review: I find it interesting reading reviews of this book, which are either of the "Ayun Rocks" variety, or "What a ugly, self-absorbed American" variety. I don't think I'd want Ayun as a traveling companion, but I did enjoy her adventures, and while there are no deep insights into the travel experience, society, bringing the world together, or other high-minded ideals, there are a lot of small, unique insights sprinkled through the book if one cares to look hard enough. It's not for the squeamish. I did not find the passages on bowel movements, lack of hygiene, scoring dope, and other moments best not recounted at the family dinner table excessive, and Halliday certainly didn't set out to write another travelogue anyway. Watch Travel Channel if that isn't your cup of tea.
A wouldn't call it rip-roaring hilarious, but there are a lot of laughs, and it's written breezily enough that it's a good way to while away the afternoon. If they would let me give it 3 1/2 stars, that's what I'd give this book, so I'll round up to 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: The work of a good American
Review: I loved reading No Touch Monkey and seeing diverse parts of the world against the backdrop of Ayun Halliday's tumultuous yet amazingly inexpensive world travels. Set roughly in the late 80's to mid 90's, Ayun tells of her roustabout twenties in the most personal ways. She is not a simple post-college girl gone wild; she is more akin to an American intellectual version of a Mitford sister. Though more like Jessica than Nancy, she shares their sincerity if not their avoidance of the graphic. While many "educated" women (and men) of her generation were rushing off to pursue MBA's (the degrees and/or the possessors of them) for the sole purpose of lining their pockets, Ayun looked for something higher or lower. Either way, she was looking and she was doing it with far less money than the rest of her peer group has been spending on the monthly upkeep of their SUV or European car of choice.
While it is cute, funny and sassy, No Touch Monkey is a wonderful book for the best of reasons: it inspires the rest of us to expand our horizons and denies us the excuse that we can't afford to.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugly American
Review: I'm a great fan of this sort of book but this one surprized me. Ms Halliday takes us on quite a journey throughout the world and focuses almost exclusively on her own discomforts--how poor she is, how high she is, how dirty she is, how sick she is, how unlucky she is to have male companions less game for "authentic" experiences than herself, then there is her bowel...I realized that I was reading a book by the proverbial ugly American. As such it is a chastening tale to us all, and worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: ayun rocks.
Review: i've been a fan of ayun's writing on parenthood for a few years now..from her column in BUST, the 'east village inky' and her first book The Big Rumpus..but i was concerned about her veering off into a travel narrative. it actually sat on my nightstand for almost 2 months, for fear of starting it and being disappointed that it lacked the humor that Inky and Milo provide. last night i picked it up and couldn't put it down, i read it cover to cover in three hours and now the only disappointment is that i wish i savored it a little longer. i never traveled to all the exotic lands she did but my travels, like hers, have come to a halt since motherhood. she has provided, in a humorous page-turning way, enough travel memories to last through the toddler years. thank you ayun..i'll never doubt you again!ps. i never once thought the book was "whiney!!"
Rating:
Summary: A book for "true travelers, not tourists"
Review: If you've ever traveled on the cheap or bummed around Europe or Southeast Asia, this book is for you. If you've ever wanted to do so, it is equally a great read for Halliday is so matter-a-fact, so immodest and honest about her bumps, failures and travel successes, that you will laugh out loud at the recognition of what it is to be a true traveler as opposed to just a tourist on a one week holiday abroad. She is an outrageously amusing narrator.
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