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The Lost Girls
The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett & Amanda Pressner Review: A Spirited but Uneven Travel Memoir
The Lost Girls is a group memoir in which three Manhattan media professionals — Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, and Amanda Pressner — quit their jobs, leave their boyfriends, and spend a year backpacking 60,000 miles across four continents. Published by HarperCollins in May 2010, the book is an entertaining portrait of friendship under pressure and the cost of a quarter-life detour, though critical reception was split: critics praised the authors' vivid, passionate writing as an intensely enjoyable read for travel-writing fans, while Kirkus Reviews found the narrative unable to fully convey the depth of what the trio experienced.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers in their twenties navigating career or life crossroads who enjoy women's travel writing and want an energetic, companionable group memoir covering eleven countries across four continents through three distinct journalistic voices.
Worth it if
You're drawn to the social and relational texture of friendship tested by long-term travel and can give the rotating three-narrator structure the patience it takes to find its stride.
Skip if
You're seeking a deeply introspective or literary meditation on identity and place — Kirkus warns the memoir never gathers sufficient emotional force, even when the material (volunteering amid poverty, cultural dislocation) clearly warrants it.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews found the rotating chapter structure initially confusing and the early Latin American section lacking in genuine soul-searching depth, concluding that the authors "learned a lot about themselves and the world during their year abroad, but they are unable to convey it in a compelling manner." Other reviewers offered a warmer read, noting that though the three don't always get along, "they learn to rely on each other, keep their minds open and throw themselves enthusiastically after every adventure."
“Though they don't always get along, the three learn to rely on each other, keep their minds open and throw themselves enthusiastically after every adventure.”
— Publishers WeeklyAsk LuvemBooks
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- Is it worth reading?
- For readers already drawn to travel writing and women's memoirs, The Lost Girls delivers polished, vivid prose from three professional journalists and an unusually companionable group-narrative format that solo travelogues cannot replicate. The key caveat from Kirkus Reviews is that the emotional depth doesn't always match the ambition of the material — experiences like volunteering in Kenya never achieve the profound resonance readers might hope for, and the memoir's resolution leans on sentiment over hard-won insight. Readers willing to engage with it as an energetic, companionable account of friendship tested by long-term travel will find considerably more to enjoy than those expecting a deeply literary meditation.
- Similar books
- Readers who enjoyed The Lost Girls will find kindred titles in the curated selection below. Far and Wild: A Travel Memoir by Fabiana Capuano and Brant Huddleston offers another immersive, adventure-driven travel narrative, while Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach is a classic of women's solo travel writing that shares the memoir's interest in identity and reinvention. Dancing with Death: An Inspiring Real-Life Story of Epic Travel Adventure by Jean-Philippe Soulé delivers high-stakes international travel writing for readers drawn to the more visceral end of the genre. For those drawn to the broader memoir-of-self-reinvention tradition, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover provides a deeply literary counterpoint — one that Kirkus critics of The Lost Girls might argue achieves the emotional resonance they felt was missing.
- Who should read this?
- The Lost Girls is most likely to resonate with readers already drawn to travel writing and women's memoirs, and with anyone who has stood at a professional or personal crossroads in their twenties. Reviewers described it as 'immediately relatable' for readers uncertain about their own futures, and the memoir's depiction of three friends navigating a year abroad together gives it particular appeal for anyone who values the relational and social dimensions of travel. Readers seeking a deeply introspective or literary meditation on place and identity may find the book lighter than they hoped — Kirkus found its emotional resolution leaning on sentiment — but those after an energetic, companionable account of friendship under pressure will find the three professional journalists consistently hold attention scene by scene.
- About Jennifer Baggett
- Jennifer Baggett is a co-author of The Lost Girls. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. She later worked as a project manager at the Food Network. She collaborated with co-authors Holly C. Corbett and Amanda Pressner on a second book.
- What did critics say?
- Kirkus Reviews was critical of the book.
- What sets it apart from other travel memoirs?
- The most distinctive feature of The Lost Girls is its explicitly collective format — this is not one woman's solo journey of self-discovery but a story of three friends navigating the same road, sometimes in harmony and sometimes not. Critics noted that the relational dimension gives the memoir 'a social texture that solo-narrator travelogues cannot replicate.' The semi-improvisatory travel style — neither a packaged luxury tour nor a stripped-down backpacking trip — also gives the book a broader perspective than either extreme would afford. All three authors brought professional journalism credentials to the project, which shapes the book's narrative fluency, though Kirkus argued it also contributes to an occasionally reportorial distance from raw emotion.
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