To be honest, I found this book tedious, with the main character, Grump, being a stereotypical mess. The rude limericks do not help, and even the descriptions of exotic locales are lackluster and boring. Only my opinion.

Why not title the book…Tedious Old Codger Ponders the State of The World and Composes Limericks While on a Cruise to Melanesia. Not as succinct of a title, sure, but infinitely more accurate and also one I wouldn’t have thought to check out. But in its present state, a near alliteration of three appealing things, it was inviting enough. Thought it would be a fun armchair travel to a place one normally doesn’t get to. Alas…the author decided to use the exotic locale as a mere backscreen for his protagonist, a self-described irredeemable curmudgeon, proselytizes his world views. Mind you, occasionally curmudgeonism presupposes a sort of charm, this isn’t like that. This is essentially a socially conservative environmentally progressive moderate democrat sort of a person who bemoans the departure of good old days while spouting something of a nationalistic agenda, though ironically spewing absolute vitriol toward the sort of president that line of thinking gave rise to, as in there’s a serious amount of text dedicated to Trump loathing here. Apparently traveling to Melanesia puts the narrator into a particularly contemplative state of mind, which leads to melancholia, which leads to composting limericks to brighten the mood. And the thing is you can agree or disagree with his political views, but in the end, who gives a f*ck what he thinks. The lamentable thing here is that a potentially enlightening and entertaining travelogue was used as a platform for view venting, none of which was either particularly original or clever. The information on the many islands Melanesia comprises was there, but quite underwhelming by percentage. And limericks…there are 50. So if you’re into that sort of thing, it’s…quite something, particularly for March 17th green festivities. The scariest thing that this is apparently part of the series, getting to the last page was like whew and then there’s a list of all the other places the narrator travels to and (presumably) thinks his tiresome thoughts. This wasn’t a fun nonfiction read, this was a barely fictional one, so dense and structured like the former, needlessly discursive as a latter and thus a disappointment as both. The few informative things one might learn tragically eclipsed by the rambling exasperating self important soliloquys that don’t even have the decency to be somehow related to the adventure itself or its destinations. Certainly cheaper than a cruise to Melanesia, but not a trip worth undertaking. Thanks Netgalley.