The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C Corbett, Amanda Pressner

The big 30 is right around the corner and friends Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda are starting to question if they are truly doing what they wanted to be doing with their lives.  In 2006, the girls make a pact, quit their media jobs in Manhattan and take a leap of adventure, committing to a year-long trip around the world in search of inspiration and direction.  In the dust of their departure they leave a trail of boyfriends and apartments.

Through thick and thin (and sometimes…. it does wear very thin!) the girls learn to rely on each other… sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and everything in between.

Amanda, Holly, and Jennifer (The NOT SO Lost Girls)

I recently read this joke that said, when a man takes off to find himself it is called a journey.  When a woman does it, she is lost.  Reading The Lost Girls made me laugh at the thought of this… these girls are not lost at all… they  are adventurers; they have a heart for more and they speak my language.  😀

Have you ever just wanted to get lost?  I used to have this fantasy of going off in the woods like Grizzly Adams (or…. err.. the female version of Adams) and just get away from it all…. the commitments, phones, the noise of life… and live off the land.  Ok, ok you scoff because those who know me know about four days of that and I would be packing it up for the “big city” of Brainerd Minnesota, constantly checking for cell phone reception….. my point however is – that I did have this dream of myself just getting up and going, and so did these three girls.

I adored this book of the adventures of these three amazing women who threw caution to the wind and explored our world as most of us have only dreamed of.  (Honestly – I wish they would have called me -I would have gladly been a fourth lost girl!)

There is so much to this book that I enjoyed I do not even know where to begin!  The part of their trip that took them to Kenya where they worked in an orphanage with girls touched me deeply.  Touring the killing fields in Cambodia would have taken my breath away.  They  traveled to the places that may not be the easiest,  and I appreciated that this was not a book of “cruise ship” port stops.

I also love love ♥LOVE ♥that these women did not walk away from boring slouchy jobs… oh no, their jobs sound to me like…. well…. BLISS. Jennifer was a marketing manager at VH1, Holly was an Editor at Self Magazine and Amanda was an editor at Shape Magazine.  The move to motivation was not the fact that they did not like these jobs, but more that they wondered if this was what they really wanted out of life…. the working too much… and living too little. 

In the end the women found that the problems that they once found to be all-consuming in their pre-lost girls moment, were nothing compared to the troubles those in other countries face.  Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda learned that things are never as bad as they seem and their lives no matter how cluttered and frustrating at times, are still pretty great lives. 

For anyone who has ever dreamed of exploring the world and just letting go and seeing what happens, this book can take you there. 

amazon Rating

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for my review copy