Review: Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche

Title: Love with a Chance of Drowning

Published: Penguin Viking February 2013

Status: Read on February 19, 2013 — I own a copy {Courtesy Penguin Australia}

My Thoughts:

“Some people die of old age without ever having lived their dreams. Some people die without ever having loved. That’s tragic. We’ll both die someday, that’s a guarantee. If something happens on the ocean, we’ll die as two people in love who are living a remarkable adventure…”

Torre DeRoche planned to spend a year in the US working and then return home to Australia. Instead she fell in love with an Argentinian and despite a fear of the sea, agreed to sail with him across the Pacific. Love With a Chance of Drowning tells of Torre’s adventures aboard the Amazing Grace during her journey to conquer the ocean, and her fears.

Torre wasn’t looking for a relationship when she met Ivan in a San Francisco bar but charmed by his Latin good looks and kind, considerate nature she fell head over in heels in love. Yet their separation seemed inevitable, Torre had promised to return to Australia at the end of the year and Ivan planned to throw in his IT job and sail solo across the ocean. As the end began to draw near, Ivan suggested Torre join him and she was faced with a difficult choice, sail away with her lover or say goodbye. Despite her fear of deep water, disaster and ““anything that would fall out if you turned the ocean upside down and shook it” Torre’s decides to surrender her comfortable city lifestyle for a love on a 32ft wooden boat in the middle of nowhere.

Though I have little interest in sailing (and my own fearful respect for the sea), I really enjoyed this entertaining memoir of (mis)adventure. The humour is engaging, Torre has no problem poking fun at her own obsession with safety equipment, her horrendous bouts of sea sickness and Ivan’s innate clumsiness. She is boldly honest about the journey’s practical and emotional hardships – broken equipment, rough weather, the lack of fresh food and inescapable intimacy. Yet as Torre describes the joy of watching dolphins frolic in the boat’s wake, the stunning white sands and blue water of tropical waters and the convivial welcome of islanders, you can’t help but wish you could join her.

Love with a Chance of Drowning is wonderfully written. Part travelogue, part romance, it is a tale of an amazing journey that will sweep you away.