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misslisa11 's review for:

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke
3.0
adventurous medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

As a young child, Aubry develops a strange and incurable illness: she cannot stay put in one place for longer than three days, or she will rapidly start to die. Thus begins her lifelong journey to outrun her curse. She travels the world, never able to return to where she has previously been. The longer Aubry travels and the more places she sees, it becomes clear that the world she treks is not the same as it is to everyone else.

Thank you to @netgalley and @avidreaderpress for the ARC! This book was described as The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi, which was an intriguing combination. The story was interesting but sometimes I struggled with the plot as it was kind of chaotic and difficult to keep some of the locations straight. I feel like the book tried to be too much like Addie LaRue. Aubry is a French woman whose life is forever changed by a curse brought on by an ignorant mistake, which is essentially the premise of Addie. The curse was never fully explained in this novel however and that really frustrated me. It felt like the book was coming to a close several times but when it finally did end,  nothing was resolved. I did enjoy all of the people and places Aubry visited along the way, and the writing itself was very good. I think this would have got a higher tasting from me if there was a true denouement, but the end left me with more questions than anything.