Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Nov 02, 2008

Emily rated it:

This is by far the most bizarre travel story I've read. In 1986, two twentysomething Ivy-League graduatewomen bit off more than they could chew, ran off to a China newly open to the West, and lived to tell the tale. The descriptions of culture shock are heartfelt, and the moments of sheer panic made my heart pound.

I cannot fathom going through an experience like this and then willingly getting on a plane again 3 weeks later. Then again, after this experience, any trip must see More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Callie rated it:

A page-turner! Two girls, fresh out of the Ivy League (which the author feels the need to remind you of constantly) decide to take a year and circumnavigate the globe, starting in China. In 1986, China was only just open to tourists, and only in certain areas. While the girls want to do everything in "legit" fashion, to do it the way the locals do, they quickly realize that they are in over their heads.

While I spent most of the story feeling a bit irritated towards these nai More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2011

Susan rated it:

I was surprised how much I liked this book. The cover and title suggest something that's not really up my alley, but this really is a case where you can't judge a book by its cover. The protagonist (the author, as this is autobiographical) is a young woman just our of an ivy league college. She and a casual friend decide to backpack around the world before settling down. Their first stop is China shortly after it was opened to Westerners. Before long the author's companion begins acting strange More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 21, 2009

Jen rated it:

I picked this up from the free book pile at my job. The cover and title led me to believe that I was letting myself in for a self-indulgent remembrance of the author's various sexual escapades while backpacking around the world. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was nothing of the sort, but a rather more chilling and compelling tale. It was a quick read, and definitely a page-turner in the second half.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2009

Alexis rated it:

This book was hard to put down! I loved it. It is a memoir about two of my favorite topics...mental health, and travel to China.

The author travels to China in the 1980s after college with a friend who basically has a schizophrenic break while they are there. Travel at that time in China was unusual and difficult (it is not portrayed in a very positive light, to be honest, but I found it very interesting to compare to my own observations from traveling there in 2007). But the interpe More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

Snippet from my blog....[return]Undress Me In the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman is an absolute must-read. Gilman's travels, while different from my own brought back a flood of memories of the country I was privileged enough to live and travel around, of the peoples and places that will always be in my heart. Gilman's memoir is one that should be read by anyone, whether they have traveled the globe or never left their hometown. I was pleased to note there was a reader's guide at the end More...

0 comments like

Aug 08, 2011

Alicia added it

This book started out without much promise. Two recent Ivy League graduates going off on an adventure backpacking around the world, deliberately taking the road less traveled in order to 'really experience' their ordeal. Gilman was tongue in cheek deprecating of herself and her friend "Claire," but I wasn't fooled. I knew I would think both of them were silly twats. And I was mostly right. They kind of were. But I did take great pleasure in reading the book, but perhaps for the wrong r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2008

Genene rated it:

This is easy to pick up. You'll vicariously embark on the globe-trotting adventure Gilman prepares to tell. And you'll quickly learn that there are two stories: one you thought you knew and one you couldn't predict. That's what gives this gem character, apart from travel memoirs that read like travel magazine essays rehashed into book deals.

Here's the deal: Gilman and her college friend craft a plan at Denny's to travel the world. They first land in Hong Kong. Postcards are sent. Co More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

Mo rated it:

I have some conflicted feelings about this book.

To start: the writing is beautiful. Gilman not only gives an account of visiting the other side of the world, she shares the experience of being there in 1986, just after China opened its borders to independent travelers.

After graduation, Gilman and a friend pack malaria pills, water purifiers, picky appetites, and some naivety, and hop on a plane to Hong Kong. The goal? Travel around the world. Stop 1: China. Gilman descri More...

0 comments like

Dec 09, 2010

Laurie rated it:

It was an honest book, and easy to read, periodically interesting or amusing. But I have to say, I truly disliked both of them throughout, which made the reading experience a bit uncomfortable. Notwithstanding Susie's disarming self-deprecation, and her occasional insights, the degree of their ignorance and arrogance was just horrifying. I understand that she recognized it even then, and certainly in retrospect; it was not for nothing that she included her recollection of the black man ranting More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2010

Heidi rated it:

This memoir was a great book to read while traveling. After graduating from college in the mid-eighties and not knowing what to do next, Susan and her friend Claire decide to backpack around the world. They stop for a few days in Hong Kong on their way to Communist China, which has just barely opened its doors to tourism. This is not your typical travelogue; their harrowing adventures include interactions with the military police, medical emergencies in towns where the medical care was worse More...

