Rating: 
Summary: should have been so much better
Review: I must praise Ms. Gelman for creating a very interesting life for
herself, but I found her book to be boring and repetitive. In fact, I didn't even bother to read the last 3 chapters because I
knew what was going to be said, only the names and locations changed from chapter to chapter. I also got tired of her take on friendship because she seems to collect friends like other people collect matchbooks. "Let's see now, the baggage handler at the airport just said hello, so chalk up another friend". As she described how she was able to join a group of people at a coffee shop, I could just picture them rolling their eyes at each other and asking "Who the hell is this woman"? Given the places she visited and the people she met along the way, this book should be much better than it is......
Rating: 
Summary: Inspirational Story
Review: A serendipitous discovery, this book has been truly inspirational for me. Apart from being a good read, this story will inspire women throughout the world to live our own lives and follow our dreams. Thank you Rita!
Rating: 
Summary: A LITERARY GIANT - NO, BUT A GOOD READ NEVERTHELESS
Review: I did enjoy this book. It was interesting. What it lacked in
narrative style, is certainly made up for with enthusiasm and charm. I should think that this was a difficult book for the author to creat. I certainly would not like to go through the sort of self-examination, memory dredge she apparently subjected herself to. Ms Rita would be a wonderful person to just set and swap stories with. Hope we get more.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting events written uninterestingly
Review: Although I honor Rita Golden Gelman for her intrepid spirit in traveling alone to exotic locales, and although I can relate to her background (I too grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut), I agree with the other reviewers who found her writing banal. I have not yet finished the book (after starting to read it one month ago), though I've tried mightily--because her style makes the most interesting events seem bland and boring. For her next outing, I would suggest Ms. Gelman acquire a ghost writer who is able to describe characters more imaginatively (all of the women in her book have "shiny black hair", and all of the men are "around forty"!)and who can create a more vivid sense of place and purpose.
Rating:
Summary: I was there
Review: I met Rita when she was on her first visit to New Zealand. I am unashamed to say that I was one of those who said "Stop telling these marvellous stories, Rita. Write them down. You are a writer, afterall." So Rita worked very hard, got an agent, a publisher and worked very very hard on her memoirs.
I am a writer myself. I know how very difficult and sometimes painful it is to write about oneself. In the process you uncover all kinds of things you had forgotten, hurts you thought had healed over begin to pain you once more. Sleepless nights, crazy dreams, waking nightmares - all kinds of things torment the writer when engaged in a project like this. [If you don't believe me, try writing about the first 20 years of your own life in lengthy intimate detail]
I am in awe of the fact that Rita wrote this memoir without notes. She is not a diarist, she is not engaged in keeping records of her travels. Yet she delved deeply into her memory of people, places and food successfully laying her adventures out here in this book like a feast for anyone to eat and drink from.
If Rita does not discuss politics or religion it is simply because those things do not interest her. Why write about things which simply do not rate? Would you?
It is only in writing about the things which one feels passionate about that a memorable book is achieved. Rita makes her passions plain and we can either join her and celebrate or not. It is your choice, afterall.
Rita stretched herself immensely in writing this memoir and that in itself is a measure of her bravery and loving honesty with herself and all the peoples of this world. Long may she travel.
I wonder if she will write any more books for children?
Someday I hope to see her again as Rita promotes her book around the world.
Congratulations Rita! You did it!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Destinations
Review: Your book Rita has sent me flying all over and has enabled me to travel for many hours.
Your very detailed and explicite tales are so realistic!
I haven't finished the book yet because I just don't want this trip to end.
I have felt some of the same emotions while travelling and it was formidable to go back there.
I would love it if you gave a talk in Ottawa.
My home is your home.
Thank you for writing this book and I will look for more in the near future.
Claire
Rating:
Summary: The Road Not Taken
Review: While Rita Gelman describes the countries she's visited and people she's met, her book is more of a travelogue than an insightful travel memoir. The writing is uninspired, particularly given the out-of-the-way places she visited and people she befriended. The roads she did take and places they led her had such potential to deliver fascinating insights into what she learned about herself in the process. But she chose not to take that road and rather gave us her travel diary: first I went here and met so-and-so and then I went there, etc.
Rating:
Summary: COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN - FASCINATING
Review: I picked up this book because I had heard about it through a book store.I could not put it down. Her travels were very descriptive and you felt like you were there or wanted to pack up your bags and do the same thing that she has done over the past 15 years. I admire the Chutzpah in this woman. I am a teacher and I teach in a very low socio economic area in Denver. Just learning about different cultures, religions, thoughts and daily lives was so very interesting. One of these days I would love to travel and visit the many places that she has. If you only pick up a couple of non-fiction books this year, PLEASE PICK THIS ONE UP! WOMEN UNITE, "PICK UP THIS BOOK AND GINGER ESSENCE/RITA GELMAN TRAVELS TAKE ME AWAY." A BUBBE OF TWO AND MOM OF FOUR 18-26.
Rating:
Summary: A GUTSY LIFE....POORLY WRITTEN
Review: Like a lot of ladies, I picked up this book thinking it would be a very interesting read and perhaps, I would learn a bit about that other life that so many of us long for.
Unfortunately, Ms. Gelman's background as a children's writer is very apparent in this book. Her dialogue is simplistic to the point of being embarrassing. If fact, in some places, it borders on "See Jane run".
While it is obvious that she has lead a gutsy and adventuresome life and has met through chance and great determination, many fascinating people, these people are poorly explored and expressed. While she mentions (repeatedly) how important they were to her, her writing lacks any real emotion and in many cases, completely skirts the true conditions of their situations.
There were very few times during the course of reading that I felt even remotely close to her or anyone else.
Also, she brings up the anthropology angle far too many times. She is not a anthropologist (her education aside)..She is only impartial when she chooses to be and plenty involved at other times. A true anthropologist would have provided much more detail about political & cultural conditions.All in all, I found this book disappointing. I suggest "Frost on my Moustache" by Tim Moore...much funnier and much, much better written.
Rating:
Summary: great concept...fair execution
Review: Ms Gelman has had a fascinating and gutsy life but her background in children's books shows in her writing. Her stories are interesting but flatly written. She may love her life and the people she has encountered but it is not really displayed in her writing..maybe she believes that she is writing as an anthropologist (a fact that she mentions far too often) but she skims rather than delves most of the time.
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