Most recent review--

I stand by my first review. This is hilarious... the sort of book Mark Twain would write if he had lived in the crazy roaring twenties in Europe when he was a teenager. Lots of laugh-out-loud moments, told from a jaded point of view that accurately captures the naivety of young girls.

1st review--What do you get when two inexperienced friends head to Europe for a summer abroad? You get a book somewhat in the vein of My Sister Eileen only with situations more reminiscent of Twain's Innocents Abroad. Quite charming without being cloying. ( )

This book ain't just Jake, it's the berries!

I listened to the audiobook as part of the Popsugar Reading Prompt: A book set in the 1920s. It's freakin' hilarious! Two sweetly naive young ladies take a trip through europe and shenanigans ensue! It kind of reminds me of what it would be like if amelia bedelia went to europe!

The reviews that say it's "laugh out loud" funny are spot on. Celeste Lawson is the narrator and she is remarkable. For the first time ever, I clicked on a narrator's name to see what else they narrated!

When I was in middle school, I picked up a paperback copy of this classic travel memoir from a RIF book giveaway. I giggled my way through the shipboard calamities, miscommunications due to language differences in England and France, and various other misadventures. Skinner and Kimbrough provide evidence that the Hampton Court maze was still testing friendships a generation or more after Harris and his cousin spent the good part of an afternoon in it (as told in Three Men in a Boat)! The middle-aged coauthors were able to look back at their young adult selves with good-natured humor. The audio version read by Celeste Lawson added new delight to the experience this time around. A hardcover edition has a permanent spot in my library, and I know I'll revisit this one again. ( )

Actress Cornelia Otis Skinner and her friend Emily of Muncie, Indiana embark on a European adventure in the early twentieth century. Before they get out of the St. Lawrence River, the boat suffers a wee shipwreck. The girls' humorous adventures make readers laugh. They cover up a case of measles with the assistance of a doctor so as to avoid quarantine. They encounter bed bugs in some accommodations. The tale shows the life of the upper class at that time and place. While travel changed in intervening years, and this type of humorous memoir lacks the popularity it enjoyed at the time it was written, it still amuses. I listened to the audio book read by Celeste Lawson. ( )

I read this when I was younger than the two young women who tell of their adventures traveling to Europe and enjoyed it enough to keep it all these years, but, I think, not enough to reread it. ( )