3.5 stars

I wanted to like this one more than I did. In the end, it started to feel like two different books. One is set in this beautiful, mysterious, labyrinth of a library. It’s cozy and quiet with food and stories and safety. And the other is an adventure, an escape from a mysterious illness, and an inability to stay still. And while I may have liked both halves, they did not come together in a way that felt natural.

In a Nutshell: A historical fantasy that feels like an endless walk through a wayward world. Poor character sketching, random timelines, ad-hoc plot development, needless exoticism, unsatisfactory ending. This will be among my biggest disappointments of the year. However, to those who believe that reading is more about the journey than about the destination, this ride could be *trippy*.

Plot Preview:
When nine-year-old Aubry Tourvel, a pampered and stubborn girl, finds a wooden puzzle ball, she is surprised that no matter how much she tried to throw it away, it keeps coming back to her. A few days later, she begins to bleed uncontrollably from every orifice of her body. When medical treatment doesn’t help, she runs away, only to find the mysterious ailment disappear. Soon she realises that this act of being on the move keeps the affliction away. Whenever she stops at a place for more than a few days, it returns. Thus begins a lifelong journey spanning years and continents and a mysterious library and some unexpected paths. But being forced to leave behind anyone that she interacts with as the disease demands newer locations to venture into, Aubry has to learn how to navigate her “short walk through the wide world” by herself.
The story comes to us in Aubry’s third-person perspective.

With such a great title, cover, and premise, it goes without saying that I had expected a lot from this book. It is an creative and ambitious debut work, no doubt. But that alone isn’t enough to deliver a memorable experience.
The blurb calls this “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi.” I have not had the pleasure of reading either of these books, so I cannot say if this claim is true.

Bookish Yays:
🌎 The imaginativeness of the premise – fabulous. I wonder what I would have done were I in Aubry’s place. (Well, I definitely wouldn’t have done most of what she ended up doing.)
🌎 The title and the cover – appealing.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🏝️ Aubry – interesting, determined, and resourceful, but also adamant and self-serving. Many questions about her personality aren’t answered. Also, her character doesn’t seem to grow much (maturity-wise) over the course of the story.
🏝️ The places through which Aubry travels – Mostly well-written and quite vivid. But it is basically a list of all “exotic” locales in the world, India included. Not once in all her decades does Aubry’s wanderlust end up in a boring white city.

Bookish Nays:
💸 The lack of detailing on Aubry’s “curse” and the resultant illness. I might have been happier with the book if the end had offered at least some basic explanation for the events. But we learn only the whats and hardly any whys.
💸 The minimal elaboration on the other two key fantastical elements of the story – the puzzle ball and the magical but elusive libraries. They pop up fairly regularly but we don’t learn anything significant about them.
💸 All the coloured characters in every location falling over backwards to satisfy the needs of the white ‘memsahib‘ – ugh! Even the appearance of India didn’t satisfy me as it was mostly (stereo)typical.
💸 The conversations – very stilted and artificial in tone.
💸 The deus ex machina at the end – I always hate such “jump the shark” kind of endings.
💸 The regular headjumping across characters, even though the narration was in Aubry’s third-person perspective – annoying.
💸 The timeline, which is as random in its meandering as Aubry herself. I get that she lost track of time over the years, but the lack of detail makes things that much difficult for us readers. I am not talking of just months but of years and decades without time indicators. The narrative also goes back and forth in time, with only the chapter titles helping a bit.
💸 The character development for the other characters is barely there. We only know what they do for Aubry without going into their motives.
💸 The blurb calls it an “inspiring” story. What is it meant to inspire: endless travel? Enjoying the journey with the focus on material and physical needs? Learning how to deal with problems by running away from them? I am not a deep person anyway, so if this book aimed at something metaphysical or philosophical, it bounced right off my thick skull.
💸 Graphic violence against animals. There are many other triggers, but this was the only gratuitous one that wasn’t necessary for the plot and could easily have been toned down.

All in all, this book is for those who believe that reading is more for the journey than for the destination. To me – a lover of journey AND destination, this seemingly never-ending sojourn went nowhere. Imagine reading 400 pages to end up with a dozen question marks – what a disappointment!
The first half was still an okayish expedition, but I wandered through the second half of the voyage more out of duty than interest. Perhaps the book should have taken the title seriously and limited the plot to a short trek of maybe half the length.
Then again, many readers have enjoyed the globetrotting experience this book offers, so do read other opinions before you decide whether to embark upon this odyssey.
1.5 stars. (rounding up because this is a debut work and the author is a librarian – viva la library!)

My thanks to Avid Reader Press for providing the DRC of “A Short Walk Through a Wide World” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

Wonderful story, great character development, great writing! Highly recommend this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it

This felt disjointed and choppy, I didn’t have the thread I needed to connect it chapter to chapter. I liked the message that we can be fulfilled with a non transitional life.

A Short Walk Through a Wide World, a novel by Douglas Westerbeke is a spellbinding adventure fable about Aubry Tourvel, a young French girl who finds a wooden puzzle ball meant to be sacrificed, but even though she tries to get rid of it, it keeps finding her. After becoming very ill suddenly, she and her family seek medical treatment but nothing helps once she returns home. She soon finds that she cannot stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place she's already been.

There were times when I wondered, why not just stop walking and stay places until she needs to move to the next place, but instead she keeps wandering, meeting new people, seeing new places, and getting into some interesting troubles.

The book is full longing and hope and a slew of interesting characters as well as a daring tour of the world's most incredible places. Highly recommended.

This one feels like a copycat of another book published not long ago. One would hope that years and years of living would result in a philosophical depth of a personality, as well as some sort of impressive knowledge and wisdom. Instead these books always focus on mere meandering and the most shallow and mundane aspect of the existence. Another disappointment.