0 comments like

May 30, 2010

Benjamin rated it:

When Phil was over the other week he picked up this book, read the back of it, and suggested that the book would have been better titled "Two Dumb C**ts". After slogging through the second half of the book, I'd have to agree.

It started out interesting enough. Two naive girls, fresh out of Brown, decide to travel around the world for a year. They start in China and quickly realize they have no idea what they are doing. They do meet some interesting and incredibly generous pe More...

0 comments like

Feb 15, 2010

Amy rated it:

Well-written, entertaining, and quick to read, while still providing a bit of insight. Especially interesting if you've been to China in the last decade.

Gilman reflects on her backpacking trip to China in 1986 with a fellow recent Brown graduate with brutal honesty and self-awareness (developed, she readily admits, only in retrospect). I think she accurately portrays the mindset of two relatively coddled 22-year-old American college graduates in a strange foreign land. But at the sa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2010

Kelly rated it:

My review was for the audio book version. I won this audio book from a book reviewer's blog.

Initially, I was mildly not interested when I heard the author's voice, and this I assume is just because I have grown accustomed to actors reading audio books. I would say that roughly ten minutes into the book, this became a non-issue.

I was taken in fairly quickly by the possibilities that this story gave me. Two young women embarking a year-long journey into the world. What cou More...

0 comments like

Sep 18, 2009

Shantiwallah rated it:

Not judging the book by its title, which might lead you to believe it is quite a sexy book (it’s not), I really just expected this to be another backpacker’s account of her jaunt through Asia. As someone who, like many others, has “done the jaunt” herself, I found a lot to relate to so, excuse me as I write this review from a very personal viewpoint.

The book is set in China in the mid-eighties, a couple of years before my own first, brief encounter with mainland China. Susan Gilman More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2009

Maltaise rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2009

Jess rated it:

Aside from reading books, one of my favorite things to do is travel. I could spend most of my time jumping on planes and border hopping, and I would be perfectly content with that. To be honest, I would absolutely love to take a few months and just travel around, go and see the world, and do everything I haven’t had the chance to yet do.

Susie Jane Gilman does just that, and in 1986, when most borders were closed to the U.S. during the Cold War. Information was scarce and travel was t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2009

Osho rated it:

As Keath Fraser's anthology Bad Trips amply illustrates, travel is fraught with difficulties and unexpected events, of which only some are humorous. Gilman tells the story of her out-of-college, around-the-world trip with Brown University acquaintance "Claire." It starts like any travelogue that recounts the misadventures of young travelers out of their depth. However, it's quickly clear that something is wrong with Claire, and in the context of the People's Republic of China in the mi More...

0 comments like

Jun 24, 2009

Suzanne rated it:

Heres what Nancy Pearl said:

Nancy Pearl Book Reviews for 6/20/2009
06/20/2009

In her memoir, "The Sisters Antipodes," Jane Alison describes what happens to the children in the wake of a complicated family swap. It's about two couples who get divorced in order to exchange spouses. Our book critic Nancy Pearl says it's a gripping memoir marked by writing that is searing in its honesty and pain. Our book critic spoke with KUOW's Dave Beck.

On More...

0 comments like

Jun 22, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I like books with strong women characters or those who pretend to be strong and have taken a chance in the unknown. Since I did a 3 mnth backpacking trip to Europe and eastern parts in early 1970's, I have always liked to read about other folks who set out with the notion that it will be easy:) This book opened a whole new venture into a country I never went to, China, which I suspected for years is complicated, scary and somewhere way behind the rest of the world. It takes place in the 198 More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 30, 2009

Wrighty rated it:

This is a memoir from Susan Jane Gilman, a best selling author who decided to take an adventure and backpack around the world. In 1986, Susan and her friend Claire had just finished college and wanted a daring and original experience. They decided to travel for a year and they would start their trip in the People's Republic of China. Since it had only recently begun to allow independent travelers, they were almost immediately in over their heads. With their backpacks and only a few supplies, the More...

