Wanderlove – Kirsten Hubbard (Review)

Hardcover, 352 pages
Expected publication: March 13th 2012 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:

It all begins with a stupid question:

Are you a Global Vagabond?

No, but 18-year-old Bria Sandoval wants to be. In a quest for independence, her neglected art, and no-strings-attached hookups, she signs up for a guided tour of Central America—the wrong one. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are hardly the key to self-rediscovery. When Bria meets Rowan, devoted backpacker and dive instructor, and his outspokenly humanitarian sister Starling, she seizes the chance to ditch her group and join them off the beaten path.

Bria’s a good girl trying to go bad. Rowan’s a bad boy trying to stay good. As they travel across a panorama of Mayan villages, remote Belizean islands, and hostels plagued with jungle beasties, they discover what they’ve got in common: both seek to leave behind the old versions of themselves. And the secret to escaping the past, Rowan’s found, is to keep moving forward.

But Bria comes to realize she can’t run forever, no matter what Rowan says. If she ever wants the courage to fall for someone worthwhile, she has to start looking back.

Kirsten Hubbard lends her artistry to this ultimate backpacker novel, weaving her drawings into the text. Her career as a travel writer and her experiences as a real-life vagabond backpacking Central America are deeply seeded in this inspiring story.

Review:

It was a long time ago that Cindy told me to read this book because she loves it so much (thanks Cindy). It took me a while to get around to it as it is a contemporary and I kept getting distracted by supernatural beings (those faeries, I tell you, so pesky). But, guys, seriously, this book? Is awesome. I mean, I don’t read much contemporary (okay, or I used to not read much contemporary but recent contemporary has been rocking my socks off) and the cover is not my favourite but the story inside is. Wait, let me take a breath and clear out the cobwebs in my head.

Wanderlove takes the reader of her comfort zone, plunks her in an unfamiliar country and unsettles her further by situating her in foreign language. It dares the reader to travel with the protagonist and shed all her preexisting stereotypes and classifications and to just live as deeply, to be as brave as she can. Even if she doesn’t succeed in the end, the fact that she made an effort to explore, to go beyond what she knows, that’s what’s important and THAT I believe is the message of Wanderlove.

Bria has not had an easy time of it recently so when she goes off to travel in a different country, alone, despite her friend’s disbelief that she’d actually go through with something that is so unlike her, she takes a big step, a huge step away from what is normal for her. I liked how Bria, as a character, is flawed but at the same time, she is flawed in a way that a person can empathize with and not hate. We feel her narrowness at the beginning, the unwillingness to take risks, stubbornly clinging to her preconceived notions about people and things. And we are also witnesses as she slowly changes, maturing from the person she was to the person she becomes.

I love how vividly the backpacking experience is detailed. I wonder if Hubbard made the trek herself or if this is the result of some insane researching. Either ways, it is brilliantly portrayed, down to the last detail and you can feel the heat on your skin and you can almost see the blue of the ocean. I think one of the biggest strengths of this book was the narration that served to convey the experience in all its gritty detail without descending to purple prose or relying on abstract images.

And the romance. Rowan is just as flawed as Bria and just like Bria, he is all the more compelling for it. There is something so earnest, so sincere about the way their relationship grows, develops, their courtship for lack of a better word, that you can’t help but fall in love with Rowan just as Bria does. I love it when an author spends enough time on the courtship period so that the reader can properly understand exactly why the love interest is so interesting and Hubbard does not disappoint at all in this regard.

In conclusion, my dearest Reader, Wanderlove is a book you need to check out. Even if you don’t like contemporary. Read it for the journey Bria takes, of rebirth, regeneration, of love, of a different country where the language is foreign and the people unfamiliar, read it and learn how  home is more a person and less a location.