When I was in college, I figured my life would come together around graduation. I’d meet a guy; we’d plan a beautiful wedding and buy a nice house-not necessarily with a picket fence, but with whatever kind of fence we wanted. I might work, or I might not, but whatever we decided, I would be happy. When I got out of college and my life didn’t look like that, I floundered around, trying to figure out how to get the life I had always dreamed of. I went down so many different paths for it. Career. Travel. Friends. Relationships. But none of them were as satisfying as I hoped they would be.  Like many twenty-somethings, I tried desperately to discover the life of my dreams after college, but instead of finding it, I just kept accumulating baggage. I had school loans, car payments, electronics I couldn’t afford, a house full of mismatched furniture I didn’t love but that had become my own, hurt from broken relationships, and unmet expectations for what life was “supposed to be” like. Just when I had given up all hope of finding the “life I’d always dreamed about,” I decided to take a trip to all fifty states…because when you go on a trip, you can’t take your baggage. What I found was that “packing light” wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.

This is the story of that trip and learning to live life with less baggage.

-Goodreads Summery

I started this book in May but I had to keep setting it aside because I was sick, but in a way it’s almost better that I did because I felt like I read the chapters when needed to read them. They just kept lining up with my own doubts, my own thoughts, and it was a really nice. So yes, it took most of a year to read this book, but I’m still really glad I read it.

Throughout this book Allison states that she’s not sure if she’s a christian writer or just writer, and I’m going to tell anyone who might want to read this book, it reads like she is a christian writer. The lessons and thoughts in it can be transferred to any lifestyle, but it has a lot of religious content. As a christian book I’d say it was one that you should read if you’re looking for something honest and relatable, it hit all the notes it should and I really enjoyed it.

When I picked this book up I thought it was mainly going to be about the road trip adventures with some lessons, but I found it to be more about the personal and emotional journey then the physical one. At first I wasn’t sure about that, but as I read I found that some of the conclusions Ally came to, where ones I had been chewing on myself. This book was one that I wanted to underline certain lines in it because they felt so raw and honest. It was one that you stopped after a chapter and thought about it for a while before you picked it back up again. It was mind altering like any good book should be.

This book wasn’t what I expected it to be, but it was what I needed to read. For that I give it four out of five stars.