Love with a Chance of Drowning By Torre DeRoche

Summary

Reviewer Name: rileybanks I rarely give out full marks for anything. Most books, no matter how well written, have room for improvement but I loved this book so much, that 1 0/1 0 hardly seems good enough. From the minute I read the blurb on NetGalley, I knew I was in for something special. And the opening page didn’t disappoint. There is something mesmerizing about Torre’s conversational tone; it is refreshing in its soulbearing honesty and hilarious with Torre’s ability to poke fun at herself. Love with a Chance of Drowning opens with Torre waking up in a stranger’s bedroom after one too many dirty martinis. She can’t remember his name and even once she discovers it, by rifling through his wallet, she can’t pronounce it. ‘Ivan Alexis Nepomnaschy. It seems he was named by a cat walking across a keyboard. When I try to pronounce “Nepomnaschy” out loud, my mouth sounds like it’s full of peanut butter.’ I started reading this book at work while waiting for a program to load on my computer. I only intended to read a page or two, but did not stop reading for more than two (very guilty) hours! Even then, I did not want to stop. I wanted to find some comfy corner and keep reading. I did force myself back to work but for the rest of the day, I was consumed with getting back to the story; consumed with finding out more about Torre’s burgeoning romance with her captivating one¬night stand. I’m a sucker for a good travel memoir (the price I pay for being a travel junkie myself) and Torre’s is definitely the best I have EVER read. It is not at all surprising that less than two weeks after she self-published her book on Amazon and Createspace that Hollywood came knocking (Torre is what might be described a Twitter success story – selling the movie rights and story within a very short time of her book being released) – because I knew immediately once I started reading that I wanted to see the movie. Torre is a gifted storyteller who weaves her magic around her readers, captivating not just their minds with her tale but also their hearts. Believe me, I’ve read dozens of the reviews written by others who have read her tale and without exception, they all fell in love – not just with Torre and Ivan’s love story but with the romance of their adventure, and maybe even a little bit with Torre and Ivan themselves. Not in a bad way but more like you fall in love with the characters in your favourite romance movie or book. It really did feel like I was reading about an epic love story unfolding. But at the end of the day, it was the adventure that gripped me tight and wouldn’t let me go. At heart, I am an adventurer. I get it from my parents who spent eight years travelling around Australia with three kids in tow (unfortunately not me but I did inherit their gypsy spirit). I grew up on the tales of their adventure but had never got to experience any of it for myself. At fifteen, I travelled from Melbourne to Sydney alone to spend the weekend with a girl from our Sydney office who I had only spoken to on the phone (it was my first trip out of the state). At 1 8, I decided to move to Sydney, where I eventually met and married my husband. In my late 20s, we moved from Australia to Papua New Guinea! And from there to Dubai and then Saudi Arabia. Over the last decade, I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit – and far from quenching my thirst, it has only increased it, making my feet itch like mad whenever I read of someone else’s adventures. Nobody who knows me would ever think me afraid of anything – but like Torre, I am terrified of the ocean. Sure, I can go diving and swimming – I even enjoy a boat ride if I can still view land from the bow. But the thought of being thousands of kilometers from land, at the mercy of the ocean’s omnipotent power… It is a terrifying thought. But as I was immersed into Torre and Ivan’s adventure, I actually found myself longing for the romance of the sea, dreaming of sailing the world. Knowing my history with boats, I’d probably be a lot more like Torre, holed up in the belly of the boat vomiting my insides out of every orifice… But I can’t deny it holds some appeal. Like Ivan so poignantly reminds Torre, \"Some people die of old age without ever having lived their dreams. Some people die without ever having loved. That's tragic. We'll both die someday, that's a guarantee. If something happens on the ocean, we'll die as two people in love who are living a remarkable adventure...\" Love with a Chance of Drowning isn’t just the best book I have read this year, or even in the last few years. It is, hands down, the best book I have ever read! I cannot recommend it any higher than that. If you read only one book this year, make it Love with a Chance of Drowning. I guarantee you will love it as much as I did.