BIOGRAPHY

Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime

by Maggie Downs
Counterpoint. May 2020. 304p. ISBN 9781640092921. $26. MEMOIR
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When travel writer Downs’s mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the author vowed to travel the world to see the places her mother always wanted to visit. Her travels bring her to a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, a circumcision ritual in Uganda, and a yoga camp on the Sinai Peninsula. While her mother’s health grew progressively worse back home, Downs reflected on her mother’s life while visiting places many Westerners would claim are unsafe for a solo female traveler. She takes the trip not only to assert her independence but to honor her mother, who told her she is “braver than you think.”
VERDICT Part travelog, part grief memoir, this is for readers who want to experience the thrill of solo travel as experienced by someone slowly losing a parent. 
Reviewed by Erin Shea, Ferguson Lib., CT , Apr 01, 2020
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