Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review briefly mentions depression and suicide.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to two Ireland study abroad reunion events hosted by my college. It was a lot of fun. While I was there, I reminisced about my time there back in 2014 with other alumni. I also happened to be reading the memoir Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads by Diane Hartman at the same time. Not only did it put me in the best nostalgic mode ever, I was completely invested in the story of one woman’s journey towards acceptance.

Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads is about a woman’s solo adventures of self-discovery on Ireland’s backroads following a painful divorce. When an introverted, divorced, middle-aged mother and school librarian from the Midwest decides to travel to Ireland by herself, her desire to fulfill her dreams outweighs her fear as she dives deep into what would become an adventure of courage and self-discovery. Diane loves Irish music and Celtic spirituality, and she wants to find healing from her depression and divorce. On top of that, she had been obsessed with going to the Emerald Isle for years. Once she arrives in that country, her romantic perceptions are quickly dashed as she faces many obstacles like driving the narrow, ill-marked roads throughout the countryside. Nonetheless, her solo trip leads to three more over the next six years. Diane encounters some fascinating characters like members of an Irish rock band, a hermit nun, and her favorite Irish musician. Not only does she learn to navigate the backroads, but also her own personal and spiritual roads towards self-discovery and acceptance.

I knew I was going to enjoy this book the moment I heard about it. When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad in Ireland for four months in a village called Tully Cross. When my group wasn’t attending classes or performing internships, we went on excursions around the island, including to Derry (or Londonderry) and Belfast in Northern Ireland, Giant’s Causeway, Dublin, various monasteries and castles, W.B. Yeats’s grave, and the Cliffs of Moher. It was a blast. 

Diane goes to a lot of places in Ireland like the Cliffs of Moher and W.B. Yeats’s grave, but most of them I’ve never been to before. She travels to Tuam in County Galway – the hometown of the Irish rock band The Saw Doctors – and Cong in County Mayo – the village in which a good chunk of The Quiet Man was filmed. The way she describes them sounds as luscious as the lands I saw in western Ireland. They make me want to go to those places whenever I have the chance to travel to that country again.

In addition, I enjoyed reading about Hartman’s physical and emotional journey. This memoir exemplifies the importance of an adventure and how authors shouldn’t shortcut it. The prologue begins with the author describing her depression, which she named the Black Dog, and how hers was result of her father’s suicide and an unhappy marriage she ended. While these are mentioned throughout the travelogue, the biggest emphasis was on the trips she made to Ireland and how they transformed her into a more independent and confident woman. The way Hartman shows this is how she navigates the Irish backroads. When she gets there initially, she struggles with driving on the left side, the roundabouts, and how narrow the streets are. It reminded me of how my mom had trouble while doing similar things when she visited me on my spring break. Hartman gains more confidence at tackling those roads during each subsequent trip in the same way she develops more faith in herself as she meets various characters and has a variety of experiences.

The best part of this memoir is Hartman’s voice. The creative writing fellowship that allowed her to write stories while in the Emerald Isle during her fourth trip paid off because her voice comes through strongly. She was funny, especially when describing her encounter with the hermit “nun,” anxious while driving on the roads and battling on when to let go of her past, and sincere when developing friendships with the sisters of her favorite musician. I felt every bit of it. 

Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads by Diane Hartman is a wonderful memoir. Even if I hadn’t traveled to the Emerald Isle before, I would still have enjoyed it. Hartman does a fantastic job with describing her experiences in Ireland and her journey of self-discovery. Her voice is strong, and the experiences with getting lost on the Irish backroads provides the best metaphor to her solo adventure. I would recommend it to those who’ve been to Ireland or want to go, love memoirs involving self-discoveries, and enjoy or want to do some solo traveling. Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads is out now, so grab it wherever you get your books.

Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!