{"id":4779,"date":"2025-11-11T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4779"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:23:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T11:23:00","slug":"book-review-winging-it-by-lia-russ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4779","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Winging It by Lia Russ"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Winging It<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Lia Russ<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Memoir \/ Travel<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9781736195789<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 256 pages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Melissa Suggitt<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>With a backpack, a stubborn spirit, and an unlikely companion, Lia Russ learns that every foreign street corner holds a piece of who she\u2019s meant to be.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Some memoirs feel less like reading someone\u2019s story as an outsider and more like you\u2019re standing beside them, tasting the air, watching the light shift across a street, sensing the tension between where they\u2019ve come from and where they\u2019re going. Lia Russ\u2019s Winging It<\/em> is exactly that kind of book. It\u2019s a deeply sensory account of one woman\u2019s journey across East Asia in the mid-1980s, written with a keen eye for the poetic details most travelers would miss.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t just a chronicle of border crossings and train tickets. It\u2019s a story about what happens when the ground beneath you shifts, when you trade the familiar for the uncertain, the expected, the unknown.<\/p>\n

At nineteen, Russ is dyslexic, misunderstood, and feeling like she\u2019s failed to find her place in the world. So she does something radical: she leaves. \u201cOnce free of the restraints of my culture,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> she writes, \u201cI began to explore life on my own terms.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> That act of stepping away becomes the catalyst for transformation, leading her from the chaotic heat of Calcutta\u2019s markets to the hushed serenity of Japanese temples, from Bangkok\u2019s labyrinthine backstreets to the thin air of Himalayan trails.<\/p>\n

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Russ\u2019s gift is her descriptive precision. She doesn\u2019t simply tell us what she saw\u2014she pulls us into the scene. We smell the \u201cforeignness\u201d of the air, feel the jostle of crowded buses, hear the rumble of third-class train cars rattling through the night. When a beetle lands unexpectedly on her hand, its \u201cwet, chitinous legs\u201d<\/em><\/strong> become a metaphor for the uncomfortable, necessary contact with a wider world. And in moments of stillness, she offers reflections that feel both intimate and universal: \u201cI felt small and inconsequential,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> she admits, \u201cyet more alive than I ever had before.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Central to this journey is Eric, her travel companion and partner, whose steady presence becomes a crucial thread throughout the narrative. He\u2019s not a mere side character but a catalyst. His experience, confidence, and occasional stubbornness shape the direction of their travels, influencing how they pack, how they move, and how they adapt to life far from home. Together, their partnership reflects the push-and-pull of two people navigating unfamiliar terrain, each experience deepening their bond and forcing them to confront their own limitations and assumptions.<\/p>\n

What makes Winging It<\/em> so compelling is its refusal to rush. This is not a story that races forward on adrenaline or dramatic twists. Instead, it invites you to linger, to slow down, breathe in the moment, and consider what each encounter reveals about culture, identity, and the messy process of becoming. That meditative pacing may mean the book intrigues more than it grips, but it\u2019s also what gives the memoir its depth and resonance.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just a travelogue; it\u2019s a portrait of resilience, curiosity, and the courage it takes to step beyond what\u2019s safe and familiar. Winging It<\/em> is a love letter to the transformative power of travel and a testament to how, in discovering the world, we often discover ourselves.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Melissa Suggitt\u2019s book review of Winging It <\/em>by Lia Russ! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: Winging It by Lia Russ<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winging It by Lia Russ Genre: Memoir \/ Travel ISBN: 9781736195789 Print Length: 256 pages Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Melissa Suggitt With a backpack, a stubborn spirit, and an unlikely companion, Lia Russ learns that every foreign street corner holds a piece of who she\u2019s meant to be. Some memoirs feel less like reading someone\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}