Apr 13

Apr 13 A Short Walk Through a Wide World

About the book

Author: Douglas Westerbeke
Publisher: Avid Reader Press

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

Billed as The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi, A Short Walk Through a Wide World is a sweeping, magical story about the life of a girl (eventually a woman) who cannot spend more than three days in the same place. If she stays too long, her body will shut down and she will die. So she wanders the world dozens and dozens of times over, meeting new people and seeing whatever there is to see — including the impossible. But without the ties that bind us to others, what is the purpose of a life?

I was drawn to this book because I love literary magical realism and because I loved Addie LaRue. It definitely delivers on the magic. The Addie comparison is thanks to the plot similarities and not Douglas Westerbeke writing anything like VE Schwab, but that was okay — there was plenty to love and get lost in, especially if you have a bad case of wanderlust.

I will say that the plot was a little more “and then and then and then” than I would prefer (and yet also somehow nonlinear?), and don’t expect a well-explained magic system, but this book is definitely storytelling at its finest. It’s easy to get swept away, and Aubrey’s loneliness is palpable and heartbreaking. I also found its meditation on purpose and relationships and what it means to live well to be quite powerful.

If you also love magic and travel, give this one a shot.