Review: Don't Think Twice

Don’t Think Twice: Adventure and Healing at 100 Miles Per Hour

by Barbara Schoichet

Why did you choose this book? This was a book club selection

When did you read this book? February 2017

Who should read this book? Memoir readers and those who want a fun read

Source: book club set won from TLC Book Tours

My Rating: ✰✰✰½  3½ Stars

Here is a synopsis of Don’t Think Twice from Goodreads

Within six months, Barbara Schoichet lost everything: her job, her girlfriend of six years, and her mother to pancreatic cancer. Her life stripped bare, and armed with nothing but a death wish and a ton of attitude, Barbara pursues an unlikely method of coping. At the age of fifty she earns her motorcycle license, buys a Harley on eBay from two guys named Dave, and drives it alone from New York to Los Angeles on a circuitous trek loosely guided by her H.O.G. tour book and a whole lot of road whimsy.

On the open highway—where she daily takes her speed to a hundred—Barbara battles physical limitations and inner demons on a journey that flows through the majestic Appalachian Mountains, the enchanting Turquoise Trail, and all along America’s iconic Route 66. She is awed by the battlefields in Gettysburg, stunned by the decadence of Graceland, and amused by a Cadillac graveyard in the middle of nowhere. She meets kind strangers, odd strangers, and a guy who pulls a gun on her for cutting him off. She is vulnerable but sassy, broken but determined to heal . . . or die trying.

My Review

I won a book club set of these books from TLC Book Tours so we chose to read it as our February book club selection. I’m glad we did. While most of the members of my book club enjoy memoirs, I very seldom do and I probably would have delayed reading this left on my own.

This was not a typical memoir. Barbara chose to focus on a very short period of her life to share with us. Rather than start with ‘I was born…., and then,…. and then….; leaving us with a series of boring events we could have written ourselves, Barbara covers a period of only a bit more than a year. She tells us about things most of us will never experience. Not many of us our going buy a motorcycle and take off across the country on it, solo! Barbara has a story-telling style that keeps us interested, and she brings humor into her story. Though I didn’t feel I couldn’t put the book down, when I did sit down with it I found it entertaining!

While I think we each enjoyed the book and were glad we read it, I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a book club selection. We could not find discussion questions, which made it difficult to stay focused. However, now that book club is over, I DID find a reading guige on the pubisher’s website. I think had we had these questions in front of us, our discussion would have gone much better. Here is a link, in case your book club is doing this one.

Don't Think Twice Reader's Guide

My rating is 3 ½ Stars and our book club rating is 4½ Stars. If you are looking for a different memoir and a fun read, check this one out!

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing our book club with a set of books!