The Way to Somewhere: Book Review

Author Angie Day

The Way to Somewhere, by Angie Day, was published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster. Pages: 302

What I learned from the book is that to not let anyone come in your way when you want to branch out, travel, experience, and figure yourself out as a person. Whether it means leaving home and family, getting in a little trouble, finding out people's true selves, it's you who's making your own decision in life, and through the obstacles you overcome you learn something new about yourself each time.

The main character of the book is Taylor Jessup who starts out as a twelve year old girl, and at the end of the book ends as a twenty seven year old woman. 

The book is about Taylor's journey through life and what she went through to get where she wanted to go. Although Taylor didn't know exactly where she wanted to go most of the time, (which supports the title The Way to Somewhere) she went through some interesting things that were learning experiences for her. From her mom being an alcoholic, her dad admitting he was gay and leaving the family, her older "cool" brother J.J., to whom she looked up to, her best high school friend Maria, and Joe, Taylor's carpentry boss, each played a significant part in who Taylor eventually grew up to be. Also from love, lust, and adventure helps Taylor find herself.
Taylor went through many jobs, apartments, schools, and boyfriends, throughout the book, and even dated her college teacher, Jeff, who she had her first house with. Taylor ends making a few moves around the country, leaving people and meeting new people, and finds out her passion is carpentry and that her favorite part of it is restoring old furniture.

Through moving, digging up old antique pieces from random trash cans, becoming pregnant, and coming close to a bad marriage, Taylor ends up in a place she'd always wanted to get away from; home in the state of Texas. Although, in the end, she's happy with where she's been, the decisions she's made, who she's had relationships with, and where she ends up. It's not about who people want you to be, it's about who you want to be. 

"You have to stay focused on yourself, because in the end, nobody else will."-Taylor. I chose this quote because it really is one of the big themes of the book.

I really enjoyed reading this book because it brought out emotion of my own life and how growing up can be exciting and scary at the same time. This book allows the reader to think and have their own opinion about real life situations and uses language that each a young person and an older person could relate to and it also had good flow. It was a definite page turner for me and I would recommend reading this book if you would be interested in a good story about a girl who transforms into womanhood through her corky and sometimes sad life challenges. I wouldn't have changed anything about the book, it had enough surprises to keep the reader interested but didn't go over the top. There was also nothing that I did not like about the book, because it mainly portrayed that decisions made by a strong women who are able to lead her own path in life, is something that not many people can do and it's something people should admire. I can't disagree with that. Thumbs up on this one.