0 comments like

Apr 25, 2009

cat rated it:

a very quick and fairly interesting read, this book chronicles the author's trip to China as she and a friend from college (both newly graduated from Brown where they hatched their travel plans at 2am in an IHOP) begin a year-long backpacking journey around the world. the plan quickly disintegrates as they become aware of what traveling in China in 1986 actually means, and as the friend begins a descent into mental illness - all while in the first month of the trip. the writing is a bit overly d More...

0 comments like

Oct 08, 2010

Kate rated it:

This was an interesting story, not to mention a light and easy read, and yet I don't think I have ever read a book where I have disliked two characters as much as I supremely disliked Claire and Susie.

As a recent college graduate myself, I was excited to stumble upon a book that I thought might provide some humor and insight about this monumentally turbulent time. Unfortunately, Susan Gilman's memoir only seemed to by turns annoy and offend me. The characters narcissism was unbearab More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 12, 2009

Brandi Rae rated it:

So not what I was expecting. I thought this was going to be a memoir about two girls, Susan Jane Gilman and her friend Claire Van Houten and their backpacking trip through China; something where I could read about their adventures and for some of it, reminisce, "Ahhh, it was like that when I went there..." And parts of it were like that. Despite the fact that she went in 1986 and I didn't travel there until twenty years later, Gilman's description of visiting the Great Wall, of seeing

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

Amanda rated it:

Once upon a time I dreamed of camping across the country, and it took me years to plan a trip and find someone who shared this goal. The journey went very well, and I enjoyed my traveling partner's company immensely. However, after we got back we had a falling out that I didn't completely understand and I never saw her again. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven makes me appreciate my experience so much more, and I will always think twice before I complain about my former traveling friend ever aga More...

0 comments like

Aug 07, 2011

Kate rated it:

I couldn't put this memoir down. Not sure how I missed it when it came out in 2009, since I am a travel memoir fanatic. Susan Jane Gilman remembers her trip to China after graduating from Brown in 1986. She and her college friend, Claire, experience The Peoples' Republic of China just a few years before Tiananmen Square and the eventual opening of China to more mainstream Western tourism. Its a story of the realities of back-packing through a Third World country, unclouded by the romanticism tha More...

0 comments like

Mar 19, 2011

Twilight rated it:

Pathetic.

I couldn't get past the first 1.5 chapters because the two main people came across as whiny, obnoxious, naive women who stupidly decided to travel to an area where they knew no one and could not speak the language.

I realize my view is probably colored by the fact that I couldn't read much further than the two of them arriving in China and the very end to find out what happened, but I just didn't care. I'm glad the author became a stronger person and did eventuall More...

0 comments like

Oct 09, 2010

The Cyber Hermit rated it:

I had high hopes for this book considering the subject matter - two novice tourists in mainland China just after the gates had begun to be open to foreigners. But this was not that book.

While the author does take pains to note that she was young and immature, it comes across more as a way to excuse the behavior she's writing about rather than a real understanding of who she was then. She goes to great pains to point out the differences between her and her travel companion (Companion More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 08, 2009

Andy rated it:

Gilman is a good writer with a great sense of humor and the content was interesting--a trip to China in the mid 80's before there was significant contact with the western world. I did not like the way the book was marketed or how it was written. The author's traveling companion suffers a breakdown(schitozphrenia?) but you don't find that out till end of book. The author treats her friend's condition first as a joke, then how it affects her and her trip and finally as a result of the friend's upb More...

3 comments like

Jun 24, 2009

Andy rated it:

Early in Susan Jane Gilman’s memoir of her ill-fated 1986 trip to China, standing in a filthy Shanghai toilet, Gilman declares to her traveling companion, “We are two young, brilliant Ivy League graduates. If we can’t use a public bathroom in the People’s Republic of China, who the hell can?” Sadly, this episode is all too typical of Gilman’s experiences in China.

To be fair, Gilman recounts her story through the eyes of herself as a young, naive college graduate. But I’ve certainly m More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

reviews