Review of Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life

[Nathaniel Owolabi]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life" by Jim Santos.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life is a lovely book that tells the story of how to create a life as a foreigner in a new country. This book is educational. It can serve as a guide to people planning to leave their country to live in another country. This book gives detailed information about the prospect of living abroad, hence the title. When it comes to planning to live abroad, the prospective expat should gather as much information as they can find. This book serves as a source of such information and the author, Jim Santos, did a great job of educating his readers on the above-mentioned topic. While explaining to the readers how to make life abroad suitable for them, Jim told his own stories and experiences of living abroad and traveling to several countries. He was able to present the idea of living abroad while using his own life experiences and that of people he knows as examples for his readers.

The author made the readers understand why he wrote the book, he wrote a little about his life before he started traveling, about how he lost his wife, and how he met someone else. He also mentioned ways by which traveling and living abroad has improved his life. Furthermore, he made it clear that living abroad is not for everyone. On most occasions, the author laid down his points from a neutral point of view; showing both the pros and cons of living abroad. This makes this book a very unbiased guide to deciding whether to live abroad or not.

While mentioning his personal experiences, the author leaves a twist towards the end of this book leaving his readers slightly puzzled. While this is not a fictional book, Jim certainly knows how to keep his readers' minds going and their interest unwavering.

Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life is a well-written book. The author easily catches the readers’ attention with his style of writing. His writing can sometimes be humorous and even sarcastic other times and I have to say the writer has a great sense of humor. Sometimes Jim makes it seem like he’s talking directly to the readers making it easier for them to relate to what he is trying to communicate.

Not only is this book educational it is also very interesting to read with the author doing a great job standing on neutral ground while explaining his points. I cannot end this without mentioning the fact that Jim is an amazing storyteller he tells his stories so interesting and relatable that the readers find it almost impossible to put the book down. I also love the pictures that were put within the book just to show the readers exactly what he is referring to at certain times. That puts a different light on the book and makes it more interesting to read.

Although it is almost impossible to find a fault with this book, however, I should mention one. Since the amount of countries that the author has traveled to is quite limited, the descriptions, explanations, and illustrations he used in this book are limited to the places that he has been to. While some of the experiences can be related to other places, some just would not be relatable in other places due to the difference in culture and other things. I had to mention this fact but it is not enough to sway me from liking this book.

This book was a great read and absolutely worth the effort and time. It made me consider trying to live abroad also, and I can say that the author achieved his goal of writing this book. However, due to the number of grammatical errors I found, I would have to rate it 3 out of 4 stars.

I gladly recommend this book to anyone planning on migrating abroad. I think this book and others like it should be something that potential expats should really consider reading. I also recommend this book to people planning their retirement as it could be of great help to them too. But most importantly I recommend this book to the open-minded.

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Living Abroad: Challenging the Myths of Expat Life
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[Kira Bonita Reece]

It sounds exciting to travel abroad. This book seems to provide a lot of guidance. Thanks for the review

[Victor Jerry I]

Wow, I think i would need this book as I have plans of relocating soon since it serves as a guide to live as a foreigner. Nice review by the way.

[Muna Chizzy]

Sounds like a book that will be of help to those who wish to migrate to another country. Thanks for the great review.

[Elisa Joy Ocasla]

The book is truly an explicit guide of how life living abroad is. Jim and Rita enjoyed their life in Ecuador. Great review!

[Oye Timothy]

This would be informational. Everyone needs knowledge about the country he or she wants to travel to before embarking. This book should help with that.