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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116967.Honeymoon_with_My_Brother_A_Memoir?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1171732052m/116967.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116967.Honeymoon_with_My_Brother_A_Memoir?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/67817.Franz_Wisner">Franz Wisner</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11288947?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 2 of 5 stars<br/>Schizophrenic. That's the first word that comes to mind when considering this book. Two stars, per goodreads, says 'It was OK' and I can't say much more than that for it. <br/> <br/>I was expecting a lot & perhaps that set me up for disappointment, but even elevated expectations can't take full blame for my opinion. There's no flow here. I realized early on that it wouldn't be all about the travel as I had hoped - a large chunk of the early chapters is dedicated to background about Wisner's failed relationship of 10 years. The final degradation of which was the catalyst for said 'honeymoon' with said brother. <br/> <br/>Being the catalyst, I can see giving the relationship some consideration but it was too much for my taste. Moving on, I gather that much of the travelogue is going to serve as a parallel to the symbolic trek through Wisner's many stages of grieving (for the girl, the career that started to slip away, the distance between him & his brother at the outset) and that would have been fine, had it been better done. But again, I come up with schizophrenic. Suddenly, randomly Wisner would jump from a geographic observation to a sentimental rant that rang both overdone and reaching. That's a tough combo! <br/> <br/>About halfway through the book we start with the schizophrenic chapters and letters to the grandma. The chapters interrupt the chronological recounting of the trip to focus on on specific tidbits - the bad taxi drivers, soccer worldwide, things to expect on your next trip. Some of these are actually entertaining but again, so random! It's the whole lack of flow just beating you, as reader, over the head again & again, making it impossible to get lost in the book. Chalk it up to my not particularly liking Wisner's writing style but even if I had, these chapters would not have gelled for me. <br/> <br/>The letters to the grandma - well, she's a poignant character in the Wisner bros' lives we learn in a somewhat choppy way - but I'm forced to embrace redundancy here and again say, random! It's too bad that Wisner didn't approach the whole book as a letter to his grandmother. The writing in the 'letters' (and I use quotations because the whole thing seemed a little gimicky to me and I wonder if these excerpts are from genuine letters after all) is the least forced, most natural in the entire book. Still, they're simply plopped into chapters to which they're loosely related and so you're again with the jumpity jump. <br/> <br/>I suppose the most succinct way to present my take on this book is to use adjectives: sentimental, forced, frenetic, preachy, stereotypical. <br/> <br/>I would have loved more stories about the countrywomen and countrymen that the Wisners encountered instead of about the American friends and acquaintances that they visited or met along the way. I did not love that many countries were mentioned only in that they were visited with nothing else said - Norway, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, etc. Perhaps most of all (and perhaps this is where I checked out early on) I did not need to read about two thirty-something divorced brothers (OK, author Wisner wasn't divorced but dumped 4 days pre-wedding by his girlfriend of a decade so close enough) who traveled to Russia and ended up in a dormroom-like setting simultaneously making out with two young women (who turned out to be prostitutes) in beds 10 feet from each other. That's what college was for boys. It was pretty pathetic then but in your 30's? Yeah, it's just gross. <br/> <br/>I'm donating my copy of this to Page in the Sun cafe in PV, Mexico. If you happen upon it - find some other used book to buy! <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/220165?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>