Lost and Found

"The only leaps of faith you"ll ever regret are the ones you don't take."

I know, I know. This post is a long time coming. It's been well over a month since I started reading The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Amanda Pressner, and Holly Corbett. I'd be willing to attribute the lengthy reading time to a few different things:

1. The incredible amount of quotable quotes, like the one above, would pull me away from the book long enough to write them down and then get distracted by something else.

2. The 538 page total makes it no short read... Although that's not a good excuse since I have been known to devour certain other 500+ page books in mere days (re: anything from the Harry Potter, Twilight, or Vampire Academy series)

3. The abundance of other things going on in my life in the past month have left little down time for reading. There have been several out of town guests, my own travels, several busy teaching days, and quite the unfair amount of what I consider great television (American Idol, Glee, The Voice, musical Grey's Anatomy, a Royal Wedding... you can see the trend in my TV taste, I'm sure) to keep me from tuning out the world to read.

and 4. Possibly one of the biggest factors would be simply the content of the book itself. When the "Lost Girls" were travelling the globe and telling about the sights and situations and people, I was devouring the book page by page taking it all in. I find it very exciting to read about the extraordinary things travellers can do when they're not afraid to stray from the beaten path. However, the novel was about much more than just travelling. It's not called the LOST Girls for nothing... All three of the girls had their own personal journeys to undertake. They had to grow and figure life out; they had to find out what they wanted, and inevitably what they didn't want. It was during these moments that I devoured the book word by word. The simple truth being that I can relate to the whole 20-something struggle to "figure it all out." To be found instead of lost. It was because of this connection I felt to the girls and their lives that it took me a little longer to read. I would read in very small doses, really contemplating their insights and seeing if they related at all to how I felt/feel.

It sounds a little heavy, I suppose. But in the end, I'm pretty happy with the book. It was an exciting, thought-provoking, and at times humourous travel memoir with a very realistic ending. Though it never really did end as the Lost Girls are still figuring life out a day at a time, just like me.