02 April 2007

The Sex Lives of Cannibals

J. Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals includes little to no information whatsoever regarding cannibal sex, which is almost certainly a good thing.

Mr. Troost was a young over-educated politically-minded Washingtonian with no real plan for life and no desire to do what he'd been educated to do. Huh. Sorta familiar, really. His girlfriend was given the chance to travel to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, to do... well, it doesn't really matter. Kiribati is in the middle of the ocean. There's nothing around Kiribati except other bits of Kiribati. And none of the bits have anything interesting going on. Mr. Troost notes that it just may be the worst place on Earth.

I finished this book almost three months ago. It was a laugh riot. Sometimes just the chapter titles are enough to make you laugh out loud. If you're going to read one book about being isolated in the South Pacific this year... well, actually, I read two, and they were both pretty good. This one will definitely give you the bigger laughs. Like all travel writing (this is more adventure--or perhaps lack of adventure--than travel) Troost has a little trouble in the final act, but it doesn't diminish the fun. This is definitely worth picking up.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seemed fairly obvious to me that the title is referring to the canines of the island - they are the only cannibals on the island and he does spend a fair amount of time discussing their sex lives!