January 19, 2015
Riding motorcycles was a way of throwing off the cute label that had always described Brooks-Dalton, as this intrepid and determined debut author recounts. Brooks-Dalton, who grew up in rural Vermont and earned a degree from the local community college by the age of 17, here writes about the four-year world trek that landed her with a serious boyfriend in Australia. Back in the U.S. and feeling lost at 21, she got a motorcycle, her first, and resolved to start afresh in Northampton, Mass., with her zippy little Rebel 250 that would serve nicely as her vehicle for change. In chapters whose titles cleverly capture the physics of motorcycling (“Velocity,” “Inertia,” Propulsion,” and so on), Brooks-Dalton essentially tells the story of coming into her own: leaving behind the Australian boyfriend, making peace with her adored, estranged older brother, establishing new ties with her parents who relocated to Florida, and learning to admit defeat and move on when a bike she bought for a road trip proved too cumbersome and big for her. In her reflective prose, Brooks-Dalton captures the nearly mesmerizing quality of solitary, long-distance riding. She offers some useful tips on maintenance and repair, and overall she portrays a satisfying journey to a very American sense of selfhood and autonomy.
February 1, 2015
A travel-hungry young woman's memoir of her unexpected love affair with motorcycles.It only takes Brooks-Dalton one page to exclaim her newfound passion for motorcycles. The cringeworthy statement is released upon recognizing for the first time her desire to take to the open road on two wheels: "I wanted to be the one riding that motherfucker." Notwithstanding that this attempt to sound rebellious misses the mark, the author recounts how she found herself suddenly attracted to motorcycles when, upon leaving the security of a long-term relationship in Australia, she returned home to New England after years of traveling abroad and began researching them as a diversion, a way of losing herself in a new experience. As symbols of freedom and independence, motorcycles fed Brooks-Dalton's passion for adventure and offered her a channel for her listless behavior, which included typical adolescent indulgences in drinking and drugs, and somewhat ironically grounded her. She connects her wanderlust to the memory of her family growing up, particularly her brother, who developed paranoid delusions about God and quickly left the family for the West. Without an anchor at home and following in the footsteps of her mother, who also traveled abroad at a young age, she decided to leave at 17. Conveying her travels as well as her desire for new experiences, Brooks-Dalton is seduced by aphoristiclike turns of phrase, but her writing is often cliche-ridden and melodramatic: "Transformation takes sweat and tears; it can't be bought with a plane ticket or an admission of love." The author also relies on awkwardly inserted physics terms (e.g., "acceleration," "velocity," "entropy"), also used as chapter titles, to tie in a concept related to motorcycles and her emotional state. The results are heavy-handed, and these jargon-y interludes fail to achieve their intended resonance. Despite the interesting details of her back story, Brooks-Dalton's journey of reinvention is disappointingly mundane and uneventful.
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March 1, 2015
When she left home at 17, determined to lose herself in exploration, Brooks-Dalton couldn't have foreseen that the journey would peak back in her New England starting place. But after a failed relationship brings her home and prompts her to question her choices to submit to the path of least resistance, she redirects her grief with a quest to resurrect her inner adventurer. Alternating glimpses of her personal evolution with meditations on physics as a foundation for understanding the murky, often distorted realm of emotion, Brooks-Dalton chronicles her self-discovery through motorcycles and the feelings of independence and courage they awaken. As she deepens her relationship with motorcycles through riding and then exploring their mechanics, she emerges as a confident storyteller, revealing a fascinating cast of catalysts, teachers, and idols. Even those who don't see the allure of motorcycles will find a compelling story here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)