cover image The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure

The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure

Rachel Friedman. Bantam, $15 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-385-34337-4

Since childhood, Friedman knew she was going to be a professional viola player, but in her freshman year of music school, she realized that professional musicianhood was not for her. Afraid of an uncertain future and its endless possibilities, the 20-year-old fled to Ireland for four months. She discovers there's more to life than having the perfect plan%E2%80%94and that the American outlook on work, travel, and life is more limited (and limiting) than she'd realized. Thus primed, when her Australian friend (and Galway roommate) Carly invites Friedman to visit after graduation, the author accepts, and embarks on a yearlong adventure through Australia and South America. She takes risks (the Death Road passage is particularly harrowing), becomes enchanted with Buenos Aires, and falls for New Zealander (and eventual husband) Martyn. Friedman deftly moves from musings on family to specifics about working abroad to first-rate travelogue about the places she visited, striking just the right balance between personal and universal. (Apr.)