Of the memoir subgenre "college students go to exotic places and wacky/frightening hijinks ensue," I did prefer [b:Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven|4757303|Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven|Susan Jane Gilman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255603235s/4757303.jpg|4822089]. But this is interesting if a bit scattershot. ( )

Of the memoir subgenre "college students go to exotic places and wacky/frightening hijinks ensue," I did prefer [b:Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven|4757303|Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven|Susan Jane Gilman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255603235s/4757303.jpg|4822089]. But this is interesting if a bit scattershot. ( )

Memoir with an impossible-to-describe but perfectly pitched voice, will remind everybody what it is like to be 18-years-old and lost.

Quote: "One morning I looked out the window and a huge tank stood in front of our house. It took up the whole street. So the FMLN ran away and the army moved in. They put a missile launcher in the window and my mother dusted it every day. ‘Mom,’ I said, ‘stop dusting that thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s dusty.’ Still, she dusted. And she tidied. All day she went around the living room, putting the grenades into little rows and folding the soldiers’ clothing. They never lived anywhere so clean." ( )

Like another reviewer wrote, this book is more about its subtitle and less about the title itself. I think I would have enjoyed it more had the opposite been true, but given Unferth's motivations for being in Central America, maybe that's not so much the case. And that, I guess, is probably my issue with the memoir in general-- she captures being 18 and in a kind of obsessive love very, very well, perhaps because she hasn't entirely moved on from that stage of her life per the memoir. Unfortunately, those things don't make for a very likable narrator, which I found myself struggling with as a reader at times. This said, there are moments of real beauty and wisdom in her narrative as well; they're just somewhat rare. ( )

When Deb Olin Unferth was 18, she fell in love with George, a fellow student, who was rather rebellious, and bit strange. Being in love, it seemed young Deb would do anything for her boyfriend. She changed her religion from Jewish to Christian, to her family’s dismay, and followed George on his journey to ‘foment’ the revolution in Central America.

The naiveté of youth leads Deb to somewhere she is totally unprepared for, and the often treacherous journey to Nicaragua leaves an impression on her that remains to this day. From reading the memoir, it seems that some twenty years after her venture into this unknown territory, she is still deeply affected by that trip. Indeed she made a journey back to Nicaragua after ten years and then continued to visit the places she’d been to in her youth for years, as if the country had some kind of hold on her.

This book is one woman’s story about how love can make people do the strangest things, and also how first love can leave its mark for a lifetime. It appears, from reading the book, that the author retains a deep curiosity about her ex-fiancé, George (he proposed whilst they were on the road and they broke off the engagement soon after. They lost touch a few years after returning home).

On their trip to join the revolution in 1987, Deb and George find jobs and get fired, sleep in spider-infested hotels, get very ill, get robbed many times, and almost drown at sea. There are very interesting stories about their adventure told in a humourous and sentimental way by the author.

The book is very well written, and kept me interested. It’s quite thought-provoking and insightful in parts.

Reviewed by Maria Savva as a reviewer for Bookpleasures. ( )