Adventure car travel; La Salle; Peking to Paris 2007.

Let's preface, I received this book in return for an honest review. I considered it a good read, but less of a travelogue and more human interest. This is a real account of an actual event, as remembered by the author.

I was immediately involved by the simple fact that I also have motion sickness in vehicles unless I am driving, so I understood Dina's trepidation at the start of the trip very well.

Without giving away too much about the rally itself, I no longer have any desire to own a vintage automobile. Dina is the navigator and first person narrator, and her husband Bernard the driver and mechanic. As the reader, you will really feel like you are along in the backseat on this roadtrip. I do wish they would have had the chance to see more of the places they travelled through, and it sounds as if they did so on future expeditions.

I and my husband have enjoyed (endured) a number of road trips, but I doubt our own relationship would have survived this one. They came out the other end much stronger, IMO.

I am happy that I read most of the book, then returned from my own life-changing adventure to finish the last third. It brought everything full circle in that it is what we bring back from our own experiences that makes such a trip so important to us all. ( )

This was not a good book at all. I felt like I was reading a series of rambling posts about how hard it is to drive across Eurasia without really getting any sense of how hard it was. The author didn't really discuss how much it cost for this adventure but I could easily tell that it was an insane amount of money. I would have loved to have at least learned more about that. I also didn't get much from this in terms of meeting people and interacting with locals. Because, honestly, that's not what the p2p is about. This could have been interesting book if it were written by someone who was a complete outsider to this OR if the author was just driving on her own. Otherwise, this was just a super boring book. ( )

What do you do when you marry a man who love automobiles and driving and racing? You go on a road rally, of course. Not just any road rally, mind you, but one that begins in Peking, China and ends in Paris, France. That is exactly what Dina Bennett and her husband Bernard did. This book details the preparation for the race and adds lots of personal stories to help you get to know the author. Once the couple are in Peking and begin the race, each day on the road has its own chapter which is something I liked immensely. There is a section of pictures from the race. I would have preferred to have the pictures on the page where they are actually mentioned, but this was fine. As it was, I kept turning ahead or back to see the picture. I also liked the map on the endpapers and kept turning to see where they were now. I've never been on a road rally race, but now I feel like I know what one might be like. ( )

I enjoyed some of the tidbits about each place visited. The book has a feel of how it would be to ride through all these exotic locales and not really spend much time in each space. That said, it would have been nice to have her husbands voice in the pages more - a masculine voice that spoke of car details and the challenge of driving all those miles. I can't really put my finger on it - the book lives up to its title, but it doesn't have that filling feeling, that feeling of depth. More like an expanded travel journal letting the world what a hoot they had since they had the disposable income and time. ( )