If you asked me my favorite genre of book to pick up at any given moment, I would probably tell you travel memoirs. I like personal memoirs in general, but I particularly love a good travel adventure where the author gives us an insight into their mental journey as well as their geographical journey.
Today, I want to tell you about two travel memoirs in particular by the same author. One I read years ago, and the other I was lucky enough to pick up on a recent trip into the wilderness. And because I tend to worry A LOT, this memoir resonated with me more than I can tell you in a single blog post.
I read Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche years ago. Actually, I believe I received a signed Advanced Reader Copy when that book came out. And I loved it! It’s a travel memoir about a girl who falls in love with an Argentinian about to set sail around the world in a small sailboat. The good news? He invites her to join him. The bad? Torre is terrified of the open water.
Love wins out, and Torre goes on the “voyage of her nightmares.” You should definitely read that book. It’s one of my all-time favorite travel memoirs. I might need to reread this one so that I can talk more about it here. And because it was an amazing read!
When I discovered (also years ago) that Torre had written another travel memoir, I, of course, wanted to read it. I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t immediately order and read The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World: Love, Loss, and Other Catastrophes — Through Italy, India, and Beyond. But here we are.
As fate would have it, I spotted Torre’s second travel memoir in a Little Free Library while my husband and I were on a hiking trip to Getaway House near Nashville, Tennessee. I couldn’t not grab it.
And because we were planning to spend the evening by a campfire drinking wine and reading, I couldn’t wait to read it.
Because you see, Torre is a fellow worrier. She and I have that in common. We like to catastrophise things in life. Here’s an excerpt from The Worrier’s Guide:
“In order to survive all the perceived threats, I became a strategist, and at all times of the day, and often into the night, my brain worked at a vast blueprint for my own survival and the protection of people I loved, with branching diagrams to troubleshoot every imaginable catastrophe. It was an epic handbook that I carried inside my brain: The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World.
In order to have inner peace, all I needed to do was scan for dangers during every waking hour and then simply anticipate, well in advance, any possible disaster that might befall me, the people I loved, any human or animal in my immediate or far vicinity, and the planet as a whole—and have a complete step-by-step action plan in place ready to go. All I had to do was keep asking myself the same question—What if?”
I felt that!
Like in Love with a Chance of Drowning, Torre is at a crossroads in life for the start of The Worrier’s Guide. She’s at a self-described “rock bottom following a breakup and her father’s death when she crosses paths with the goofy and spirited Masha, who is pursuing her dream of walking the world.”
Also like in Love with a Chance of Drowning, in The Worrier’s Guide, Torre is invited along on another soul’s adventure around the world. And Torre steps up to the challenge. She embarks on a pilgrimage through the “hills of Italy” and “the dusty and merciless roads of India” where they come “face-to-face with their worst fears” and “discover the power of friendship to save us from our darkest moments.”
The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World is a beautifully written story of a woman’s journey to put her worries and grief aside in order to embark on a pilgrimage alongside her soulmate.
I will forever read anything Torre writes. You can check out more of what she writes on her website: The Fearful Adventurer. Her blog posts are an extension of her memoirs and definitely worth the read.
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Hi, I'm Heather! Thanks for stopping by the blog, where I like to ramble about life — the people, places, and things that inspire me and my writing. Mainly it's posts about books I'm reading, places I've traveled to, and occasional posts about the writing and publishing process. Subscribe to my Substack below to receive blog posts directly in your inbox and join the community. 
