A FAR CRY FROM YESTERDAY: Finding Tomorrow in Distant Lands takes in a considerable swath of the planet in its 289 pages. Author Manon Rinsma writes energetically on her backpacking travels, the people she meets along the way, and her tragic background.

Born in the early 1990s, she lost her mother at the age of twelve. Rinsma struggled with the loss (as anyone would), which turned out to be compounded by the arrival of another woman—the mother of her best friend—who was possessive of Rinsma’s father. At the same time, Rinsma had that complicated, push-pull relationship with her home in the Netherlands—expressing her love for it in one breath and her desire to leave it in another.

Much of the first fifth of the book takes place in the United States, which Rinsma visited on several occasions. There are points of interest here—especially Rinsma’s attitude towards firing a gun, which she is invited to do by an acquaintance in Indiana. Such an experience is truly a novelty among Europeans, in whose countries gun control is invariably very strict and the cultural importance of weapons is nowhere near as pronounced as in America. Rinsma turns out to be a good shot; she is uneasy, yet “curious and confident.”

Much of the American section of the book is workaday, and some editing here might have been worthwhile. Rinsma found Las Vegas heady and exhilarating: “One after another, sparkling casinos rose before us, growing increasingly extravagant, colorful, grandiose, and simply breathtaking.” That’s an honest reaction, but it’s not the reaction of most—who simply find such places gaudy.

The most interesting passages involve places that are not on most people’s bucket lists. A train journey across Russia to the fastnesses of Siberia is followed by an episode in Mongolia (with dazzling night skies untainted by light pollution), a visit to China, New Zealand, Australia, and other places besides.

Underpinning it all is Rinsma’s search to find herself. This is well-trodden territory in backpacker memoirs, but what shines through is her sense of adventure and a quite genuine sense of wonder—an unwillingness to be tied down. An acquaintance who could become a boyfriend refers to her as “his,” but “I didn’t belong to anybody,” she writes—“I belonged to the world.” Quite so.

Though it would benefit from editing in places, A FAR CRY FROM YESTERDAY: Finding Tomorrow in Distant Lands is an engaging account of Manon Rinsma’s travels to both the famous and less well-known travel destinations throughout the world.

~Craig Jones for IndieReader