Mommy's Time Out Magazine October 2018 | Page 8

MY THOUGHTS ON

by Heather Caserta

Excess Baggage: One Family's

Around-the-World Search for Balance

by: Tracey Carisch

Jen Ledford Russell posted in the group about this book that her BFF wrote, and it sounded right up my alley, so I bought the Kindle version and started reading right away.

Tracey Carisch has a panic attack while at a MNO, which leads her to do some serious soul-searching. She and her husband sell their home and most of their belongings, pull their three young girls out of school, and start a year and a half adventure traveling the world and learning about other cultures, themselves, and one another.

It sounds like fiction, and it reads as easily as fiction, but it's not! Tracey paints vivid images of the vastly different places their travels take her family, and her keen skills of observation and ability to translate that to the written word make the people they encounter across six continents leap off the page.

If you liked Eat, Pray, Love, you need to read this book. If you wanted to like Eat, Pray, Love, but found it a little slow, this book moves at a faster pace and is so relatable from the moment they begin their travels with three young children. If you are feeling a little lost, disconnected, or like you don't know what to do with your life, this could be just the book for you, but beware - you may decide that selling everything and traveling the world sounds like the next logical step! And if you do, I'll help you pack, because Mama, you've got moxie, and you're going places.