Kirsten Hubbard lends her artistry to this ultimate backpacker novel, weaving her drawings into the text. If she ever wants the courage to fall for someone worthwhile, she has to start looking back. And the secret to escaping the past, Rowan’s found, is to keep moving forward.īut Bria comes to realise she can’t run forever, no matter what Rowan says. 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. 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.īria’s a good girl trying to go bad. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are hardly the key to self-rediscovery. 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. It’s the book that reminds you that sometimes, you’re still 18 and figuring life out, hoping to find your own wanderlove.No, but 18-year-old Bria Sandoval wants to be.

It’s about falling in love at your own pace, in the present with no talk about the future. It’s about battling your insecurities and vulnerabilities as a teen to free yourself from your own mind and society. It’s about seeing the beauty in commuting in a makeshift catamaran that can easily knock you over, riding a 10 hour bus just to get to paradise, staying in a dorm with shared bathrooms and hurdling at the sight of 1000 insects that occupy your room just so that you can see the world, little by little. Wanderlove is the book to read if you’re lost, miss traveling and trying to remember what the teenager in you felt 10 years ago.

It was all too familiar and sometimes still too raw. I resonated with everything Bria was feeling – being 18, heartbroken, taking a trip to nowhere, photographing, writing, sketching, painting, falling in love. I rarely pick up books I’ve never heard of before, but for some reason the debate between the head and the heart led with the heart winning.Īs I started reading the book I found myself more and more engrossed. I was rummaging through book after book in a recent book sale when I stumbled upon Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard.