{"id":1021,"date":"2014-01-07T18:51:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/07\/book-review-packing-light\/"},"modified":"2014-01-07T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T18:51:00","slug":"book-review-packing-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/07\/book-review-packing-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Packing Light"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What do you need to leave behind?<\/p>\n

When I was in college, I figured my life would come together around graduation. I’d meet a guy; we’d plan a beautiful wedding and buy a nice house-not necessarily with a picket fence, but with whatever kind of fence we wanted. I might work, or I might not, but whatever we decided, I would be happy.<\/p>\n

When I got out of college and my life didn’t look like that, I floundered around, trying to figure out how to get the life I had always dreamed of. I went down so many different paths for it. Career. Travel. Friends. Relationships. But none of them were as satisfying as I hoped they would be.<\/p>\n

Like many twenty-somethings, I tried desperately to discover the life of my dreams after college, but instead of finding it, I just kept accumulating baggage. I had school loans, car payments, electronics I couldn’t afford, a house full of mismatched furniture I didn’t love but that had become my own, hurt from broken relationships, and unmet expectations for what life was “supposed to be” like.<\/p>\n

Just when I had given up all hope of finding the “life I’d always dreamed about,” I decided to take a trip to all fifty states…because when you go on a trip, you can’t take your baggage. What I found was that “packing light” wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.<\/p>\n

This is the story of that trip and learning to live life with less baggage.<\/p>\n

I had high hopes for this book and perhaps that’s where my problem with it lies. I was expecting it to be a true memoir of a trip across the country but instead, it’s more of a let go and let God while taking your own life into your hands type of book. She touches on moments that touched her, but doesn’t really talk as much about the trip as you might think. Over all, I would say it’s a good book if you’re looking for something to inspire you in your Christian walk, but please don’t mistake it for a Bill Bryson travel guide or you’ll come away disappointed. I enjoyed the book, but I’m not sure that I’m in the right place in my life for it to have really touched me. I would really love to see a follow up book where she really talks about the trip and what happened afterward. I was hoping for an epilogue that gives the reader an update on her life and on her friends’.<\/p>\n

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I received a copy of this book through the publisher for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are mine.<\/i><\/span>
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What do you need to leave behind? When I was in college, I figured my life would come together around graduation. I’d meet a guy; we’d plan a beautiful wedding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}