Praise for Braver Than You Think
"Downs has a fluid, conversational writing style, zooming in to particular anecdotes that illuminate her experience rather than trying to cover the entire year . . . The travel sections are compelling and lively. A poignant tale of connection and disconnection through travel." Kirkus Reviews
“In prose so vivid that I felt the coral cutting her feet in the Red Sea, the sharp fangs of a monkey as his teeth hit her flesh, and the devastation of losing her mother, Maggie Downs proves she’s a great stylist and a great storyteller. If you want an adventure story, a love story, a story about losing a parent or about becoming oneor if you’re simply looking for a great read Braver Than You Think is your book.” Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
“Maggie Downs writes beautifully in that liminal space where joy and grief overlap to form another kind of feeling where 'brokenness makes the cracks that can be filled again.' A brave story of one woman's love journey to honor and mourn her mother and to find herself in the process. There's something here for everyoneequal parts travel adventure and adventure of the heart. A triumphant book!" Karen Rinaldi, author of It's Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff That Really Matters
“Maggie Downs is Braver Than You Thinkand braver than she thinks, before she sets off on the globe-trotting, culture-hopping, grief-haunted trip of her (and her mother’s) lifetime. This is a book about love and loss, yes, but also about survival, about curiosity and determination, and about how to thrive when the world seems suddenly to hold no certainty. I devoured this book in one sitting and closed its last pages enriched, moved, and inspired. You will be, too.” Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body
"Deeply inspiring and profoundly moving, Maggie Downs's journey reminds us to take stock of what's truly important. Gorgeous prose, fascinating adventures, and a lot of heart will make this one of your favorite books of the year." ––Claire Bidwell Smith, author of The Rules of Inheritance
"She encounters monkeys in Bolivia, grilled camel in Egypt (as a vegetarian), and roadwork in Thailand, all to learn courage in places her mom never got to see. But the most moving scenes are about her mother in the grip of Alzheimer’s, and the result is an affecting and hard-to-put-down meditation on life and grief.” Michael Scott Moore, author of The Desert and the Sea
"With a mother in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, Maggie Downs tries to run from her grief, but instead takes us to the far reaches of the globe, cuddling (and being bitten) by endangered monkeys, bonding with elephants, and working to save sea turtles. It’s a journey to make any of us wonder if we’re braver than we think." Diana Marcum, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Tenth Island
“What a gorgeous bookfull of adventure and suspense. I'd follow Maggie Downs anywhere. She's not just intrepid, she's excellent company: funny, deep, vulnerable, exquisitely honest, and such a good writer. Downs is the hero we need nowone to inspire each of us to be our best self and live our best life.” Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade
"Gorgeous and heart-wrenching story! We need more women's travel narratives, particularly ones that take us along the hard journeys." Carrie Pirmann, Bucknell University Bertrand Library (Lewisburg, PA)
04/01/2020
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.—Erin Shea, Ferguson Lib., CT
2020-02-09
Journalist Downs dedicates a trip around the world to her dying mother.
In 2010, newly married and having just quit a 10-year job as a reporter in Palm Springs, the author took a relatively low-budget trip to places her mother, who was suffering the late stages of Alzheimer's disease, had always wanted to see and others that were on her own bucket list. The first couple weeks were a sort of honeymoon, with Downs and her husband, Jason, staying in Peru at a freezing-cold hostel, facing dangers while climbing the Inca Trail, and getting attacked by mosquitoes in the Amazon rainforest. Then Jason returned to work, leaving Downs to make her way through South America, Africa, and Asia, sometimes on her own and other times with companions she met along the way—and often without internet or phone access to communicate with her family and friends. She often paid for her food and lodging by volunteering or working, sometimes teaching English and one time working as a DJ playing American country music in Uganda. When her mother died, Downs was staying at a yoga retreat in Egypt. “Word of my mother’s death,” she writes, “spreads quickly through the dozen or so long-term residents, and they rush to take on some of my pain.” She returned home for the funeral and then set off again. At multiple points, the author seems to be trying to assure herself that her travel is truly for her mother and not a form of escape. Recounting a whitewater rafting trip on the Nile, she writes, “I knew she would take chances if she had the opportunity. I have to do this, because she cannot.” Downs has a fluid, conversational writing style, zooming in to particular anecdotes that illuminate her experience rather than trying to cover the entire year. While the segments devoted to her mother and her disease are integrated rather awkwardly into the narrative, the travel sections are compelling and lively.
A poignant tale of connection and disconnection through travel.