I really loved reading this debut!

Aubry discovers a wooden ball when she’s nine years old and soon after she begins to bleed out. Once her parents get her moving and to the hospital, it stops. Only to begin again. Aubry’s affliction means she cannot stay in one place for longer than a few days before she suffers that same fate.

Wow, what an interesting concept! I loved spending time with Aubry on her adventures and seeing how her life progressed once she was on her own. She really had to learn to take care of herself and survival skills at such a young age. My heart broke for her a few times. While I enjoyed this story for the most part, it did begin to feel a bit repetitive. Still very impressed that this was a debut and I can’t wait to read from this author again.

Thank you to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for a review copy.

This was one of my all time favorite reads of this past year! Such a unique story that will stick with you. Could not have loved this book more!

This held an interesting premise and delivered. I enjoyed this story a lot and wonder...will there be more? Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!

Thank you to Net Galley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke!

I wasn’t able to review this book before it’s publish date but now that I have read it I am giving it 4.5 stars.

The synopsis sounded amazing, and I was excited to dive into this book. That shortly changed as if felt repetitive and as if the FMC was only repeating what she was doing for a travel magazine. There was little to connect to, and I never felt connect to Aubrey. The magic system was there, but seemed as if there was no attempt to explain it.

I want to thank Netgalley & Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this book.

This book is compared to Addie LaRue though I haven't read that so it was nice to just compare it to anything. This was a great debut and I enjoyed the adventures it took me on as Aubrey tried to outrun her illness. I liked the magical realism woven in and related to the need for companionship.

What would it feel like to be unable, on pain of death, to stay in one place for more than three days or return to the same location twice? Marrying inspirations from Verne and Borges with his own distinctive vision, Westerbeke’s engrossing debut offers one answer. It begins in 1885 Paris, when nine year old Aubry Tourvel is struck by excruciating pain and facial bleeding. Doctors can offer neither cure nor explanation, but Aubry and her family learn by trial and error that she risks death if she remains anywhere for more than a few days or attempts to return there again. Mrs. Tourvel spends three years on the road with her daughter until Aubry sneaks away one night, releasing her mother to return to the family home. Forced to remain constantly on the move, Aubry sharpens her natural resourcefulness, learning to hunt her own food and negotiate language barriers with help from a picture book she creates to communicate key needs. More painfully, she learns what love is like when it can only last three days and grows accustomed to leaving even the people, places and experiences she values most behind. Aubry’s unique affliction makes her an international celebrity, but one aspect of her travels is never revealed: the fact that sometimes, when faced by impassable deserts or mountains, she finds escape in the form of openings to a huge subterranean space. In what seems to be a vast underground library, she discovers scrolls of stories narrated in images and feels the limits of time as well as space break, then is able to emerge back into the world with geographical obstacles behind her. Eventually, she circumnavigates the earth five or more times. Fantastical as Aubry’s predicament surely is, the themes of Westerbeke’s novel speaks powerfully to familiar human concerns. Travelers moving through an unimaginably huge and complex world, unable to step in the same river twice, dealing with constant change and our sometimes unswayable hearts: we are Aubry Tourvel, and Aubry Tourvel is us.

DNF at 50%

I was initially interested in this book due to its comp with Addie LaRue which is possibly one of my favourite books of all time, but I think that set my expectations too high? I just couldn’t get on with how it was written, I think the idea has a lot of potential but it felt really long winded & clunky? I tried to read it several times over the last few months but it’s just unfortunately not for me.

A Short Walk Through A Wide World - Douglas Westerbeke
4⭐️

A wonderfully adventurous story! This follows Aubry Tourvel that has a “sickness” where she can’t stay in one place no longer than 3 days. She’s forced to leave her family as a child and travel the world. Along the way she gains friendships, lovers and experiences that no one else could ever dream of having.

When reading this it made me think of all those movies about traveling the world. “Around the world in 80 days” or the vibes of “the secret life of Walter Mitty” where you yearn to find your purpose in life. How would you feel if you could never settle down or be with your family? What was your purpose in life if you didn’t have one? I felt like I was right there with Aubry as she experienced Paris, India, the cold Mountains and the African jungles. It was such a fun explorative read and felt like a genuine good story! To feel her struggles and frustrations of dealing with her sickness but also the joy in experiencing the whole world with her and hearing her stories, I truly enjoyed this book! I also enjoyed the short chapters which made this a very fast paced book but not fast to where it feels like it’s rushed. If you’re looking for a good adventure and palate cleanser type book then I’d highly recommend this one!

Aubry Tourvel is nine years old when she sits down to dinner and starts bleeding. It doesn't take long for her family to realize that the cure is travel: she cannot stay in one place more than a few days and she cannot go back to anywhere she's already been. What follows is a story both exciting and heartbreaking, as Aubry wanders the world on foot, reckoning with the choices she has made and the choices she cannot make.

Aubry is a fascinating character who matures but never loses the stubbornness that defined her as a child. Her adventures around the world push the boundaries of belief, but there is a magical realism vibe to this book (that otherwise reads as historical fiction) that makes everything work well. The ending left me with too many questions, though. I might need another read-through to catch any explanatory details I missed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy!

I read about a quarter of this book before stopping. It did not hold my interest, and there are too many good books out there to discover.

This epic adventure kept me interested but I’ll admit I was confused at times. I thought Aubrey was a wonderful strong female protagonist and I had empathy for her impossible situation. The jumping around in the story was hard to follow, though, and the fantastical elements never made sense in the end. Overall I’m glad I finished it but don’t know that I’d recommend it widely to my audience.

Douglas Westerbeke had not been on my radar before this book, but he definitely is now. I'm going to have to check out all of his other works as this was a whimsical and thought provoking ride.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.